2010 Wedding Photography Giveaway

After wedding season is over, it's time to think about engagements and your own plans. Between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day is a boom time for engagements, as friends and family are gathered around and nostalgia runs through the season like lights around the tree (that will not be taken down until late January, after the Christmas bills have gone as well).

So the winter is also a time for planning weddings, an activity full of its own headaches and hassles. Here at Ryan Richardson Photography I'd like to make that planning as simple as possible by giving away a deluxe wedding package to one lucky couple getting married from June 2010 through May 2011.

The winner, decided in March of 2010, will receive my deluxe wedding package - a $4,500 value. This great package includes:

A 2 hour engagement session ahead of the wedding, to help announce your love to the world.
2 hours for a bridal portrait session or rehearsal coverage.
2 photographers on the day of your event.
8 hours of coverage on your special day.
100 image online gallery
1 heirloom wedding album, to share the story of your wedding.
2 small keepsake parent albums
A CD of high-resolution and web-resolution files
Artistic enhancement on all delivered files
A spiral-bound proof book
$250 Print Credit

Two runners up will receive free engagement sessions.

Blog, contestRyan RichardsonJanuary 5, 2010contest, engagement photography, giveaway, wedding photography, wedding planningComment

Ryan Richardson's Movie Ratings for 2009 (with help from Serenity):

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and that's not just because of the recent snow storm. So n light of the season I've decided to take a break from photoblogging and talk about movies and Amy Adams just in case you need something to tide you over while you wait for the National Guard to dig you out from the impromptu igloo around your house.

The movies are rated from blech (don't bother) to meh (if you like this kind of movie it might be for you) to Oh Yeah! (which is that I enjoyed the film, but not necessarily to the degree that one would expect from the use of an exclamation point).

BlogRyan RichardsonDecember 21, 2009blog, movie review, year in reviewComment

Things Your Photographer Needs to Know

Cold weather means it's time to start wedding planning.When the cold air has finally penetrated the earth I find myself in a lot of little coffee shops huddled over a tiny table with a couple talking about their wedding. Often they have this beautiful dream of what's going to happen on their wedding day, sometimes that dream has fallen to the relentless press of reality and the Plaza has become the VFW Hall but the passion is still suffusing their voices.

It's rare that a bride and groom can answer the questions that a photographer would really like to know: what color are the ceilings, how is the light at the time you're planning your event, how much control do you have over the lighting? There are a thousand little details that you learn about when you're a photographer, that you just take in automatically the way that some people breathe in air (or that adept school teachers sense mischief).

Still there is at least one point where couples can really help a photographer during a meeting, so the photographer can better help the couple.

Timing is Everything

Blog, PhotosRyan RichardsonDecember 15, 2009confessions of a wedding photographer, digital photographyComment

2009 Holiday Camera Buying Guide

The one major problem with giving a great new digital camera as a gift during the holidays is that by the time it's opened, all the best moments have passed. Still, a digital camera can be a great gift for the holidays allowing your loved ones to capture the wonderful little moments that make enduring the month of music and garish decorations worth it.

The problem is that there are about a million digital cameras in the marketplace with names that were written by a cat running across a keyboard (S90? LX3? DSC-W190?). Clicking over to B&H Photo will net you 200 different makes, models and colors to bemuse and bewilder you, and that's before you start looking at what these cameras are supposed to do. Relax last-minute shoppers, help is on the way to start narrowing down those 200 to a dozen or so.

BlogRyan RichardsonDecember 8, 2009buying guide, digital cameras, digital photography, holidaysComment

Bride Blushes at Racy Photos, Studio Sued

I've shot a lot of bridal preparations. Getting the hair together, the makeup, the shoes, the dress and wrangling the bridesmaids can make for a lot of great little moments and great moments are part of what makes a great photo.

Of course just because the moment is striking doesn't mean a photographer should click the shutter.

Recently a Long Island bride sued her wedding photographer because the photographer clicked when she shouldn't have (or maybe not as the case will bear out) but beyond that the studio shared those photos as part of its portfolio. The bride found those photos of her in her lingerie getting ready and was aghast claiming that she had asked the photos not be taken in the first place let alone shared with the World Wide Web.

Blog, PhotosRyan RichardsonNovember 19, 2009confessions of a wedding photographer, wedding photographyComment