I was flattered when The Atlantan Brides approached me a few months ago to shoot new headshots for Elizabeth and Celeste. I was jazzed because they are honestly two of my favorite people in the industry. We had a great time shooting some great images and chatting over lunch. These certainly are two women to watch in Atlanta.

I wasn’t sure what images they were going to use, but these are the ones the magazine ran with.

Elizabeth Ralls, Editor-In-Chief

Celeste Couvillon, Associate Publisher

And speaking of The Atlantan Brides, the Fall/Winter issue just hit the newstands and it looks A-MA-ZING!

Seriously, it’s the best wedding magazine in Atlanta for sure. Nevermind that I have a full-page ad up front in the magazine and a few weddings in the hitched section…

If you’re a bride and looking for some great ideas and great imagery, definitely pick one of these up. You can even thumb through the entire digital version of the magazine here.

Ben Vigil, blessed.

These images have been “embargoed” for a little bit so David didn’t see his bride-to-be before the time was right — so I’ve been waiting to post these! I’m resting a bit after Laura and David’s amazing wedding yesterday but I wanted to take a moment to post these images.

Isn’t Laura just stunning!

Since this is my blog I get to start with my favorites first

If you’ve been to more than one or two weddings in Atlanta, you’ll recognize the setting immediately. This is the Imperial Ballroom at the Biltmore Ballrooms in Atlanta where their wedding reception was held yesterday.

Ben Vigil, honored.

I think we spent about 45 minutes total. With as busy as families are these days, we had been juggling a few dates but carved out a few minutes over the weekend to grab some beautiful images of the family.
My friend Huy Cat came along for lighting support (the truth is, I told him if he came and held a reflector for me, I’d let him hold my new Canon 1D Mark III camera for a few seconds) and we had a great time. It’s quite the challenge getting 6 kids and two adults to all look the same way at the same time, much less take a picture of it.

Ahhh… such is the life I lead. But I love it. I love it because I can’t wait for them to see all their images!

We tried to do a family pyramid, which quickly turned into this:

But 27 seconds later we were here:

I don’t want to spoil the surprise too much, but here’s one more of mom and dad…

Ben Vigil, photographing saints

I’m starting to loose track of how many years I’ve shot the Stewarts. The first time I took their Christmas pictures they caused a little bit of a stir with all her friends when they received her Christmas cards. So now every year I have to live up to the pressure of knowing that all her (and our) friends will be wondering “what the picture will look like this year!”

I literally think about it all year long.

Mom loves black & white so I go there as much as possible when I am processing them. This one is too normal for a Christmas card so I’m safe posting it on the blog.

This think this is my favorite of the kiddos.

[ This is where the image I think she’s going to use for the Christmas card goes… but nobody’s allowed to see it yet. ]

And one last shot of mom…

Ben Vigil

This is one of those images I could see coming a mile away. As soon as I saw the way the sun was positioned and she pulled the parasol out, I knew this was the image I was going for.

In the weeks before the wedding Peggy and Susan (the coordinator) and I had discussed these parasols and Peggy had wondered about what color to get. I suggested a white one, at least for hers, and this is why.

This is one of my favorites and I’m going to get a big 20″x30″ canvas of this for the studio.

Ben Vigil, International Wedding Photographer

With wedding season getting ready to ramp up, things are supposed to be slow, right? Wrong.

I’ve been wanting to start posting a bunch of pictures from the last year that particularly struck me for whatever reason. And it would also give me a little time to talk about the photo and the background of it. But it doesn’t seem that I’ve had much time as of late.

So here I’ll start with one of my favorite images from last year but I am not entirely sure why. When I think of all the images, this one keeps bubbling to the top.

I mean obviously Brenda is just stunning and I purposely cut half her face off. But I think it’s the relaxed joy she has going on…

We were sitting in the bridal room at Holy Cross Catholic Church and everything was running late because of audio problems in the sanctuary. So we were chatting away and Brenda was just as relaxed as can be. So I climbed up on the chair and started shooting. One of the things that I honestly like about it the most is that Brenda loves this shot and it makes her feel like a super model.

That’s because she is!

Ben Vigil, super model photographer

Recently I had the awesome opportunity to spend a few hours getting to know a family that were relative strangers to me despite the fact that we probably know 50-100 of the same people. They’ve been going through a lot lately and the love between the husband and wife was just so palpable. I got a ton of great images but there were even better images between the images!! Every time I looked away, they’d steal these moments (and I do mean moments, like 2.1 seconds) in between camera clicks to cuddle or look at each other. I should have taken two more photographers.

But we have to start somewhere… of course the kid is alway going to be a hit!

I couldn’t decide if I like this one with all the fall color or as a B&W (technically it’s a sepia/blue split tone). What do you think?

I think this is my favorite shot of the two to them. It just feels like a super special moment.

Ben

So this will be my first time posting a picture of a future bride.

She was a bridesmaid at a wedding I shot back in February and she was so taken with my wit and arresting personality that she asked me to come and shoot her wedding this coming October in New Orleans.

Personally, I think she probably just liked the pictures I took at her friends wedding but who’s to argue. Here’s a “for your eyes only” sneak peek of Lesley:

I haven’t been to New Orleans in forever and Lesley is totally into the photography aspect of the wedding, so I’m super excited about the whole thing and I just had to blog it.

Remember the Wood family that I did portraits for a few weeks ago and how I threatened to post embarassing photos of the big sister? Well this one is quite the contrary. This shot grew into an image very unlike I originally envisioned but I really like the edgy hip colors.

Ben

Every so often I get a family that saw some images I shot hanging in their friends foyer or maybe I shot their daughter in the Pure Fashion Show or maybe they just saw my wedding work — and the question always comes around, “do you do families?”

Meet the Woods

OKAY!! I confess. The reality is this: the mom asked me to take some first communion photos and when we were planning the shoot, she asked if I could take a few shots of her and her daughter like I did for her friend (see how that referral thing works, more on that in a minute). I told her, “look, once I have my camera out and start shooting I’m gonna take pictures of everything within 75 feet, so you’ll be in the pictures whether you like it or not.” It was my attempt at humor but I was at least half-serious too. And the whole family was ready when I arrived.

Here’s the beautiful reason I was there…

I got some real embarrassing shots of her big sister that I threatened to blog. I haven’t decided yet if I will.

Okay, so back to that referral thing. I called Skotti and she answered her obviously Caller-ID capable phone like she always does, “Well hello Mr Vigil!” I thanked her not just for the referral, but for being the first link in the chain in a big long chain of events that has lead to much of my current success in the wedding business. See, I took pictures of my friend Skotti and her family not just for fun but also because I know Skotti is a mover and a shaker and Skotti can move mountains. She’ll deny it. She’d say, “Well, clearly, somebody forgot to tell my children that because I can’t get them to [insert today’s drama]!”

Then a mutual friend, Kristen, saw Skotti’s photos. And Kristen told Sujay about “this guy I know….” who told her coordinator to hire me. Sujay’s coordinator, Susan Graham, saw my work from that job and told Greg and Alexis, whose wedding I shot two months later. Those images have opened untold doors for me. One of those doors was a wedding just 3 weeks ago in Asheville, NC for Liz and Brian who, along with their families, blew me away with their kindness and generosity. That wedding is one of those that most photographers would die for. And the doors continue to open…

So what did Skotti say? “You never told me I was on your blog!! A friend showed them to me a couple days ago. [with a laugh in her voice] How could you put those pictures up and not put up my favorite one?!?”

So I apologized and made a promise that I’d put up her favorite one.

Thanks again!

Ben