Unique Images Photography | Weddings | Portraits | Fashion » Wedding, Portrait, and Fashion Photography Blog

We are proud to announce our official accreditation as a “green” photography studio.

What does this mean? Firstly, I’m not going to show up to photograph your wedding in a tie-dye shirt. Well, probably not. Most of the aspects that were investigated in the accreditation process involve things that happen behind the scenes in our business. For example, we are almost entirely paperless and offer a very convenient online contract system as well as other easy electronic processes. Also, our building’s cooling system is very environmentally-friendly—and effective! There is a huge list of things that are involved for us, but I want to focus on the things you’ll see. Really what this means for our clients is simply more options. We have introduced very stylish eco-friendly print and album choices—and of course digital options—and will continue to build upon them as more become available. We have not discontinued any of our other album and print lines, because our goal is to open up more choices to those people who want them.

If anyone would like more info, feel free to contact me.

This is just a quick post before I blog a wedding later today to say that the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers spring contest results came in this morning and I got third overall – yay! My images placed in several categories there and the overall placing reflects a total score. The entries and standard of photography there is absolutely incredible and I feel very privileged to have placed so well. That said, I plan to pull out all the stops and completely kick butt next time!

If you are not a wedding or portrait photographer you are probably wondering what the WPPI 16×20 Print Contest is all about. Well, as far as wedding and portrait photography contests go, this is the biggy. It is an international contest and thousands of photographers from all over the world send in thousands of images for live judging by a panel of very highly-regarded photographers over the course of a week. Something to note is that this is not just an image contest, because this involves getting the best prints possible. Getting great prints that show the images well under the harsh competition lights is really a whole separate skill set and most photographers rely on pro labs to do this for them. In my case I printed all of my images myself, so I was in control from the very beginning of the image creation to the final product. Wait, let me just pat myself on the back. There. I feel good now.

Anyways, I’m happy to say that I received eight Accolades of Excellence awards for the images I submitted. Yay! Here are the images below, roughly in chronological order, with the most recent ones at the bottom.

That’s all.

I am really happy to announce that Unique Images Photography has been accepted into the International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers. I have been accepted into various professional photography organisations over the years, but this one really makes me happy. Among their members are Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists, as well as other acclaimed professional wedding photographers from around the world.

Here is a quote from their website:

“The International Society of Professional Wedding Photographers is an organization of the best wedding photographers in the world. It was created by professional photographers to raise the standards of the wedding photography profession.

When you hire an ISPWP member, you can be sure they have passed a rigorous application process and are recognized by their peers to be at the top of their field.”

Frankly, I think the ISPWP board were just swayed by my rugged good looks, but either way, yay for us! We are currently the only photography studio in Lethbridge to be accepted into the ISPWP and one of only three in Alberta.

Bride.ca has just released the Honourable Mentions of their 2009 contest and we placed there, too. In fact, out of the 35 images six of them are ours! Yay us!

Since I didn’t submit any of our photos myself, it is interesting to see the images of ours that their judges chose. A big criteria for them was whether or not an image looked like it was distinctly wedding-y.

Their website says: “What we ultimately looked for was . . . is this a great photo or a great wedding photo? Unfortunately this meant that some incredible photographs did not make the cut, because they could have been anywhere, not necessarily at a wedding.”

This is kind of funny for me to read—and I don’t mean that sarcastically!—because I often deliberately distance myself from creating images that look wedding-y. This is especially true with the more fashion-based ideas that I come up with. I sometimes get inspiration from music photography and movie posters and I try to create a similar sort of commercial or cinematic vibe to my wedding photography—something that looks larger than life and out of the ordinary.

Anyways, I thought I’d comment on the images they chose to give a bit of a story behind each photo. So, for the first time on the blog I present to you: Captions!

This image was tricky to capture! It was taken on a small yacht on Okanagan Lake in Kelowna and the poor girl was sea-sick from the rocking of the boat. I was crouched up the very front of the boat holding a flash in one hand and my camera in the other, trying to frame the shot without getting any clutter in the background, or going blind from having the sun in the viewfinder, or falling over the side. I have two images of this setup and this is one of them. It pays to get it right the first time.

Yay for us!

Our studio recently won the Canadian Bridal Network’s Best Wedding Photographs contest of this year, beating nearly 500 other entries. Actually, after the contest results went live I heard that the judges had short-listed a dozen of our photos for the winning spots, but in the end they decided to just use the one image below to represent our studio.

I met the couple in the winning image when I was looking for a wedding dress. Not for myself; for a bridal fashion shoot in B.C. The bride, Caitlin, works in Ten Fashions Bridal Boutique and when one of my models didn’t show I asked her to fill in. She brought along her fianceé, Kelowna DJ Dan Freeman, and so my fashion shoot turned into a real engagement session for them. Because they are an actual couple they brought great energy and true emotional connection to the shoot. Their wedding is in 2010 and will be awesome.

Thanks very much also to Trent from Eye For Detail Photography! I actually found out about this contest after receiving an email from Bride.ca saying that Trent had contacted them and told them to check out my work for the contest. Thanks, Trent!

For those of you who are not pro photographers, WPPI stands for Wedding and Portrait Photographers International and is the largest such organisation in the world. Every year they hold print and album contests, with entrants from everywhere having their prints judged by some of the most respected photographers in the industry. This time I finally got around to entering some images! I wish I had had the time to prepare more images, but I’m happy with the scores these received. Three of my images were awarded Accolades of Excellence and I have put those images below.

Allan and Wendi, the Global TV Wedding Wish winning couple, were a very cool couple to work with.  Of course, I would expect nothing less from them after knowing their antics in trying to win the Wedding Wish contest. You can read more about them and their masked adventures on their Facebook page.

Allan and Wendi saw one another before their ceremony and I set up a romantic meeting for them.  Then we did most of the rest of their portrait images before the ceremony around town, including inside Henotic restaurant, which has become my favourite place for indoor photography in Lethbridge. The decor and ambiance is probably the best in Lethbridge. The owners are friendly and accommodating, too.  I was first there for photos during Heidi and Clark’s wedding last January and I’ve been back a few times since then.

Allan and Wendi’s wedding was on the grass at the top of the coulees just behind the Galt Museum here in Lethbridge on a nice sunny day without too much wind—for Lethbridge, anyway.  Allan and Wendi both wrote their own vows and you could tell immediately how much love they had for one another. Their words were so touching and meaningful. I have a photo of Wendi wiping away tears during Allan’s vows. This was the most well-videoed wedding we’ve been to, with a big news camera from Global TV as well as two, only slightly smaller, cameras wielded by George Gallant, a instructor who teaches video production at Lethbridge College, and his son. These guys all knew what they were doing and we had no problem with them getting in our way or anything like that. I’m hoping to get some footage from George to put up later as well to show you how I shoot at weddings. Stay tuned for that, too.

The reception entertainment for the evening was provided by J.R. Matthew, Entertainer Extraordinaire. His show was fantastic! If you’re ever looking for someone who can keep things alive at your reception, he would be on the top of my list. With his wife Lyn working the sound for the evening they did a very fun game show that had everyone madly competing in crazy events to win points. I will be posting some of those images in the slide show, so make sure you check back at the end of the week to see some hilarious photos of the wedding party guys in drag, and more.

The first dance started out normally and then there was a brief moment where it looked as though Lyn and JR had messed up the music, but it was all a prearranged stunt and Allan, Wendi, and Allan’s brother and his wife all launched into the Evolution of Dance routine. This was something that was going around YouTube a little while back, but it’s the first wedding we’ve been to where anyone has done it. They did it really well!

Here is a slideshow of some of their images. 

Early this year I joined a professional photography association called the WPJA (Wedding Photojournalist Association). The WPJA is an interesting place for me, because they focus very much on candid, ‘photojournalistic’ images from weddings and they have quite strict requirements and guidelines when it comes to what you can do to the images in Photoshop and that sort of thing. Not to mention the fact that some of the best wedding photojournalists around the world are members!

I tend to do whatever it takes to get the image and a lot of the time that means a little finessing in Photoshop afterward to finish the vision I had for the image before I even pressed the shutter. I do try to get everything done in-camera, because even though I’m good with Photoshop I’d rather spend my time being creative than fixing mistakes. So I did have a few images to submit to their contest and I’m pleased to say that the below image got a place in their Creative Portraits category. This image of the groom and groomsmen came out of the camera pretty much exactly as you see it now. Of course I Photoshopped it as well, but I only did basic stuff to it and didn’t alter the original scene. I love doing this kind of different imagery and at every wedding I always try to come up with at least one image that looks like nothing I’ve ever done before.