When I was a kid I loved playing with my Legos. That may be why I later aspired to become an Architect. Each night I would take my five gallon bucket of Legos out, dump them onto the floor and build elaborate (for an 8 year old) multicolor worlds complete with buildings, rocketships, and little people. It was the great pleasure of my life at the time!!!

Well I recently ran across a photographer on Flickr that has combined my childhood love of Legos with my adulthood passion for photography. He has taken classic photojournal images from the last century and recreated them in Lego format. Going by the name of Balakov, he has managed to create a set of nine benchmark photographs ranging from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s “Behind the Gare Saint Lazare” (my favorite), to the ever romantic VJ Day in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstadt shown below.

Additionally, Balkov has some other great Lego creations he has photorgaphed. I highly reccomend you taking a look at his profile on Flickr. I would also take a look at the original photos that are linked to. These are images that have become societal changing, I still remember the Tieneman Square Protest so many years later because of that one photo of the singular student in front of the tanks. Photos are just a slice of time in our lives, literally a fraction of a second. And taken at the right time, and the right place (what Cartier-Bresson called the Decisive Moment), photos really can shape and impact the world.

The image above is taken with a Holga camera. It was taken by a user on Flickr named Jen Mo. I’ve been looking at potential for using one of these little plastic cameras in weddings to get a similar look to the picture above. It would have an edgy, shoot from the hip, kind of photography. Unfortunately it’s not something that can quite be duplicated in Photoshop. The quality (or lack of) comes from the plastic lens, the tendency for light leaks and the film. Yes FILM… It’s not just “stuff that forms on your teeth when you don’t brush” As Vincent Versace claims.

Now, I will admit, I haven’t needed to or wanted to shoot much film since about 2003, but the grainy structure and characteristics of different brands give it that 1960-70’s retro look. Much like Super 8 movies (which I will be blogging about a little down the line).

I’m thinking I might be purchasing one of these Holgas to try it out around town, and then bring one to my next wedding shoot. If you are interested in seeing more photos go the the Flickr Holga Group.

It’s that time of year again. The annual onslaught of the Bridal Gown sales.

I have been seeing David’s Bridals quite often and I hopped over to their website today and they have some pretty good deals for the budget minded bride. Their wedding dresses start at $99 and wherever you can find a deal you should go for it. For Heather’s and my wedding she had a costume designer friend make her favorite dress from a magazine as a favor. For the cost of materials – maybe $40 – she had an amazing dress. I grabbed our photographer’s camera with the telephoto and took that photo – hence the bird.

When you do get that deal from David’s Bridal or that killer Vera Wang dress give me a call and we will work out a good deal for wedding photography.

Happy Shopping from William Bay Photography
Cheers!

As I have been doing quite a bit of marketing and surfing the net for ideas, I have seen an incredible amount of wedding photography, wedding photography sites, and wedding photography buzzwords…

One of the most used and, in my opinion, useless buzzwords is “Timeless.”

“We will take outstanding images so that you can cherish your timeless photos, bla bla bla.” “So-and-so wedding photography delivers timeless images for that once in a lifetime day, yadda-yadda-yadda.”

I tend to have a more refined “fine art” idea of photography, due to my background. My heroes are the old dead guys like Paul Strand, Edward Weston, and of course Ansel Adams. I learned from them what “true” art is. “True” art is what everyone confuses with the “Timeless” aspect to photography, and even then not very well. …If you follow.

Let’s look at it this way:
Photographers catch a notion that something should be done a certain way, (take the rule of thirds or any other rule of composition). Run of the mill photographers latch on to those ideas and concepts and make them dogma for their existence to have some order. Yes, deep inside every photographer is a little engineer demanding it be done a certain way. Some listen to it more than others.

Now one of those concepts is “Timelessness.” No-one breaks out of the mold when it comes to that term. It is impossible to have a timeless image. To prove the point, run and grab your parents photo album, then ask your older friends to see theirs. And for kicks check out something from the 80’s. They will all show some age, some funky fashion, and, for the owners of said albums it will bring them back to that day and reminisce about that day, what happened that morning, the crazy stunt whats-his names’s golfing buddy did right before the wedding.

These are not timeless thoughts! Neither are the photos. They are indeed very dated. As well they should be.

While photos may stand the test of time, they are never ever timeless! Remember that when looking at these photojournalistic ideas and trends. They are just that – trends and they will change. So the photos you take this year will look completely dated next decade. And you should embrace that fact. Review the Austin Wedding Photography Gallery we’ve taken and see if you we can help you for your not-timeless images.

I’ve finally worked through the beast of a catalog of fine art. landscape and travel photos I have accumulated over the last dozen years or so. They are constantly evolving of course, but this is a good break down of all the non-wedding photos I have. Looking through the photos of Thailand I noticed a trend start to emerge of strong portraits. I think at some point I will make a collection of just portraits of my various journeys. Thailand is a great place to shoot portraits. Everyone is so friendly and generous. “Dai Tairoop Mai?” is Thai for “Can I take a picture” and a very useful phrase. More often than not, you won’t be turned down.