HDR of a wedding ceremony on the compass pad at the Marina Inn - Grande Dunes

Wedding of mother with four fun kids at the Marina Inn with reception at Joe’s Crab Shack

This was a fun recent wedding at the Grande Dunes Marina Inn, with a reception at Joe’s Crab Shack at Broadway at the Beach. I didn’t ask, but I would imagine this was a second wedding for both the bride and groom. Those are always fun because when it’s the second time, it’s usually more about just having fun with the family.  Especially when they have great kids with good personalities.  Instead of my most important pictures being about the couple, it’s usually more about the family and having fun with the kids. I’ve never been to Joe’s Crab Shack …

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Another fun couple doing engagement pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park

I met this couple for the first time on Friday to discuss photographing their upcoming wedding. While they were in the area, we decided to do some last-minute engagement pictures on Monday at the state park in Myrtle Beach. I’ve said it a lot of times before, but doing engagement pictures is the best way to get to know a couple and for them to get to know you as the photographer. If they like what you do during the engagement portraits, they will also like you at the wedding. Pictures of the couple after the wedding are pretty much …

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Bridal Portraits - Atalaya Castle

Beautiful evening for bridal portraits at Atalaya Castle in Murrells Inlet, SC

I worked with a pretty bride the other evening doing bridal portraits at Atalaya Castle in Huntington State Park. The evening was great except for being a bit cold. Because of the 5:00 pm closing time of the Atalaya Castle, we had to stay outside the castle to catch the sunset. The poor bride almost froze to death by the end of the session, but I think it will be worth it to her when she sees the pictures. She did a pretty good job of not looking cold, at least as long as you don’t zoom in on the …

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Cute couple with big smiles doing engagement pictures at the State Park in Myrtle Beach

I made a giant storyboard for this couple’s recent engagement pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park. They looked great in so many pictures I just kept making selections. The way I create a blog post, when I’m going through the images in Lightroom, I put a flag on every picture that I think might be good for my blog. The nice thing about Lightroom, there are star ratings, color ratings, and flags. So you can have multiple different ways of marking images for different uses. I use star ratings (use keyboard keys 1-5) to pick the pictures that will …

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Engagement pictures at the Georgetown Harbor Walk and new Retina display support for pictures

This is my second blog post to fully support the iPad with a Retina display. Sadly, the images for all my older posts are not high enough resolution to support a high dpi display like the Retina iPad without uploading everything again. Most people that use the 3rd or 4th generation iPad probably don’t understand how it supports image viewing on the web. They know that sometimes pictures look fantastic on it.  Very few websites fully support it.  What happens now on my blog is if it detects a retina display, it will serve up a double-resolution image.  For example, …

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Wedding at the Carriage House in Magnolia Plantation, Charleston

This was the second wedding I’ve had this fall at Magnolia Plantation, this time, it was at the Carriage House lawn area. It’s nice to expand out a bit to do some weddings in Charleston, I hope to keep it up in the future. I think it would be really nice to do something in downtown Charleston eventually, but if I don’t I’m happy shooting around the beach. For this wedding, it was a pretty cloudy day most of the time. I didn’t get as many shots with sunlight coming through the trees as I would have liked. The clouds …

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Sunset engagement pictures at the historic waterfront in Georgetown, SC

This was the first time I’ve done any engagement portraits at the historic waterfront area of Georgetown. I think it’s just the distance and the fact that most people are more interested in the beach that I haven’t made it over that way. I do so much at the beach. I always like it when I get to do something different. The historic Georgetown waterfront area will give you a similar look to doing engagement pictures at the Conway River Walk. You still have a lot of trees, historic-looking shops, and a boardwalk on the water. The main thing you …

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Fall engagement portraits at the Myrtle Beach State Park

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about engagement pictures. When I’m doing engagement pictures for an upcoming wedding, I try to keep them in my slower times of the year if possible. When it cools down a bit is usually a great time anyway, the color in the ocean and sky seems better once things cool off. This is a fun couple whose wedding is coming up in April at the Grande Dunes. I like it so much better when I already know a couple well at the wedding, and they already have a good idea of what they …

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Beautiful portrait of bride and groom reflecting in the lake - Magnolia Plantation

First wedding at Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, SC

This was the first time I’ve been to the Magnolia Plantation area in Charleston for a wedding. I’ve done some engagement pictures here, but never a full wedding. The first time to a new site is always exciting, I do a lot of looking around trying to find some spots with good lighting and background details. We also had a golf cart driver that took us around to some popular spots. The young bride and groom had a beautiful ceremony in the gardens with a unique circular setup of the chairs for the ceremony. After the ceremony we went to …

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Early afternoon wedding at the Pine Lakes Country Club

This is the first wedding ceremony I’ve done at the Pine Lakes Country Club. It was a small wedding early on a Friday afternoon and it turned out very nice. Not having a big bridal party can actually be a lot less stressful. The wedding ceremony was at a bad time of the day for the sun, but thankfully the back of the club has a nice shaded area for the ceremony.  We went down to the beach briefly for some pictures after the ceremony and then back out for some sunset pictures later in the evening.  I’m really liking …

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