Another great wedding to start the season off, Shiva and Karl were married in the very elegant Sutton Place Hotel for both their ceremony and reception. Many of their details were hand-crafted by the bride herself! From monogrammed tea light holders to delicately laced programs, everything was to the T perfect! Her gown was a treat to work with as it was all pleated organza by Badgley Mischka with one of the cutest pairs of shoes to match!! Congratulations Shiva & Karl, we wish you the very best in your new life together!! xox Jasalyn & Jason

I love new locations, new people and great weather! We had all three in abundance for Ben & Melina! We always love it when our clients get excited about their shoot and we begin collaborating all of the ideas floating around in our heads. They were up for anything, we were up for anything and the day just unfolded before us and we can't wait for their wedding day in beautiful Bear Mountain Resort in Victoria coming up n July! (It's hard to believe we're almost there, I'm still stuck thinking it's April!)

WOW, we were so honoured to find out that Jason and I recently won first place in the Favourite Wedding catagory for the Emerge Contest!!! We wanted to say a HUGE thank you to all of the Emerge team, judges and sponsors for this wonderful opportunity, we are so excited to try all of the great products provided by the sponsors! We also wanted to thank our ever-lovely couple, Troy and Monika. You can also see more of their beautiful images from the wedding in Wedluxe!

Social Media. It is becoming the absolute norm these days and there are so many paths you can take, it can sometimes be daunting. A few years ago, we photographed the ever lovely Sarah and Stephen Jagger. If you're a realtor, then you'll probably recognize his name as he is the creative mind behind Ubertor, the web solution for realtors. Just this past year Stephen, along with his good friend Shane Gibson, collaborated on an informative, almost how-to book which demystifies the diverse world of social media and how to use it to benefit you and your business. I've had my nose buried in it for the past few months as there are so many useful insights and tips that I haven't got very far, stuck on a few chapters, gleaning and soaking it all up!!

You can read or listen to the first chapter HERE. I guarantee, once you get a taste of it, you'll definitely want to finish it!!!  This is for anyone who owns a business, a brand or looking to connect with your clients and people, not just with marketing noise but truely offereing something of benefit and worth to those around you.

As promised, here is the first of the great engagement sessions we've recently had over the last few months.

I've known Rochelle for a few years now. We met almost 5 years ago when we were both apprenticing with the same photography company. At the time, I was the only female photographer and they were looking for another to add to the team of all guys. From the first day I met Rochelle, she was the sweetest thing, always smiling and just a wonderful person to be around. After branching off to our own company, and Rochelle on her new path, we met up about a year ago on facebook and it was great to reconnect. Rochelle is now a thriving graphics/web designer and super talented! We got to meet her fiance Gino at our first get together and what a great guy, he himself being an artist and performer. Later in the year, we are so honored to be joining them for their destination wedding at the beautiful Monte Lucia Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. I love working with creative people as we find more and more over the years that the couple's personality and style are really what will guide the shoot. They being very creative people were up for anything (which most of our clients are, so great!) and we wound up shooting into the night as the sun dipped behind the mountains and that sweet light came out!! Here are a few my favs from the session.

Here's our next batch of questions...keep 'em coming guys!

Sally Asks:

Question #1: How do you get such sharp, crisp images without using a tripod?

- Achieving sharp images can depend on many different aspects apart from the obvious shutter speed. Other elements such as focusing type, gear and your own body movement all play a part in getting that clean shot. When working with still objects, how steady your hands are plays a huge role in how sharp the image is. I actually hold my breath for that split second when I'm pressing down on the shutter button; this helps me to keep my hands steady. Having a fast shutter speed is key as movement is harder to catch when you go lower than 1/60 of a second. You can adjust your aperture or ISO to let more light in so you can give yourself a higher shutter speed to catch the action at the correct exposure.

Another aspect is, are you using the correct type of focusing for what you're trying to capture? There are two types, single focus (the camera focuses and holds that until you hit the button) and continuous or servo focusing (it constantly adjusts as you move your camera). The first is used normally with still objects and the second with anything moving. 

Good lenses always help, the higher the quality, the better the glass and sometimes better focusing.

Question #2: Is it always the rule to shoot in RAW?

In my opinion, I wouldn't shoot in anything else when quality is a must. Your camera sensor has what's called a High Dynamic Range or HDR for short. It's basically the level of detail your camera can see in the highlights and the blacks. When you shoot in RAW, your camera retains all of the information in those ranges and can later be manipulated in Photoshop to "bring back" those areas of detail that might appeared to have been "lost". When you shoot in JPEG, you're limited to the information that was captured and so sometimes lose the ability to "bring back" those areas of highlights and blacks in extreme cases. So that is why we shoot in RAW, especially since we deal with a white wedding dress and a black tuxedo!