First off I just want to say that I’m not sure if we were in St. Pete or Tampa or both or how that all works. Sometimes when I talk about this wedding, I say St.
Pete and other times Tampa. I’m sure
Taira will clear all of this up for me. My geography is quite bad as I don’t remember learning anything other than States and Capitals in school. It’s funny too b/c I’m a destination wedding photographer. I enjoy every place I visit, I just don’t always know how far I am away from Mexico City or Ireland other than in terms of hours on the plane.
So, I get a phone call in…let’s say Janurary about shooting a wedding in September in Tampa. I’m stoked of course and put it on my calendar, etc. A few months go by and I get an email that says, wedding is off (details). I was pretty bummed for a few obvious reasons and
also by that point I have turned away another bride for that date and I had no more. Then on the Tuesday before their saturday wedding date I get a phone call, “hey, uh, I know this is short notice, but uh..” I was
stoked to say the least but had to get things in order really fast, I left 2 days later. I know what you’re thinking, what’s the big deal dropping everything and leaving in 2 days. Nothing, except I have a wife and two kids, that makes for a lot of preparations. But
Katie was cool and I left. I’ll spare you most of the traveling details, because I had recently gotten my IPhone, the first one, and was very into blogging from it at the time. So you can go back if you’d like.
I had a lot of down time with this wedding which was a nice opportunity to get focused and clear about what, how, and where I was going to shoot. They had their wedding at the botanical gardens which made for some tricky and also cool shadows, with the sun coming down through the leaves. Instead of fighting it (which I recommend never doing) I just went with it (which is what I recommend doing), and ended up with a few of my favorite pics from the entire wedding.
After the wedding we headed to St. Pete cove or that’s what I’m going to call it. I happened to find it after wandering around the day before. It is this big beautiful park next to the ocean with all these huge sail boats. The dock with the sail boats was locked, but I knew I'd
get in there somehow. I have this unwavering confidence that I can get into places I'm not really supposed to be. Anyways, once I found an old man who was hesitant but willing,
Heidi and I hopped on the dock and just started...shooting. I love the energy when you’re about to take what has to be amazing pictures in a place you’ve never been.
The pressure’s on to find the right spot, right lighting, right backdrop, in the right amount of time. You don’t want the bride getting bored, you don’t want the old man to get mad you’re taking too long, so you just have to act fast, and you do it. I think it’s becomes instinct at that point. You really gotta stop thinking and just feel it out. Man, that’s what the entire
Paris wedding was, but that’s another story.
Next…Starbucks of course. I mean I think that was almost as important to Kevin and Heidi as getting the sailboat shots. The reception (down the hall), was just a huge party to say the least. I had a lot of fun watching everyone, arms around each other, singing
Journey songs into the night.
Overall, it was perfect. The traveling, the hotel, the area. St. Pete is one of my favorite places I have ever been. Plus, I got to have
breakfast with my good friend Taira a couple times, which really, was just the bees knees.
ps, yes they're holding their zippers open for me in that 2nd picture =)
