Recently Pictage CEO Jim Collins posted on the Pictage Forums asking photographers to send in images that we would be able to hang on the Pictage walls. He asked for images that the photographers felt were not typical wedding or even wedding at all, but most importantly had stories behind them. We are in the process of putting all of them on the walls, but want to say thank you to everyone who submitted photos… we love them and can’t wait to put them up.
Here is the first batch that we want to share with you.
Matthew Grazier of Grazier Photography
While shooting Justin Marantz and his groomsmen at Justin and Mary Marantz’s wedding, Justin showed me an old 4×5 camera in the back of his truck. I immediately tried this shot, I tried it over and over again but the pavement kept getting blown out by the sun. By chance, one of Justin’s relatives pulled up in an SUV providing just enough shade for me to get the shot. It was fun to be able to take a photo like this knowing that Justin and Mary would appreciate it as photographers.
Susan Solo of Susan Solo Photography
This image is a picture that I snapped on the way home from an engagement session during the Cherry Blossom Festival here in DC. My clients had wanted to meet somewhere downtown to take pictures on the Saturday during the festival. If you’ve never been here during Cherry Blossom week, I can’t even explain to you the kind of crowd it draws. The entire city gets completely jammed with tourists and Washingtonians alike. My clients and I were all over an hour late to meet for our session because we were each stuck in traffic, drowning in a sea of people trying to see the pink and white-flowered trees. We finally met up and did have a great session despite the extreme frustration of trying to make our way through DC. On my way back out of the city that evening, I was sitting at a traffic light when I saw this image in my driver’s side mirror. The capitol building looked bright and beautiful against the evening sky, and I just couldn’t be mad at the city for another second!
Kelly Segre of Kelly Segre Photography
I picked this photo because this is the photo that made me want to become a full time professional photographer.
In 1999 I took a roadtrip across the country and one of the most powerful stops was the Oklahoma City Memorial. At the time I took several images of the site as the memorial was not complete, and then a year later we went back and I documented the completed the full memorial. Unfortunately a year later Sept. 11th occured. Even though I lived over a 1000 miles away, after photographing at Oklahoma City I felt an over powering need to to document Sept. 11th from a different perspective and when I found out about the “Tribute in Lights” and I thought this would be the perfect opportunity.
When I got to NY I realized that this best view of the lights was from New Jersey. Because of the work crews at ground zero the lights were not able to be where the towers stood…but this made the photo.
The lights are to the left of ground zero and they look as they are ghosts looking down at the site.
The reason this photo changed my life and ultimately my career is when I received this negative back I realized I could document life events that will never occur again. Although every year the lights stand at the site of trade center, never again will there be the glow of the work lights giving it this feel. Being a photographer gives me the ability to document history through my vision, whether it be someone’s wedding day or a historic event.
Sarah Hodzic of Blink Photography
Dolle’s Salt Water Taffy- Rehoboth Beach DE
I have always had a desire to shoot medium format film, but a Hasselblad
was out of the question. So I purchased the “poor mans” version, my first Holga!
I have been shooting with the Holga for almost a year and it has opened my eyes to a
whole new way of looking through the lens and creating images.
If I could shoot a whole wedding using JUST the Holga, I would.
There is a freedom in holding a plastic camera that is known for it’s
unpredictable images… there is no right or wrong with the Holga, just a space
where imagination can run free, and the less constraints on this imaginative process,
the better the image.
Written by Elizabeth Villa (Pictage Blog Team)