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For someone who is primarily a Philly wedding photographer, I spent a good amount of time traveling this past year. My last trip of the year took me down to Florida for a destination wedding, where I was lucky enough to get to bring Sandi along with me. Most of the time when I travel, I travel alone, especially since having our son Luke. Sandi honestly doesn’t like to travel and was pretty anxious about this trip. I convinced her that it would be worth going, and in the end, it turned out to be one of our favorite weddings of the year.
It’s rare that we shoot a wedding anymore where we don’t already know the bride and groom before the wedding day. Whether it be from an in-person consultation, or an engagement shoot, we typically know our clients pretty good before their big day. Tianna and Joey’s situation was a little different. Not only were they getting married in Florida, but they live in Maine. Not knowing much about them, I had no idea what to expect. After spending 10 minutes with them once we arrived at the hotel, we knew we were going to have an awesome time.
There’s nothing Sandi and I like to hear more from our clients than having them ask for artistic photography, and that we can be as creative as we want. Joey, being a musician and songwriter, was more than willing to let us be as creative as we wanted. Tianna wanted exactly the same, so that’s what we did. The hotel Costa d’Este in Vero Beach didn’t offer a whole lot, really only the hotel and a small beach for guests, but we made the most of it. We also traveled light, so we were limited on gear, and we had one of our flash triggers go dead on us. In the end, we had some hurdles to get over, but neither Tianna or Joey ever had a clue. We had an awesome time getting to spend a few days with them and more importantly, capturing all the special moments of their wedding day.
Photographers:
Sandi and I tried to pack light for this trip, and this was the first time I had any piece of gear fail on me. Lesson learned. As far as the gear we brought, I brought my 5D MarkIV along with the 24mm TS-E, 50mm f/1.2L, and the 135mm f/2L. I also brought the Leica M240 with the 50mm Summilux. I also packed a 5D MarkIII body just in case as a backup. Sandi brought her 5D MarkIV along with the 35mm f/1.4 LII, 50mm f/1.2L, and the 85mm f/1.8.
Our Best of 2016
2016 was a year that I will look back on long from now and remember for many more reasons than just the loss of Princess Leia, David Bowie, and Prince. It was the year filled with change, travel, hard work, and most importantly the year where I was able to fall in love with photography all over again. It was the year where I started to see all of the hard work, risk-taking, big decisions, determination, and perseverance really pay off. The vision that I’ve had for the past 4 years really started to come to life right in front of me. 2016 was the first full year as Twisted Oaks Studio, and we completely blew our expectations out of the water. We successfully built a talented team of photographers who helped us create a studio like no other in our area, and we couldn’t be more proud. If you haven’t seen the newly updated Associate site, go check it out!
As for Sandi and I, this past year was a big one for finding who we really wanted to be in the photography industry. We learned a lot about ourselves and worked on having our photography reflect that. I feel like this gallery really shows what 2016 was us and a true representation of our photography. 2016 was the year where we were confident enough to let our true artistic vision reflect in our photography. Thank you to everyone who helped make this year a very VERY special one for Twisted Oaks Studio. It’s a little long, but I promise it’s worth it making it to the end.
A few proud moments and articles from 2016:
