An Otherwise Empty Room: Vintage Postcard Wedding

Last night, I was up at Kapalua Bay photographing an intimate wedding on the beach. The bride was wearing a gorgeous, ruffled creation and the groom a soft, wheat-colored suit with a polka-dot lining. The sunset light was gentle, diffused with a hint of glow, and as I surveyed the scene, all I could think of was those vintage-y Hawaiian postcards of golden sunsets with pastel-toned backgrounds and swaying palm trees. I've recently become a fan of Kerne Erickson, an artist who renders beautiful and nostalgic images like this one, reminiscent of old advertising posters.

Artwork © Kerne Erickson

As I was editing the photos from the wedding today, I decided to experiment a little with some of the filters in Lightroom, although the final images are really a complex composite of work in not only Lightroom, but also Photoshop and Portrait Professional. For those of you interested in the process beyond basic editing, I began by applying the Cold Process 3 Lightroom Color Preset to the photos, then went from there. I tweaked the levels, tonal range and saturation until I got what I wanted. The first one is my favorite photo, which was actually one I intentionally over-exposed (I already knew I was going to try to "vintagize" them today), while the others are straight-forward in terms of exposure. Goes to show how important the final output is to your shooting workflow! Drop me a line and tell me what you think about the effect. I'd love to hear thoughts on filters in general: can they be fun, or are they too gimmicky? There's never a wrong way, just a different way of thinking.

K.A.

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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Vintage Postcard Wedding

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