Top 10 of '10 - The Dress

The Wedding Dress. Many a bride has been stuck for direction until just the right couture rears its head. As most former brides would attest, finding the dress is even less scientific than finding the groom...it just has to feel right and they know it when they find it. So here are my Top 10 Wedding Dress Images of 2010:

Fager's Island Resort - Ocean City, MD

Cottonwood Market Street Grill

Montebello, California

Ogden, Utah - Lomond Point Gardens

St. George, Utah - The Opera House

St. George, Utah - Social Hall

Krista + Brett - Angel's Gate Park, California

From their ceremony at the breathtaking (albeit windy) Angel's Gate Park with its interesting pagoda to their reception at Hesse Park filled with people who can only be described as riotous, Krista and Brett planned a memorable and downright enjoyable wedding.

The wind made for some very fun moments!
The wind mayhem:

 

 The kite attack was probably my favorite moment of all!

 

On a side note, the above basketball court was the location of a TV commercial with Kobe Bryant.

{PHOTO IQ: My setup for the above shot (tossing the bouquet) was the key to its clarity and timing. I usually set up two or three speedlites around the room, one on the bride, one on the catchers, and one to give a general lift to the room. With so many light sources around, you can set the power lower, giving you shorter recycle times and faster bursts to stop action. Hit me up with any questions, either with comments here or on my facebook page! }

For those of you on smart phones who can't see the slideshow below, click here to be whisked electronically to the facebook album.

See more at www.jonwoodbury.com

Top 10 (or so) of '10 - One-A-Day Android Phone Photos

As you may know, I spent 2010 doing a project I call The One-a-Day Photo Project.  The goal was to shoot an image every single day of the year, with the equipment limited entirely to my Android phone and the apps contained on it. I has so much fun doing it and the blog got worldwide attention.

So here they are, my faves. I know, there are more than 10. I simply couldn't cut it down any further!

LOVE Chicago architecture.

My favorite self-portrait.

Yeah, my daughter is a princess, with or without the crown.

This image is just so clear and colorful that I can hardly believe that it came from a cell phone camera.

I love this one because I'm a huge M*A*S*H fan and saw this Korean War era ambulance just sitting in a driveway one day.

Definitely one of my favorites. Its makes the shopping cart seem like a person to me. I know what it's thinking.

The kind of sky that doesn't come along all that often and I was just thrilled that I had a camera. It was breathtaking.

The console of my car, labeled.

Ocean City, Maryland.

The Utah State Capitol building.

Top 10 of '10 - Bridal Portraits

2010 was a wonderful year! I had the chance to make so many interesting images and meet many, many incredible people! I was thinking of how I wanted to reflect on the year and this is what I decided.
I'm starting a series today of my top ten images from 2010 in different categories.The criteria are simple. They're MY favorites. I'm excited to break them down and figure out WHY they're my favorites, it should be informative for me at least. I will comment on some and tell you my thoughts as well.
Up first, BRIDALS!

Bridals are a lot of fun to shoot because it mixes the technical aspects of lighting and posing with the more creative aspects in a nice little package. I really like helping women realize how beautiful they are. All of these shoots could have had multiple entries into this top ten, the brides were simply amazing!

So without further ado, here are my 10 favorite bridal portraits from 2010!

Oh, it was hard to choose one from this session! Janna wanted classy vintage. The Ogden Union Station was the perfect venue for the style. She pulled out every stop in making the look her own. Classy.
Click here to see more from this shoot.

I love the way she looks and moves towards the fairy tale steps. The color temperature is cooler than what was shot. Go check out the highlights of her session so you can actually see her from the front, Lauren is stunning!

In one of my favorite shoots ever, Andrea Hanks took Las Vegas by storm in an original couture dress. She took the over-the-top feathers and makeup and made it feel like a comfortable pair of jeans. She pulled it off like no one else. We shot mostly with her husband, John, but this is one of my favorite images of just her.
Click for the whole Vegas tour with Andrea and John.

There is nothing as fun as being told by the bride that she's not photogenic and then watching her transform and own the camera and project the kind of confidence and grace that burns right out of the image. Sorry, Samantha, you are photogenic!

To be honest, I'm not sure what it is about this image that I love. It just feels right. You really can't beat Thanksgiving Point as a location.

Amanda. I knew she was going to be a fun bride when I used a baseball analogy and she not only got it, she did the pose perfectly! I love this image because it feels like she has taken charge of the situation and is posing on her own terms. I also love the lighting. It's one umbrella up-left and a 1/16 speedlite from behind to make the veil glow. I just dig this image. Click here for the whole shoot.

After a crazy string of events ate up most of our time and moved us down to about Plan F in the list of locations, Mindi brought it from the very beginning of the shoot, allowing us to get everything we needed in the short time we had. I love this image because it has a candid, natural feel and demonstrates that you can shoot amazing images in ANY location. This was a vestibule between two sets of doors.

I LOVE images with a mood. We were out of light and done with our shoot and walking back, hoping not to get rained on. We saw this tree and figured we'd do a couple more. Sarah jumped in and despite basically zero light, she worked it. We ended up with a dark, mysterious, magical mood. Love it.
The location was Red Butte Gardens.

This image is technically not a bridal as much as a product shot but I love it anyway and I shot it like bridals so I'm putting it in here anyway. This was a shoot in Las Vegas for a dress line for Modest Couture by Elizabeth. I like this one because you simply have to smile when you see a bride running in a nice poofy dress, in Vegas pretending to be Venice. You just have to!

I like this image because it's a simple, straight-up portrait. Zenya looks stunning, and that's the point. Some people want something crazy artistic, some people don't. Portrait photography, beyond lighting and posing and whatnot is about connecting with your subject. When it all comes down to it, I love that you can see what an amazing person she is inside as well as how stunning she is on the outside. The little wisp of a smile is just coy enough to hint at a complex, interesting person.