After wedding pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Ryan Smith

Now that things have slowed down some I’m going to try and go back and blog about some of my previous weddings and events. This couple was married the day before, and just wanted to do some portraits of the two of them. The Myrtle Beach State Park is really a great place for pictures because of the options like the oak trees, the pier and the really nice dunes, all in the same location. Also, it’s out of the Myrtle Beach city limits, so you don’t get in trouble for doing picture there. The only thing is, you have to be really careful about getting on the dunes. I still see other photographers getting in trouble with the park rangers sometimes. I saw this one photographer recently not only up on top of the dunes and getting talked to by a park ranger, but also waist deep in the swash trying to photograph a model, which is highly contaminated with bacteria.

Back to this couple, the evening turned out to be great with some really nice colors in the sky. I was even able to catch some of the seagulls flying by in a few shots, which is really cool of you happen to get it. This is a good example of how you can get some really nice pictures no matter how big your wedding is, I just did this like I would do any set of family or engagement pictures and got a lot of nice shots. I hope you enjoy some of them below.

Couple sitting on oak tree root

Bride leaning against oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

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Fun wedding at Kingston Plantation in North Myrtle Beach

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Ryan Smith

Kingston Plantation seems to be one of my usual spots, like the Grand Dunes, that I end up going to frequently. It’s nice when I get to work at the same location multiple times, I can really get to know all the good photo spots after a while. It’s also nice because it’s out of the Myrtle Beach city limits so you don’t have to worry about getting fined by trying to take pictures on the beach. This couple was a lot of fun, I got a lot of just casual, fun shots of them as well as really nice posed shots as well. I know it’s hard to relax at a wedding, but if you can and just try to act silly and not worry about things too much it makes for a lot better photos. I tried to pick out some shots to highlight that were more unique to this wedding. We did a lot of normal poses of course that turned out great, but I tried to highlight some that were more candid or a bit different. I hope you like them.

First look at the bride - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Passing the rings among the family during the ceremony - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

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Another beautiful wedding at Brookgreen Gardens

Posted on March 30, 2011 by Ryan Smith

I had another wedding at the Holiday Cottage area in Brookgreen Gardens. I always love going there, you just can’t beat the background and lighting that you get with lots of trees and a garden. The weather had been so nice that a number of flowers were in bloom, this is always great in the background of a picture. This wedding was for the bride that I recently did the fun bridal portraits for, you can read about that a couple of blog posts down from here. I actually noticed at this wedding I didn’t take quite as many total pictures as I usually do, I think because they didn’t have as much dancing as they do at some weddings. But I think the quality of the pictures I did take was very good. I would be glad to show almost all the shots as examples of my work.

I like to give a photo tip with my blog posts. Something in particular I thought about with these pictures (I mentioned this briefly on Facebook) is the importance of really getting in close for a picture instead of trying to crop it later. I used to think it’s better to shoot wider than what you want in the final image, because you can always crop later. It is good to keep in mind when shooting that a 4×6 has a completely different aspect ratio from an 8×10, so you do have to try to leave enough room in the picture to allow for this. But if you want a close up of a face, you will get a much different look from shooting really close then shooting a wide shot and cropping into the face. This is due to things like the way the closer you get, the more the background is going to be out of focus. When you use a longer lens (more zoomed in like a 50mm or more) you also get a more flattering compression of features, a wide angle will make noses and ears look bigger etc. It also can make a subject look like it’s closer to a background. And there are probably other reasons as well, just know it looks a lot better to shoot close to what you want the final image to look like. Next time you take pictures try to get in really close to your subject by physically moving closer or using a longer lens and see what you think.

I tried to pick some of my favorite pictures to post below, if you like these pictures please let me know in the comments below, or click the Facebook like button above.

Bride walking down the cottage stairs - Brookgreen Gardens

Bride and father walking towards the ceremony area

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Everyone in the pool

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I had a really fun wedding a couple of weeks ago. It was for Jason and Aracely from the website blog twobackpackers.com. You really should check out their adventures backpacking around the world, there are some nice pictures and stories on the blog. The groom and I got along really well as he is also very interested in photography, so we ended up talking about it a lot. I was showing him how great the Nikon D700 is in the low light at the reception, if you haven’t used a full frame camera before, ISO6400 is pretty amazing. This wedding was at a beach house in Myrtle Beach, with a pool in the back. I’ve never been to a wedding before where the groom actually threw the bride in the pool. I just wish he had warned me he was going to do it, I wasn’t quick enough to get the shot until they were already in the pool. Later in the evening everyone ended up either jumping in the pool, or getting thrown in, including the DJ. It was a wedding I won’t forget. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

Now that's a first kiss!

Groom holding bride upside down

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Wedding in Litchfield on Intracoastal Waterway

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Ryan Smith

Last week’s wedding was at such a pretty spot. It was a private home right on the waterway in the Litchfield, Pawleys Island area, about 30 minutes south of Myrtle Beach. It’s too bad this isn’t a regular spot for weddings, although the homeowner did say he has had about 20 weddings there, various family and friends. I can certainly see why. Everything went really nice as well, there was the most beautiful sunset over the waterway, you can see below many of my favorite pictures feature that sunset. The only slight problem was during the ceremony, the brides face was in complete shade, and the grooms was in bright sun. Thankfully after a few minutes either he or the sun moved enough that it worked out fine. This however is a good thing to keep in mind when planning your wedding location. If one person’s face is in the sun, and one in the shade, either one face has to be really dark, or one really blown out and bright. It’s just the way a camera works. I can adjust for it some. But you need to make sure the bride and groom are both in the shade or both in the sun for the best results. It’s usually best not to have partial sun as well, for example the head in the shade and body in the sun. Some things to keep in mind. Of course nothing can be planned perfectly, that is why you’ve got to have a photographer that is used to dealing with this type of thing, if you let a camera decide everything itself you can really have a mess. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

Taking pictures of butterflies while waiting for the wedding to begin

What a pretty spot for a wedding

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First look – Brookgreen Gardens

Posted on September 8, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I just wanted to put up a quick post about a recent wedding in Brookgreen Gardens, I will likely be putting up a post with more general pictures from this wedding later on. The bride wanted to do first look pictures, where instead of seeing the groom at the ceremony like normal, they did something special beforehand. I hadn’t really done this before exactly, but I thought what would look good was the bride in focus as she walked towards the groom out of focus in the background. Actually I should have done this with a different lens, and it would have been even better, but I really liked the results. I will post some shots below, these are special because I’m not going to put them all up in my gallery, without context it would look like a bunch of pictures of the same thing.

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Wedding in Kingston Plantation, North Myrtle Beach

Posted on April 28, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I loved almost all the pictures from last weekend’s wedding at Kingston Plantation in North Myrtle Beach. They had to move the wedding inside because of the rain, but with really nice light coming in the windows I thought it turned out really nice. The Nikon D700 is almost noiseless at the iso800 I was shooting at, that way the beautiful ambient light coming in the windows lit the scene, I just used the flash to put a little sparkle in the eyes. I’m putting a few of the images below, if I upload any more shots they can be seen in my live photo stream at http://www.myrtlebeachphotography.org/live_stream.html.