Wedding Photography at Ellicottville Brewing Company and Nannen Arboretum

As a kid I remember using a film camera here and there. I remember using my dads Contax T2 sometimes, an incredible fixed lens 35mm film camera. I also won this cheap point and shoot camera that I would use on vacation. But my interest in photography was almost non-existing until 2007. My parents had just bought me my first own digital camera. I was about to to leave for 10 weeks in Prague, Czech Republic, for an internship at a newspaper. Just in case you are interested, this was my first digital camera:

Why I started shooting decade old film cameras 

Before I start raving about how awesome that thing was (10x zoom and that cool lens design that allowed shooting from the hip and difficult angles), let's go back to talking about film. I love the color of film. In fact, I started making my digital photos look like film pretty early in my career. Just take a look at the first 3 photos of this gallery, some of my favorite photos from Allison and Matt's wedding. They were shot on 35mm Kodak Porta Pro 160, still my favorite film so far. 

At this wedding I actually used two full frame Sony cameras and still loved shooting my Canon F1. The feel of putting in new film, rewinding it and not really knowing what you got is such an amazing feeling until this day. Even in an age where I sometimes show some photos of the wedding day at the reception on my iPad.  

Just buying the film with the same name of filters I have been playing around with for years was a lot of fun. Seeing the first results was even better. So I started using different film cameras at weddings as a third camera. I was mainly interested in seeing if and how it would change my approach of how I shoot. I knew film would slow me down and make me think longer before I press the shutter button. Digital cameras make it very easy to take multiple frames of the same situation. Perfect for shooting a couple or groups since face expressions change so quickly. But creating a photo on film is different. It can be more forgiving, for a slight focus error or any other imperfection. I mean, even the analog grain looks so much more pleasing than noisy digital photos. 

And while I would only consider shooting an entire wedding on film as an experiment and as a second shooter, I love to bring a film camera as a third camera. To put in simple words, the feeling of using film just makes me very happy.

How to do an engagement session in the winter

A lot of couples get engaged around Christmas. It's almost engagement season from December until February. While you can certainly wait until the spring brings back green leaves on the trees, there are a lot of reasons why you would want an engagement session in winter weather. Sara and Mike, the couple in the photos below, are getting married a year from now. So it makes sense to show the beautiful snow in the photos since there is a high chance it will look similar on their wedding day. 

If you are into snow, why not show it in your photos? There are few things to consider, when you decide to go with a winter engagement shoot:

Will I be warm enough?

You don't want to be freezing the entire time. If it is very cold, just bring a jacket for in between spots. Multiple layers can go a long way to keep you warm instead of a huge winter jacket. Also, shooting at a location where we can go inside somewhere in between helps to keep you warm as well. 

Will it even look pretty in the snow?

Of course fresh snow will look the best, instead of grey and dirty snow in the background. What could be even prettier would be light snowfall during the shoot. I know, both hard to predict and plan for. At my last three shoots with snow I never had an issue finding enough fresh or still white snow to use in the background. Just go to any square downtown and you should be able to find beautiful white snow. 

Where should we go?

I would generally recommend shooting in an urban area to have some cover if there is a cold breeze. Going into nature might give you better chance for lots of barely touched snow, but it will be way colder. Also, trees without leaves are not always an ideal background. Of course there are ways to still find greener backgrounds in the winter. But to give you an example, the shoot below was only very, very cold at one spot - Canalside. As soon as we left the area with all the tall buildings and got closer to the water, our hands and feet were frozen in record time. Even though I had gloves of course, it was hard to even press the shutter button. 

Engagement Photography in Downtown Buffalo, NY