Dan & Rachel’s Wedding at La Tourelle in Ithaca, NY

I just want to thank Dan and Rachel for such a great wedding to photograph!

Fall 2008 Wedding in Slaterville Springs, NY – Photos

I photographed Kerry & Mark’s wedding last Fall in Slaterville Springs, NY (just outside of Ithaca) at Celebrations. They’re a wonderful couple and I’m glad I had the chance to photograph their wedding! Here are a bunch of my favorite photos that I and my second photographer took…

Catskills Wedding at the Full Moon Resort

I met Catherine and Christopher through their wedding planner, Shannon Whitney from Wedding Planning Plus. (Wedding Planning Plus is based in the Capital District in Upstate New York.) Catherine and Chris were planning to get married at the Full Moon Resort in the Catskills in late November (2008), and also wanted to do a engagement portrait session during the preceding Winter.

We decided to do the engagement session near Cazenovia in some park areas around there. Although it was quite cold and Chris had a bad cold(!), it was sunny and our session went quite well. They ended up using one of the photos in the middle of a signing mat for the wedding reception.

The wedding was the weekend after Thanksgiving and I came down a day early because I had a 3-hour drive and didn’t want to try to do it as a “day trip” (6 hours of driving plus 7.5 hours of wedding photography would have been a long 13.5 hour day!)…especially since there was a chance of snow and snowy roads. I got there early enough to attend the rehearsal in the barn; then later that evening, I took some outdoor photos of the grounds at night. Shannon was there for the rehearsal and I had the opportunity to speak to her at length about weddings and wedding planning; she was quite helpful in planning some of the photos for the next day.

The next day, I started at the house where Catherine was getting ready. This was the very best light of the whole day as the sun peeked through the clouds intermittently. It was still quite cold outside, but it got colder and grayer as the day wore on.

Knowing that it would be cold and kind of dark after the ceremony, I photographed formals with the women and then the men before the ceremony. Chris didn’t want to see Catherine in her dress before the ceremony, so we reserved all the group formals containing both of them until after the ceremony.

The ceremony in the barn was lovely and the heat and light held out! (For the rehearsal the day before, we had trouble with the breaker getting tripped by all the lights and heat plugged into the one or two outlets in the barn.) After the ceremony, we did some group formals outside by the creek; then quickly dashed over to the reception tent as Catherine couldn’t take any more of the cold in her lovely, but not very warm wedding dress!

The wedding reception was a lot of fun with lots of dancing. Afterward, everyone moved over to the resort’s Performance Space for some spirited karaoke.

I want to thank Catherine, Chris, and their families for putting on such a great wedding and letting me photograph it! I also want to thank their wedding planner Shannon Whitney for the delightful conversations and the help she provided me; I highly recommend her to any couple in the Capital District planning to have a wedding!

Outdoor Wedding in Upstate New York (Clinton, NY)

Last October, I had this amazing string of weddings. One of those weddings was one held at the bride and groom’s house somewhat out in the country in Clinton, NY. Their property backed up to a golf course that had this wonderful pond and fountain; this scene was the backdrop for the ceremony.

Emotions were high, especially for Alissa, the bride. She was very happy to see me, and I think she took comfort in the fact that I showed up early. The bride and groom’s families had been helping to get everything ready for the big event. Not only did it turn out to be a *lot* of work for everyone involved, things were running a little behind schedule; this combination (lots of work and running late) was adding to the usual stress that precedes any wedding.

I took a lot of getting ready photos because the getting ready portion of the day went on for quite some time! This added to Alissa’s nervousness, and just before we left house to go down to the golf course, Alissa called her mother back for one last session of comforting support before she left to join the other parents at the head of the wedding procession.

Though the ceremony starting late can be a problem, in this case it meant that the ceremony would take place just before sunset. This lent some dramatic and magical lighting to the rest of the day! Nathan (the groom) and Alissa’s dog was an important member of their nascent family, so he was an important participant throughout the day, including the ceremony.

It was a lovely and touching ceremony. And the clear Fall sky (complete with a relatively full moon) made the reception in the large white tent in the couple’s backyard a truly enchanting and extraordinary affair!

Here’s the content of the email message I received from Nathan after he first viewed his wedding photos at the online gallery I put up:

“…all I have to say is amazing.  Thank you very much. You have captured aspects that we hoped would make a wonderful memory.  There are so many images in these photos that are the embodiment of what we envisioned.  You are the best! Anyone that is looking for a photographer to document a special event we will make sure that you are the first on their list. And we hope that you can document an event in our future. Thank you!”

I’ll include a few of my favorite photos below, but you can see more at the slide show I put at my website (look for and click “Alissa & Nathan’s Wedding”).

The Wedding Photographer

I recently watched the movie “The Wedding Singer” with Adam Sandler playing the role of the wedding singer. Sandler’s character had wanted to be a rock music star; but after finding little success in that endeavor, he ended up singing and playing music at wedding receptions and was relatively “successful” at it. I should say this wasn’t a *great* movie, but it was pretty hilarious…especially if you yourself experienced the music, fashion, and culture of the 1980s firsthand.

In any case, there was a perception in the movie–among the other characters in the movie–that a “wedding singer” is a pretty cheesy, “loser” occupation. I’m pretty sure that “a wedding photographer” wouldn’t fare much better in those same perceivers’ minds.

In the new millennium, the image of a wedding photographer underwent a bit of a resurrection. I suppose there are still plenty of “cheesy” wedding photographers out there though. And now with so many people owning digital SLR cameras, there are a lot of amateur photographers who want to and claim to be wedding photographers, as though all you need is a relatively expensive camera and the ability to point it and push a button to take a good wedding photo. This is feeding a vicious cycle where the prevalence of these latter photography practitioners charging low prices makes it more difficult for professional photographers to make a serious career out of wedding photography. And when professional practitioners can’t make good money in an area of their discipline, the most talented of them will flee to other areas where they *can* still make good money.

Now, it wasn’t my purpose with this post to vilify amateur photographers or the wedding couples who hire them. Sincerely it wasn’t and isn’t. I’m just stating the way things are, at least what *I’ve* seen myself and heard from others. I have no problem accepting “what is”, at least when it comes to wedding photography!

I bring all this up to make the point that I am first and foremost a professional photographer. I have photographed quite a few weddings (around 40 at last count) and still *do* photograph weddings. The emotions and spectacle of weddings makes them fascinating to photograph…especially from a social scientist’s viewpoint! (I have a Masters degree in Psychology.) Also, with all the fancy clothes and settings, they’re great for photographers with a fine art bent like myself.

But weddings aren’t the only “game” in town. I love doing candid and semi-posed portraiture, especially with children. And I like staging and doing fine art portraiture with people who want to be my models. Other events, like fashion shows and Bar Mitzvahs, are great too…for many of the same reasons I like to photograph weddings.

So, even though I photograph–and enjoy photographing–weddings, I am primarily committed to and interested in professional candid and fine art photography…whether it’s in the setting of a wedding or some other setting. I’m a photography purist who likes to find images (regardless of setting) that hold some lasting significance, beauty, and/or meaning that impacts people in a deep and sublime way. I believe in photography as a way of discovering beauty and truth; that’s why I pursue it…not just as a hobby, but as a meaningful and deeply gratifying occupation.

Sometimes people call me “The Wedding Photographer” when they refer to me at a wedding I’m photographing. That’s my role and I think it’s a convenient label while I’m at the wedding.  I even like the label because it distinguishes me from the 50 other wedding guests with cameras!…;-) But outside of any particular wedding I’m photographing, what I *really* am is a professional photographer, committed to the artistry and authentic moments photography can pluck out of ever-advancing time, who happens to photographs weddings.

And who, I think, happens to be pretty good at it…:-).

Saratoga National Golf Club Wedding, Saratoga Springs, NY

We met three times. First, I met with John and Meghan in a coffee house during the Winter in downtown Saratoga about photographing their wedding. We had a good meeting and they decided to make me their wedding photographer. We met a second time over the Summer for their engagement portrait session. Finally, that Fall, I saw them once more to photograph their wedding at the Saratoga National Golf Club, just outside of downtown Saratoga Springs, NY.

I started off with Meghan at her parents’ house in Galway, which is a small town I happen to be very familiar with (my wife’s family has a lake cottage there). There was a chance of rain and it was a little chilly outside! Fortunately, the sun peeked through the clouds briefly a number of times throughout the day for some nice sunny-looking photos (and keeping it from getting *way* cold)…:-).

The ceremony was outdoors at the golf club and it was windy and cool outside. But, again, the sun kept peeking through the clouds to keep it from getting too cold. And, to my great delight, the sun came out for a strong showing right at the end of the ceremony; so I had Meghan and John walk right into the sunset from the ceremony area. I love taking dramatic sunset photos…:-).

The cocktail hour was an indoor/outdoor affair, with a patio and balcony overlooking the golf course (with wonderful scenic views) and a huge “water table” that you have to see to believe. John, Meghan and the wedding party actually ended up taking off their shoes, rolling up their pants & dresses, and getting into the water around midnight after the reception for some really fun and adventurous shots!

The golf club has a very nice indoor reception room, plenty large for lots of dancing and room for the photographer to get around easily…!

It was a really fun and friendly crowd, and I want to thank John, Meghan and their family and friends for such a wonderful wedding to photograph…:-).

Below is a sampling of my photos from the day…

How Many Great Wedding Photos Should You Expect from Your Photographer?

Most wedding photographers post a few of their “greatest hits” (i.e., just their very best wedding photos) at their website and that’s all you see. Some photographers may actually post more than 2 or 3 from a particular wedding, but only for a few of their very best. Based on this, you’re supposed to decide whether to use that photographer. And then when you get the photos back for your wedding and they don’t all look like the ones at the photographer’s website, don’t be surprised! I post lots of photos from lots of weddings at my website so my clients have a very good idea of what they’ll get. And as a result, I don’t have disappointed wedding clients! In fact, my main problem is giving my clients so many good photos they have a difficult narrowing them down for their wedding book or album.

So, my topic: How Many Great Wedding Photos Should You Expect from Your Photographer?

I believe you should have more than 5-10 great photos; you should have enough great photos to easily fill a 40-50 page coffee table book that contains one image per page. But what makes a photo “great”? To me, it’s got to either: 1) be artistic in a fine art sense, or 2) capture a candid moment in a visually striking way. Every time I take a photo at a wedding, I’m trying to achieve one or both of these. And when you’re taking 1500-2000 photos at a wedding and trying to achieve a “great photo” with each and every shot–and you’ve learned how to do so–40-50 great photos or more is a natural result!

The other thing that makes great photos is how the images are processed. I’ve seen photos with great potential become so-so due to subpar image processing; I’ve also seen so-so photos become something special due to creative processing. One of the reasons wedding clients end up with only a few great photos is that the photographer only gives their best processing to a few photos; the rest of the photos are processed in a more cursory manner. If you’re paying 3-5 thousand dollars or more for wedding photography, I think every one of your photos (after editing out the less than good photos) should be individually processed to look their absolute best. Lots of wedding photographers would probably fight me on this as being impractical; but I stand firmly by this.

So, expect at least 40-50 great photos from your wedding photographer (especially for 7 hours or more of photographic coverage), and when “shopping” for a wedding photographer, make sure you are able to view many photos from many of that photographer’s weddings so you really know what you’re going to get before you hire him or her!

Michael Grace-Martin Wedding Photography

Troy + Clifton Park NY Wedding

Sarah and Tim’s wedding was one of my most memorable weddings of the year…

It was a Fall weekend and I was shooting a Saturday wedding the day before Sarah and Tim’s wedding a few hours to the northwest. The Saturday wedding went late and I got to the place I was staying for the night (less than an hour from Troy) around 10:30pm. In order to shoot the wedding the next day (starting at 11:00am), I needed to copy all the images off of my memory cards to my laptop computer…pretty straightforward, right?

Well, for some reason, the images were transferring to the computer as fast as lava flows…which is to say, v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. It was taking hours to copy each card and I had 4 cards to copy. Needless to say, I was going to need most of the time between 11:00pm and 11:00am the next day to copy the images..! So, I set an alarm and woke up each hour or two to check the image copying process. Whenever one card finished, I put in another and started the process over. As you can imagine, I didn’t get a lot of quality sleep!

Well, I made it to Sarah’s parents’ house–where Sarah was getting ready–and found that the lack of sleep seemed to be having no effect on the quality of my photos (whew!). But this was not the end of my travails for the day…

Sarah and the bridal party took a trolley (very cool) to the church in Troy, NY from the house. My second photographer was there, we took great photos of the ceremony and did some group formals in the church…no problems whatsoever.

Well, it comes time for the trolley to take the wedding party + parents to the reception site (Van Patten Golf Club in Clifton Park, NY)–which, by the way, has a fabulous reception and bar area–and I really wanted to ride with them and take photos on the trolley. (I couldn’t take photos on the trolley on the way to the church because I needed to drive my car to the church. Besides, both the bride and groom would be on the trolley for this latter trip…much better!)

So, I ask my second photographer to drive my car. Well, it turns out, she doesn’t have a driver’s license, but she knew how to drive and could easily stick close to the slow-moving trolley. I decided to risk it…because, well, trolley photos!

Well, we’re moving along and I’m getting great photos on the trolley; but I see that the second photographer seems a bit distressed. Then, she calls my cell phone and I can see her talking to me on her phone through the rear window of the trolley (it’s kind of odd to be talking to someone on a cell phone when you can see them…). She tells me that the brakes are barely working and have I ever had problems with them? Well no, I’ve never had problems with the brakes; that’s strange, etcetera.

So I tell the trolley driver my second photographer’s having problems with the brakes on my car and ask him to stop and let me off so I can go back and check things out. He consents to this and we stop and I get off and get into the driver’s seat of my car. Well, it turns out, the emergency brake had been left on and–as I found out later–this was affecting the regular brakes. Even after disengaging the emergency brake, the brakes were barely working and you had to pump them strenuously to get any braking action.

Well, while we’re figuring out the braking situation, the trolley takes off without us! Now, this wouldn’t have normally been a problem, except the directions I had–for getting to Van Patten Golf Club from the church–took a different route than the trolley was going. So, though I had a general idea of our route, I was on an unfamiliar road. At the very least, I would have had the second photographer get on the trolley before it left if I had known it was going to leave without me…(!)

Well, the brakes started coming back ever so slowly as the second photographer and I wandered around trying to find the golf club. With the help of some directions from a person we found along side the road and my knowledge of a few roads in the area, we eventually made it without missing any significant events. In fact, Sarah, the bride, said we hadn’t missed a thing!

The rest of the evening went off without a snag…and, amazingly, the photos turned out splendidly! Sarah and Tim were great and their friends and family members were a lot of fun. I want to thank them for being such great hosts and for providing me with such an eventful–and “educational” (I learned some lessons about the inadequacy of that computer…and of performing illegal acts…;-)–experience that will inform my preparation for future weddings!

To see more photos of Sarah & Tim’s wedding, see the slide show of their photos at my website.

Altamont Manor Wedding

Last summer, I met Megan and a girlfriend of hers in Saratoga about her Fall wedding. She had already booked her wedding with me, but she wanted to meet me, discuss the wedding plans, and show me photos of the Altamont Manor (where the wedding ceremony and reception would be taking place) and her fiance (Andrew) and his family. We had a very nice meeting.

Months later, it’s finally the day before their wedding and rain was in the forecast for the wedding. Megan really wanted to hold the ceremony outdoors near the gardens and fountain, but we had to rehearse doing the ceremony in an alternate indoor location in case of rain. An indoor ceremony wouldn’t have been horrible, but it would have paled significantly compared to doing it in the outdoor garden area.

I started my wedding day coverage at Megan’s parents’ house where Megan and the bridal party were getting ready. They had this great hair and makeup guy; he was Mark Anthony from the Mark Anthony Salon in Loudonville, NY. In addition to making Megan look fabulous, he made everyone in the bridal party and Megan’s mother look their best. He was also just a nice guy to work with from a photographer’s perspective…:-) .

Right up until an hour before the wedding it was unclear whether the rain would hold off. But it did!…and it was a great setting for a ceremony and for the portrait session I did with Megan and Andrew after the ceremony.

Megan, Andrew, their families and friends were great and a lot of fun. And the staff at Altamont Manor couldn’t have been more helpful and friendly. If you’re considering a relatively small wedding in a outdoor garden setting–and you’re in the Alamont, NY area–I would definitely recommend the Altamont Manor for consideration!

You can see more of my photos of Megan and Andrew’s wedding by going to the second page of my wedding slide shows.

Megan & Andrew

Kelli & Clay’s Wedding

I met Kelli and Clay (and Kelli’s mom) after meeting with her cousin (Sandra of Ken & Sandra) and booking their wedding. I captured a number of photos of Kelli & Clay at Ken & Sandra’s wedding, and I could tell they were going to be a lot of fun! I was not disappointed…:-). It also turned out that Kelli had some great photo ideas, topped by the use of parasols by the bridesmaids (which you can see in the slide show).

Kelli and Clay got ready at separate nearby locations, but the ceremony and reception took place along Seneca Lake at the Ramada Inn in Geneva, NY. It was a cloudy and drizzly day, but the clouds and drizzle actually added a romantic ambiance to many of the photos…especially the ones we took at the lake.

The DJ (I’ll add their name and a link after I look it up) had these huge speakers and let me stand on top of them to get a elevated view of the dance floor. This turned out to be important because the dining room seating was packed around the dance floor, leaving little room for me to move around it!

The evening ended with all the guests holding sparklers along a path from the hotel’s main entrance to the waiting limo. Kelli & Clay then *ran* between the rows of people holding sparklers and I almost fell on my butt because I didn’t expect them to actually run, and I was trying to stay with them going backwards..! But it all worked out and I still got the shots…:-).

If you’d like to see more photos from their wedding, take a look at the “Kelli & Clay” slide show at my wedding website!

My thanks to Kelli & Clay for putting on such a great wedding to photograph!

Kelli & Clay