Wedding Photographer Las Vegas - Deacon Tyler

Manuel & Isabella’s wedding portraits – Caught in a (sand) Trap

Posted by admin on 7 Feb ’12

There's a story behind every wedding photography session and most of the fun of blogging is telling that story. We met Manuel and Isabella at the Bridal Spectacular show a short while back and later I found out that they came all the way from Spain and bought tickets to the show *just* to see us and book a wedding photography portrait session! That has never happened before and I was absolutely speechless – it was the best compliment I have ever had in my life!

We had originally planned a shoot out at the dry lakebed in Jean, NV and a word of caution is in order – there's a "good road" to get there and there's the road I accidentally took. Yeah, I bet you know where this is going. By the time I realized I was on the "wrong" road, I was two feet in very loose sand and our little Impala was spinning its wheels. I really, really hate my car. I always thought of the Chevy Impala as this massive beast with an engine that made me want to do a gutterly grunt like the Toolman on Home Improvement, but this thing is like two gerbils running in a wheel, only one of the gerbils has arthritis and the other fell asleep. Only 111111100033 more payments to go and this baby is all mine! :p

Now heh, if you've been following my blog for a while now, you'll remember that this is not the first time we've been stuck at the dry lakebed and it probably won't be the last. Science fact: When stuck in snow or sand, the best method is to let some of the air out of your tires (around 10LB of pressure) to increase the surface area on your tires and thusly increase traction. I literally tried everything BUT that.

But here's the thing – every situation is surmountable and as long as I can press the shutter release button on my cameras, I'm going to get my shots – photography is just too important to miss. I've had my pants split minutes before a wedding, I've been pooped on by a giant bird, I've shot weddings with broken femur, whiplash after a car accident, days after close relatives passed, with walking pneumonia, bleeding scalp and every other manner of injury and illness, but I was going to be darned if I was about to let a little sand stop us from having a great shoot with good people that thought so much of us that they travelled across the world to work with us! More importantly, no matter what's happening, I'm going to shoot with a smile on my face.

The sweetest thing was, they were more worried about our car than the shoot and I was more worried about the shoot than our silly car. Honestly, I would have still done the shoot if our car was on fire (it IS insured…hmmm) – vehicles rust and go to the junkyard (which mine will long before it's paid off); digital photos last *forever*; photos – especially wedding photographs – are more important than *anything* in my opinion. Plus, the sun was setting, making these ultra cool highlights and so we grabbed our strobes, reflectors and gear out of the trunk and did the shoot just twenty feet away from our car.

Y'know something? The desert scrub and mountains looked way cooler than the lakebed and if I had it to do all over again, I'd get my car stuck on purpose, just to have the chance to check out a new spot.

Manuel is a Spanish military police officer, so rather than a standard wedding tuxedo, he had an absolutely bitchin' (can I say that word?) uniform and I was like "aaaaaaaaah YES!"

When we met at the studio to go over the shoot, we went over the shots that we liked best and I told him the story behind each photo on our wall and how important it was to take charge and show true genuine emotion. I told them both that what I wanted to see was passion and fire for each other and just forget there's even a camera there. That Isabella did not speak English didn't bother me for one moment – passion and love are universal languages and despite what might look like staging in our portraits, what we capture is raw energy and emotion. When two people are truly in love, there's usually no difficulty in showing it on camera. Besides, I rarely say anything important during a shoot – I just hop around all hunched over like Smigel from Lord of the Rings, shouting out nonsense camera settings and saying "yes! beautiful! more! Ooooh!" over and over again. If you've ever watched a photographer on any movie or television show, that's me – I'm a complete cliché – like Barney the purple dinosaur all hepped up on Red Bull.

But I digress….The first shot is one of my favorites, as it was entirely unscripted. Isabella was wearing an amazing ten foot long veil and I had a vision of a 'matador' like scene with the long end of the veil blowing in the wind, with Manuel and the deep golden sunset behind it. As we were getting into position, Manuel happened to look at me for affirmation that he was holding the veil correctly and I instantly snapped the shot. Isabella happened to be looking down at the moment and they were both holding hands at the time.

When I looked at this shot on my screen, there was something so subtly powerful about this image that it was moving and will surely end up on my gallery wall very soon. Manuel looks absolutely powerful on camera – strong, brave and overwhelmingly masculine, which is exactly what shows well on camera and Isabella looks absolutely stunning with a hidden strength and feminine pride that adds passion to each shot (she is also a police officer!). But the gentle way in which he worked with his new bride was such a beautiful juxtaposition and had this amazing timeless quality to it. And yes, I *am* trying to make everyone forget that I drove into sand like an idiot….and it was probably working right up until I said that…

In all, we actually only shot for around 30 minutes, but there was so much emotion and subtle changes to each shot that I ended up with almost DOUBLE the amount of edited shots we normally end up with during a portrait session – almost DOUBLE – and it will go down as being one of my favorite all time shoots.

Words cannot describe how much I appreciate Manuel and Isabella's patience and support – with positive thinking, what could have been an absolute tragedy turned out to be one of my favorite wedding photography sessions. Bless you both from the bottom of my heart and if I live to be 200, I will always remember you fondly, my friends

…oh and in case you're wondering, we got out of the sand courtesy of a winch and several broken chains, but like a television sitcom, everything always works itself out in the end :p

Modeling portfolio session with Melissa

Posted by admin on 7 Feb ’12

Melissa is one of the most amazing models I have ever worked with; not just for her outward beauty, but also (and mainly) for her inward beauty. Friendly, outgoing, confident and always ALWAYS positive, whenever we work with her, I'm left with great shots and a big smile on my face.

Modeling headshot photography has become such a rare beast, that a model simply having proper headshots in their portfolios puts them so far ahead in the modeling world that success surely follows. While technically very simple, headshots are the most critical shots a model can have in his or her portfolio and as I've said many times, they're what lands job after job. Melissa puts such effort into her modeling career that she's always stuck out in my mind as someone who will go very far in modeling!

Something to consider – there are more paid modeling jobs than there are qualified models and if you've ever been on the fence as far as whether or not to hire a photographer for headshots or go the "free" route, we cast for models on a frequent basis for catalog and advertising work and I spend on average of ten seconds looking at a model's portfolio – if there are no headshots, I move on to the next portfolio; if there are good headshots, I submit them to my client for final approval as they are almost always the ones with the deciding factor and no client will take a model with no professional headshots seriously.

Little known tip: There are unwritten rules on how much retouching can be performed on headshots; too much is either an instant 'no' or requires a face to face meeting to determine what a model actually looks like, but by using good makeup that matches skin tones well (thank you Sarah once more for the beautiful makeup!!) and nice lighting, it cuts back on at least 50% of retouching work.

Photographers' tip: Here's a trick if you want 'soft skin' without too much Photoshop – I stuck with my usual big 22" beauty dish with diffuser and a 30" reflector for fill lighting and then stuck on a neutral density filter so that I could shoot at an even wider aperture for additional 'softening', which through her hair out of focus enough to make it appear even softer and added a sharp 'pop' to her eyes.

Sarah did a very basic look with makeup; I've never been big on 'loud' makeup unless there's a theme involved, especially for headshots. She started with a matte foundation that was finished with a matte powder that was thick enough to prevent shiny hotspots on camera even under powerful lighting, but thin enough that skin's natural 'glow' came through just enough.

For headshots, I prefer the Cosmo look – nude gloss, nothing too crazy with the hair and a very neutral eye makeup to allow the eyes' natural hues to come through nicely. The result is clean and fresh looking and acceptable to any agent or agency!

I'm really looking forward to Melissa's next shoot – I decided that I'd like to do a couple more casual looks outdoors, where I think that the golden sun best accentuates her natural skin tone, and then promote the heck out of her to all of my clients

Enjoy the shots – I decided to throw in a few from our last shoot back in 2010 because I loved them so much!

Clayton & Lisa – “Solo Tu”

Posted by admin on 7 Feb ’12

I not only admire Clayton and Lisa's devotion to each other (if you ever saw them together, there is absolutely NO doubt that these two are in love!), but I really admire how cool they both remain in the face of adversity. It had been a while since I had shot a wedding photography session down on Fremont Street on the weekend at night and so even I was a little shocked at how absolutely drunk and wild and drunk and….drunk…tourists could get.

Throughout incident after hilariously drunk tourist incident (there was even a moment in which a Packers fan began removing articles of clothing and displaying his…I believe the vernacular is 'Moobs'), these two kept their lids on and focused on each other as if there was nobody else in the world. I loved every darn minute of it!

Later on, we took some shots at their suite wedding reception and even with dozens of people around, it was like they were all window dressing – their focus and love were absolutely bullet driven on each other. That night after we got home, Sarah slaps me on the chest and says "why aren't YOU that romantic?" Seriously grooms, you're really starting to show me up here :p

In studio baby photography portraits

Posted by admin on 7 Feb ’12

I really needed to post something to make everyone collecting say "AAAAAAWWWWWWWW". Baby photography is just that thing. this baby was just a wee bit too big for all of the little hammocks and scales and baskets, so we kept things relatively simple in studio and instead focused on the cute little smiles and expressions she made (and really, if you didn't think I sounded like a goofball before, you ought to listen to what comes out of my mouth whenever a baby or an animal is around; I literally devolve into a more primitive lifeform).

Colin & Jana’s Bali Hai wedding

Posted by admin on 7 Feb ’12

Finally, new blog posts!
I have been up to my eyeballs in work this last month – between the bridal show, shooting and booking new clients, I’ve scarcely had time to breath (and have a look at the time I make this blog post and then consider that I’ve been working since 7am this morning :p).

Jana and Colin came aaaaaall the way from Winnipeg in Canada for their wedding at Bali Hai in Las Vegas and it was a real pleasure working with them. “Sarah bring me some flashes” was my most used term the entire day – it was our first wedding of 2012 and within minutes it became very special to me. Colin had a dvd of a movie I hadn’t seen in years – it was called “The Wood”, with Omar Epps and some less important guys that aren’t nearly as cool as Omar Epps.

I don’t even remember if the movie was any good, but I remember watching it with my wife at least ten years ago and really enjoying the heck out of it – ‘buddy’ type flicks always get to me.

What also gets to me is real emotion and there was a lot of it on this shoot. I never feel as though I have to rewrite the book on wedding photography in order to have a great session – being sincere and seeing people in love that are able to laugh and cry together is more rewarding to me than anything. For the love of all, laugh and cry during your wedding photography shoot. Preferably at the same time – no really, do it.

Bali Hai is always awesome to shoot at; their staff is literally the kindest people I have ever worked with and the food is so good that you’d think it was passed down from the halls of Valhalla. Their ceremony was at night and as I had never shot at Bali Hair at night, I took a few minutes before the ceremony to set up some off camera flash.

The long hall in Cili restaurant at Bali Hai is *very* long. This was a short ceremony, so rather than move in close and then run out of the way as the couple walked down (and risk a prat fall on those beautiful rose petals), we both took most of our shots It’s one of those rooms where if we tried to use the flash on our cameras alone, it would look horrible with ugly shadows and not much fill, so we employed one of the most complicated lighting setups I’ver ever used for a ceremony. Yes, I am still a lighting freak. Sarah and I used a total of five lights for the ceremony – two in the rear on tall light stands, one closer to the front for more contrast and Sarah and I both had flashes on our camera as well.

During the reception, Elvis was just hilarious. Look, we’re from the midwest and whenever I see Elvisses (Elvii?) we’re roaring with laughter. It’s goofy, but Vegas is a goofy town and it’s such a huge ice breaker during a reception that puts everyone in a great mood.

Loved it all – we’ve got two or three more Bali Hai weddings already booked for 2012 and I’m looking forward to shooting there again!

Okay, lot of blog posts coming up. While I never have time to blog about *every* shoot, I’m having a lot of fun writing these tonight. I guess you could say I’m in a ‘quirky’ mood tonight – in a great mood for no other reason than to be in a great mood

Excelsior!

OUR SPECTACULAR BRIDE MAGAZINE COVER!!

Posted by admin on 24 Jan ’12

At the end of 2009, I said that 2010 would be our best year ever. I said it again at the end of 2010. At the end of 2011, I didn’t even have to say it, because I already knew that 2012 was going to bring us to an entirely new level – I just had no idea it would happen THIS fast….

It’s providence that “A Whole New World” is playing on Pandora right now. Bear with me, I’m very chatty – I’m like the Spider-Man of Las Vegas Wedding Photographers (except without the web shooters, strength, speed and agility), so I’m going to get right to the good news part:

Check out the latest issue of Spectacular Bride magazine – Our photo is on the cover!!

This was a HUGE surprise. We were setting up our booth at the Bridal Spectacular show and I sent Sarah to the front desk to grab some hooks to hang photos. After a couple of minutes, I went to go find her to grab a tip for the nice fellow that helped us haul our stuff from the car. As I approached the desk, I saw the cover and flipped out! It was one of those moments that I’m so glad was not caught on camera, because I likely sounded like a 12 year old girl at a Justin Beiber concert and the jumping up and down thing was probably equally unflattering.

Every photo we take has a little story behind it and this one was particularly interesting – this was a ‘test’ shot and almost deleted right on the spot! In the middle of our Ravella shoot back in November, we were switching up our spot and moving over the lighting and gear bags (which are so big that we have this awful shopping cart thing that we carry them around in) and our bride/model (she’s a model, but also a bride to be!) was standing next to a wall. Behind her and to the left was an open area with late afternoon sunlight spilling in, drenching her veil with all this golden-honey coloured light.

The beauty dish and strobe weren’t set up yet and I knew we had around 1 minute to get the shot before the sun dipped below the horizon, so I told Sarah to grab me a 30″ silver reflector, which I used to reflect that golden light onto her face just so I could take a light meter reading and determine where I wanted to place my strobe light. I almost never use reflectors for front fill lighting, as they’re absolutely *blinding*, but Alex looked so peaceful and I was so worried that we’d miss that golden light that I dialed a slow shutter speed into the camera, braced myself against the wall to steady the camera and started shooting anyways.

When I looked at this shot in camera, I thought “cool lighting, but dang is that ever yellow” and almost deleted the shot, as I was preparing to switch to strobe lighting, which I felt would look a little more ‘snappy’. Sarah loved the shot and told me to keep it and the rest is history.

Moral of the story is that you can bring $3000 worth of artificial lights with you to a shoot, but nothing in this world beats good sunlight, a $5 EBay reflector and timing. All of the preparation and equipment that we as wedding photographers put into every shoot, our favorite shots are always off the cuff moments: a bride’s veil getting caught in the wind, that instant right before a bride and groom kiss or the perfect sunset.

The Bridal Spectacular show was absolutely incredible – we got to see all of our friends in the professional wedding community, meet with clients both old and new and as anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot of me will tell you, I have absolutely no shame about singing and dancing while we set up our booth or at very random times during the show. THAT is fun.

Seriously, even if you have your photographer already booked, you need to come down to the next show in August just to dance with me. I’ve already decided that at the next bridal show, I *will* be bringing large speakers and at least 50,000 embarrassingly bad pop songs from the 80s and 90s. Do you remember the song “Mmmbop” by Hansen? Yeah, I’m gonna go there.

One of the ‘big changes’ I was constantly talking about on our Facebook page last month involved limiting the number of weddings we accepted in a calendar year. As artists, making a limited commodity of our work not only prevents burnouts, but gives us time to really get to know each wedding couple as individuals and treat each wedding as the unique and special event that it is, rather than “wedding #46″. The number I originally came up with was “20″, however what I wasn’t anticipating was the overwhelming response we have received in the last few months – by the time of the bridal show, we had already booked around 15 weddings for 2012 and were receiving 5-10 new requests per day!

—As I write this, we have just booked our EIGHTEENTH 2012 wedding and expect to be fully booked for the year *very* soon!!

I have so much to say, but this quickly goes from a ‘blog post’ to a ‘big ol’ wall of text’ in a hurry, so I just want to thank everyone that stopped by our booth from the bottom of our hearts, I want to thank my friends in the community, all of our clients that support us and….this is really starting to sound like the Oscars, isn’t it?

Anyhoo, check out the latest issue of Spectacular Bride magazine and we look forward to hearing from more brides and grooms *VERY* soon!

- Deacon

P.S. – just to clear up the confusion, ‘Deacon’ is my actual name and not a church title

Valentine’s Day portrait photography specials!

Posted by admin on 17 Jan ’12

Wanted to pop in and let everyone know that we’ve got two very nice portrait and boudoir specials happening right now on our Twitter page! Availability is extremely limited, so don’t wait until February 12 to get booked in!

Also, don’t forget to check out Las Vegas’ premier wedding photographers, Deacon Tyler and Sarah Werner at the Bridal Spectacular show this weekend!

Bridal portraits @ Ravella Lake Las Vegas

Posted by admin on 8 Jan ’12

If I had one tip to give every prospective bride, it would be “Get back in that dress”. Wedding days are a busy affair with so much emotion and tension and strict timing that it's often difficult to obtain some of my favorite shots of any wedding photography session: the bridal portraits.

Portraits, be they bridal, groom or couples, are all about timing; the time of day and the location that you choose will have enormous impact on the finished product and often shots like these just aren't possible to take on the actual wedding day, due to time constraints and itineraries. Rather than just bang away at the camera until something magical happens, we began our shoot at the Ravella just a few minutes before the sun touched the horizon and were treated with a deliciously golden kiss of warm sunlight lighting our 'bride' from one side and I had Sarah alternate between using a big ol' reflector and a fat 1600 watt strobe off to the side to fill in the shadows affixed with a 22" beauty dish and diffuser sock to soften up the light. For the latter shots, we combined the beauty dish with a secondary strobe to add dimension and depth to the shots.

There's many schools of thought when it comes to lighting up portraits and it's definitely worth knowing what type of lighting a photographer uses – some prefer natural light, but I've always sought to reach synergy between sunlight and strobe lighting to create shots that 'pop' with dimension and depth, but with a more organic, natural feel. While our lighting allows us to get fantastic shots at any time of day, there's just nothing in this world like late afternoon/early evening portraits!

The the first girl in the following photos is, in all fairness, shot with a professional model for an upcoming bridal magazine, but the second is an actual bride – the famous Laura Covington of Spectacular Bride magazine (and the upcoming Bridal Spectacular show). Something I can't stress enough though is that you don't need to be a professional model or a size zero to look beautiful in photos. Nearly every bride and groom that you see in our portfolio is just a regular couple. Everyone is beautiful and artistic and the magic of creating art is that we find the beauty within and attempt to bring out that beauty in our work – confidence in your photographer, confidence in yourself and simply the desire to have great photos are all you need. Chemistry and body language are two things that can never be taught or instructed, but rather come naturally, which is why taking the time to allow your photographer to get to know you, create a well planned itinerary and increase comfort in front of the camera is critical.

Quiet, secluded areas with beautiful scenery and lighting like the Ravella work so well for portrait sessions and while it can be a hassle to put on the dress and get made up a second time, the extra couple of hours or so it takes will net you dozens of photos that you can enjoy ten years from now, twenty, fifty, or more. That sacrifice and effort is absolutely worth and we are offering a free portrait session to all brides and grooms that book between now and Valentine's day!

Be it a couples shoot, bridal shoot or trash the dress, we want to see our brides and grooms step away from the touristy comfort of the strip and onto uniquely picturesque settings and backgrounds. Las Vegas has some of the most beautiful scenery, ranging from dry lakebeds to actual lakes, ghost towns, sand dunes, snow capped mountains and more – drop us a line and let's shoot!

P.S. – as another healthy reminder, make sure to check out booth 618 out at the Bridal Spectacular show on January 20 and 21 at Cashman Center!

Engagement photography session

Posted by admin on 4 Jan ’12

Fremont street is one of those spots where, at the right time of day, looks absolutely magical. My favorite time to shoot is around 45 minutes before sunset and during this engagement session we got treated to one of the most amazing purple sunsets I've seen in a long time. East of the strip, Fremont Street gets a little….interesting and so we typically try to stay as low key as possible, but we were feeling a bit cheeky for this shoot and brought along one of our gigantic strobes and beauty dishes and I'm really glad we did – the play of light and shadow really turned out great and our couple was so dynamic and creative that I asked with all seriousness if they were professional models. Throughout the shoot, whenever I was getting ready to convey a new idea, I'd look up and see these two already doing it, as though they read my mind!

Commercial photography – Epoch Fashion Catalog

Posted by admin on 4 Jan ’12

While I rarely blog about commercial photography, this shoot went so well that I had to share these! We recently had the opportunity to hire four outstanding models for Epoch Fashion's summer hat catalog and I absolutely love how these turned out! Wardrobe is one of the most important parts of a model's toolkit and each model did such a great job bringing enough outfits to match the hats.

More importantly though, one of the keys to a successful modeling career is personality and all four models were so easy going and fun to work with that we're really looking forward to hiring them again for future shoots!

Special props always go out to Sarah for a terrific job on makeup and hair and make sure to keep an eye out for these hats and photos at a retail store near you

Family Photography collage

Posted by admin on 4 Jan ’12

If I haven't said it enough times, I absolutely adore family portrait sessions and we've had some truly great ones in the last few weeks!

Jay & Hannah Wedding day portraiture – “The best of you”

Posted by admin on 22 Dec ’11

Hannah and Jay were absolutely brilliant for their downtown wedding portrait session! Whenever we shoot at the Neon Museum I always like a little 'warm up' period on Fremont Street in advance to get folks comfortable in front of the camera. These two needed all of 45 seconds to warm up and then we immediately started getting some amazing images!

I've always said that the one thing a wedding photographer can never create on camera is chemistry – when a couple is into each other, it shows. I tend to talk incredibly fast and shout funny things like "brilliant!" or "smashing!" every few seconds during a shoot or use ridiculous hand motions or mimed out poses to convey an idea, so it's pretty easy to keep folks laughing. So with Jay and Hannah we went with a more candid approach to the majority of their shots and gave very generalized direction and the way they could switch from laughing and smiling to ultra dramatic and romantic was absolutely sublime.

Plus, I loved what they were wearing; sometimes an outfit helps set a mood and they both looked so incredibly put together and cosmopolitan that they fit perfectly with the busy downtown atmosphere and the historical feel of the Neon boneyard.

I kept my lighting fairly simple throughout the shoot – afternoon light at the Boneyard is immaculate and I didn't want to overpower it too much. As a funny aside, I *never* use reflector umbrellas on location with our lighting – I always pack soft boxes and beauty dishes, but never an umbrella. The *one* time I used an umbrella there were huge gusts of 20mph winds which pretty much turned the umbrella into a boat sail and it was all Sarah could do to hold everything in place :p

I'll say it again though – Jay and Hanna's chemistry was fantastic and I love the variety of shots we ended up with and we wish them congratulations on their new marriage!!!

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