Letterpress Calendars and some Behind the Scenes

I had the entire long weekend to bask in the glow of seeing Sarah & Rich’s wedding on Style Me Pretty, and guess what, after all the Thanksgiving leftovers (I roasted two ducks and they came out horribly!) and overconsumption of cocktails and eggnog, and even after having the post now pushed down to what, the 5th page or so, I am still riding high! I was especially pleased to see SMP pick several photos featuring the calligraphy I did for her escort and dessert cards.

Anyway, I thought I’d stretch your interest level a wee bit, hee, and ride this train out a little longer. I’m sharing some behind the scene photos from the wedding, along with a peek at another collaboration Sarah and I have going on.

Dan came along with me to Maine. Like with all weddings, I show up early to scope the area out, particularly for portraits. Near the ceremony area was a little grove of trees that I thought would make for a pretty backdrop, but I had Dan stand in for a few shots to see if the scenery translated well on camera. Sometimes what we see with our eyes and what the camera sees with its eye can turn out very differently.

The below photo of Sarah & Rich is the resulting shot, and is one of my favorites. The sun was starting to hit low by then and it cast a pretty glow across the trees. There were plenty of rich shadows and pockets of golden light, which looked amazing against all that greenery. Earlier in the day, Dan stood in roughly the same spot. As you can see the light was quite a bit more even then. (He’s showing me an acorn, ha ha)

Here we are with Sarah and her bridesmaids, before the ceremony. They all got ready in an apartment adjacent to the barn pictured below. During this time the sun was riding high and directly into people’s eyes, so I chose to shoot into the sun to avoid squinty portraits. And anyway, I like shooting in the sun in general. I’m using my favorite lens, the 85mm f/1.4

The resulting shot below:

Walking across the lawn to get some portraits with horses:

Back at the grove of trees, I caught a portrait of Sarah while the sunlight was hitting a pair of young pine trees just so. I asked her to stand there between the two trees and positioned myself so that her veil caught all the light. So much body contortion going on to just capture a simple little portrait…

And now, with the wedding done and finished (sob), Sarah and I were onto our next collaboration – calligraphy and letterpress (yay!). As I’ve mentioned bfore, Sarah owns a letterpress stationery studio, and for her annual collection of limited edition letterpressed calendars, she asked me to write out the months of the year. I was happy to oblige, and so beyond excited to see my writing in print for the first time. Her calendars have been featured on various paper blogs, including Oh So Beautiful Paper and Paper Crave. I have no problem riding on her coat tails ;)

You can purchase a calendar for yourself on her shop here!

Sarah and I have at least one more project in the works which I am eager to show in the New Year. It will involve photography and paper, yum…To think, this all started when I photographed her dog Simone way back in April 2009! I had no thoughts of getting into weddings, or calligraphy, back then. Who knew that all these exciting things were going to transpire from that day?