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.

I just got wind I was featured on Brides.com Local Scout Atlanta blog today.

Ben

I’m so jazzed that Nikki and Johnny’s wedding in Islamorada (FL Keys) last April was featured in the Spring/Summer issue of The Knot Florida. And not only that, they gave it a 4-page spread! I know that Nikki is super excited about it because she worked so hard on all the details and they meant so much to her. So congratulations Nikki!

If you look at the sidebar to the right at the top, you can see a hint of more news that I’ll be posting soon!

Ben Vigil, The Knot Florida, Islamorada, Florida Keys Destination Wedding Photographer

Chris and Katie Torres and I just landed at TPA for the ImagingUSA for the next few days (they’re waiting for luggage). They shot a wedding with me this afternoon and we caught a flight out of Atlanta this evening. We’re all jazzed to be here with so many other amazing photographers and I can’t wait to show you some images from today’s wedding with Lauren and Matt.

Talk to you soon!

Ben

What a lot of people don’t realize is that pressing the shutter is only the first step in the process that makes the image. Many photographers have developed a signature style that incorporates not just the subjects and the moment they captured but also the “way” they process their images in Photoshop: the color pallets they prefer, the effects they employ, the textures they apply to the background, etc.. Indeed, the reality and the final image are often quite far apart. On the other side of the spectrum, even those photographers who get paid hefty sums for their “candid and stirring photojournalistic style” often labor over the post-processing of an image. The difference between the former and the latter is simply a matter of style and sometimes degree.

People sometimes seem to think that we press the shutter and out comes a piece of art. This thought process usually precedes some question about how we can justify charging $xxx for a 4×6 photo or why albums cost so much. Setting aside the artistic element (which in the end is reason enough to charge whatever your work as an artist is valued at), the simple fact of the matter is that the amount of work involved in producing a 4×6 is the same as a 30×40 canvas gallery wrap.

Here’s an example to show you what I’m talking about. This first image is basically straight out of the camera. Natalie and Ben specifically requested this picture and I obliged. As I was getting ready to take this shot I’m thinking no less than 5 things to myself: I want the big branch at the top of the frame so you feel like the couple is wrapped in the environment; I want you to see the church towering upward; I need to underexpose (darken) the shot so I preserve the details of her dress and the trees against the very bright sky; all that splotchy sunlight on the ground is NOT going to make this easy; and last, that I’m going to have to Photoshop-out the wires later. You hire me to shoot your wedding precisely because I’m thinking those 5 things (or any one of a hundred other things) when I pull the camera to my eye.

Here’s the shot. Not that great, huh? I wouldn’t even deliver that as a proof to a client.

But we’re not done. First, the image passes through Lightroom to give me the basic color, exposure and dynamic range I want. That gives me an image that I deliver to the client as a proof if you get the hi-res images on DVD with your package. But when you buy an image from us online or if this image when into your album it gets all the TLC it needs before it goes out the door.

This is what happens in Photoshop to make the image below: it gets recropped to remove the tilt, an edge vignette is added to draw the eye in, there’s a little “midnight sepia” in the foliage, a little cross-process to Natalie and Ben to make them pop, and finally, the electrical wires were removed as well as the stop sign and street signs in the bottom-left of the frame.

Which would you rather put in your album?

Ben

This year I managed to attend exactly one Christmas party. This has been an extremely busy season for me (probably the busiest so far) and it was a nice little foray into peace for an evening. Unfortunately Maria wasn’t able to go with me and that was a HUGE bummer — she missed an evening with very kind friends.

Andrew and Rachel from LaCour and Chris and Katie from 6 of Four Creations planned a little holiday gathering around the winter solstice at Andrew and Rachel’s place. They’ve already blogged about it so I won’t go into details but Rachel and Katie went all out with the decor and theme for the evening.

Here’s the lay of the land from (I think) Andrew.

Katie and Rachel worked so hard and they had NO IDEA how much I love fresh green beans. I could’ve died when I saw this…

Chris Torres doing what he does best…

Below: That’s Chris over there in the corner in my shot!

Am I the only one that finds humor in this shot of Mark and Erin Adams?

Not sure who took these last two images…

Ben Vigil

Over the summer there was this little blog game going around the internet where photographers were “tagging” each other and posting 8 things about themselves that most people don’t know. Well, Ruth Rackley tagged me a while back so here goes…

1: I know the day that I was conceived. It was in a hotel in downtown Atlanta in August of 1969. That’s all I’m saying.

2: I happen to know that there is a little girl named Mary that tells her mom that my site is her favorite. Every time I post on my blog or add to the gallery, I think about her and ask myself if it’s good for a 9 or 10 year old girl to see what I am going post. The answer is usually very clear.

3: I love cheese. Any kind. Oh, and fruity girlie drinks like frozen margaritas and long island iced teas.

4: You’ll never hear the words “say cheese” come from my lips at your wedding.

5: I lived in Hollyweird, CA for two years where I attended Musicians Institute. I wanted to be like Eddie Van Halen. But then I realized that most rock musicians live off their girlfriends and hand out flyers 27-30 days of the month (and therefore work at Kinko’s) so they can earn enough money to PAY a club to let them play. And they usually have more girlfriends per annum than gigs. I still play guitar some and love bands like xxxxx and xxxxxx xxxxx (SEE: #2). Besides have you seen Eddie lately?

6: I love woodworking. I rarely have time to do it and when I do, I usually take shortcuts because I don’t have enough time to do it right. But I come up with something cool every now and then.

7: I’ve seen the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice at least 20 times. Maria has seen it more.

8: I was almost a priest. I did a little soul searching and even met with the vocations director for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, but after more than a little grace from God I discovered that I didn’t have a vocation to the priesthood. For years I sat in the pew thinking, “*I* could give a better homily than this!” I have a great interest in apologetics and imagined myself up there giving these amazing sermons. So for a long time I thought I had a vocation, but in the end I finally realized that I was just full of pride and really conceited.

Ben

Being a relative newbie of only a couple years in the wedding photography industry, I was a little surprised when I got a call from three different bridal magazines (two local, one [k]not) asking ME to submit weddings for publication. I guess it goes to show that marketing isn’t exactly my forté.

The first one to be published is the wedding of Elizabeth & John Paul on December 30, 2006. Honestly, it couldn’t make me happier that they were the first ones because not only was it one of my favorite weddings last year, they are two of the nicest and most gracious people I have met. Truly first class.

And on a very personal level this one was quite sweet to me for a couple reasons. Brides Atlanta sent me a few copies of the magazine and I flipped through the “Real Weddings” section looking for images of Elizabeth & John Paul and eventually found them. Being the anal photographer that I am I did a quick critique of the images and read the copy. The next thing I did was take a look at the photographers whose work was featured in the same issue and was shocked to find out who I was sandwiched between: just before mine was a wedding shot by LaCour, one of the premier wedding studios in Atlanta (and all-around super nice people), and right after me was a wedding shot by Manuel Llaneras the photographer who shot MY WEDDING over eight years ago! How cool is that?!

Ben Vigil, Featured in Atlanta Brides, The Knot Florida, The Atlantan Bride, Newsweek, The Miami Herald

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you probably heard about Eva Longoria selling her wedding images for 2 million dollars to OK Magazine.

I can’t imagine what it must be like to shoot that wedding. As a photographer, I know that when you book a wedding like this you pretty much can’t tell anybody. It’s the booking that you want to tell EVERYBODY about but you can’t anyone. So on the online photography forums there’s been a lot of buzz about who might be shooting their wedding. As it turns out, it was shot by Bob and Dawn Davis, who are very well respected and couldn’t be nicer people both online and off. OK Magazine finally published the issue and there’s a teaser online…

What’s cool, is that we can take a look at their blog to get a “behind the scenes” view on what it was like and Gary Fong also posted a very cool and detailed chat session he had with Bob right afterwards.
So a big huge congrats to Bob and Dawn and I can’t wait to see all the amazing images you won’t see on the news.

Ben Vigil, all my brides are stars.