The Steve Z Photography Blog

Paula and Harry became Mr. and Mrs. Levine on March 7th in Denver, Colorado.  I was excited to be shooting at a new venue: The Westin Tabor Center.

The Bridal Suite was super sweet, apparently the same room that Obama stayed in during the Democratic National Convention.  I’m pretty sure that he wore a similar dress and shoes while lounging in the spacious suite.  OK maybe not.  But this was his bathrobe, I KNOW it!

Portrait of the groom on the balcony? Check. 16th Street Mall Clock Tower in the frame? WIN!

We didn’t do too much posed photography during this wedding.  Paula and Harry appreciate the photojournalist style of shooting, and prefer to have most of the moments captured naturally.  Plus, we already lived on the wild side during our engagement shoot last fall. Here are a couple, real, genuine, and true looks of love.

This was a Jewish wedding, and the Chuppah was stunning!  The lighting in the ceremony was super cool, I enjoyed the chandeliers and the lighting in the ceiling as well.

So I actually had a cold on this day. It wasn’t too bad, I took a bunch of Sudafed and rocked it out anyway. The saddest part was that I was too tired at the end to relax and eat wedding cake.  I’m going to have to eat two pieces next time.

When it came to the dancing, my oh my, this couple threw it down!  They had choreographed moves that I’ve never even seen before.

I want to thank all of my associate vendors for making this event such a smashing success!

Videography.:. Rising Moon Video Productions .:. Highlight video from this wedding HERE

Venue .:. Deseri Martinez .:. The Westin Tabor Center

Makeup Artist / Hair Stylist .:. Christy Harrington .:. C. Marie’s Makeup Artistry

Florist .:. Newberry Brothers Greenhouse and Florist

DJ .:. Tye Porter .:. A Music Plus

Event Coordinator .:. Walli Richardson .:. Special Events Design & Calligraphy

Cake Artist .:. Das Meyer Fine Pastry

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about unique ways to get family portraits outside. Just having clients stand in front of the mountains can be a little limiting creatively. It can also be difficult to get young ones to cooperate at exactly the right time. I find that making an adventure out of the photo shoot is a great way to make kids thing the photo shoot is just one big game. Which it really is!

So for this shoot we hauled the family couch out through the backyard and set it smack dab in the middle of a Boulder County biking/hiking trail outside the clients’ Gunbarrel home. The kids brought out a few props of their own, including a great yellow pool chair.

I was testing out my new RadioPopper flash units today. Unfortunately there appears to be some issues with the firmware. Fortunately they worked well enough that I still got some cool shots. I started off with some shots of the parents while I was getting things set up.

After that we got everyone on the couch and let them interact. I shoot for a blend between the posed shots and moments captured in a photojournalist style.

The little boy’s attention span for photography was not very long, so I was happy to be able to get these shots!

But after the brother/sister together shots, I had a really fun time shooting creative shots with the daughter in the bright yellow chair. Fun! I love the attitude of the young model that she is throwing around.

That’s all for another blog entry here. I’m back at a wedding today, see you next time.

Engagement photos in the snow have been a popular request this winter.  The tricky part has been that it hasn’t snowed all that much.  Which means that everyone needs to be ready to respond on short notice.  That is what happened on the day of Kara and Jacob’s engagement portrait session.

There is another factor that must be considered.  When it snows nice and pretty and fluffy . . . that means it’s COLD! It was an honest 14 degrees during this shoot.  But Kara and Jacob are hardcore skiers, so they did this whole shoot wearing light coats without hats or gloves!  So you can add frostbite to the list of ways that Steve Z will put you in danger during a photo shoot.  And mountain lion attacks.  Yes, don’t forget about the blood thirsty puma.

But regardless of the many challenges associated with shooting portraits in the Colorado mountains in the winter, the results can be completely amazing.  The snow was clinging to all the trees and the weeds, it was so amazingly beautiful . . . believe me when I say that I haven’t even captured it fully.  Well, you could be nice to me and tell me that I did as well.  Yeah, that would be cool too.

These guys were truly a blast to hang out with.  We all were moving a little slowly from staying out too late the night before, but getting out into nature and hiking around was a great way to get our livers back into tip top shape.  These guys pretty much laughed their way through the entire session.  They really have a great chemistry together, which is just plain awesome.

After our session in the woods we headed back to the car to warm up.  On the way to the park I happened across a cool little abandoned building.  So we did a wardrobe change and headed back out for a few more shots.  I usually don’t like to duplicate my locations, but I’ll definitely be back here in the future, as there is a lot of untapped photo potential here!

OK well that wraps up another session of Steve Z making couples look ridiculously cute and happy.  Thanks Kara & Jacob for making my job easy.

Trash the dress shoots are very popular these days.  Most often you will find very similar photos of a bride and possibly the groom floating around in a local body of water. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of these kinds of  ‘me-too’ shoots.  I do think that stunning images can be obtained in a fashion bridal type shoot, without resorting to the negative intent of trashing anything. So I came up with the idea for some unique and artistic bridal portraits that I don’t think anyone has done before . . . and I call it SPORT THE DRESS™. I feel that a bride can sport their dress again in a cool photo shoot, without necessarily trashing it. There is also a deliberate play on words where I plan to do some dress shots doing actual sports, in the vein of the Boulder outdoor lifestyle. So for my first shoot . . . the Bride in a Tree!

Mary was one of my favorite brides from last season. We shot some really amazing photography in the portrait session on her wedding day, including the famous bride on the rusted out 4×4 series.  OK, maybe not famous, but you can check out those pictures HERE and let me know your take on that. ;>) Mary has an awesome sense of style, as well as a fab dress, and she was game for whatever I could come up with.

The fall colors were peaking and there were numerous great locations in the University Hill area of Boulder. We started off with some shots in some of the residential alleyways.

But after a little warmup, we headed on to the main course . . . getting Mary up into a stunning, yellow maple tree.

Even with all the colors, I really like the look of this image in black and white as well.  The leaves have the feel as if this shot was taken with an infrared camera.

We completed the tree shoot safe and sound, although the same can’t be said for all of my strobes . . . but that’s another story!  :>)

We finished up the shoot with some classic shots in the leaves underneath the tree.   Yes, I know these images are a little of season!  But I wanted to save some bright and colorful imagery to spice up the blog during the dreary depths of winter.  This was also my first shoot with the new Nikon equipment.  This final shot was taken with the 135 f2 lens shot wide open . . . that is what gives the background that luscious creamy blur.  Love it, and love all the images from this shoot!  Thanks Mary!