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Hi! I'm G.E. Masana and I'm a wedding
photographer in the NYC-Long Island-TriState area. And sometimes other places too.
After reading countless blogs of other photographers, I vowed that someday I too would
have my very own, but with one BIG difference: My first line in my first post in my first
blog was NOT going to be "Hi! This is my blog! This is my first post! Welcome to my
blog! I'm going to blog now!"
Why have a blog? Oh, there's all sorts of reasons, but among the saner
ones... mainly for me to share what one client quaintly termed "My little treasures" (I
love that). That is, my wedding photo images and ideas, my little creations, my little
babies that I give birth to throughout the year. My little works of art fetched from life.
Look! That one said "Dada!" What a clever kid!
Check out the behind the scene stories about my photos in "Scene at a wedding" (clever category name, no?) or my rants and raves in "Musings", my "So What If" series of what to do for your wedding day photos if stuff happens under "Wedding Help". Or just look at the nice, pretty pictures.
So, welcome! This is my blog! This is my first post! Welcome to my blog! I'm going to blog
now!
Got a call from a past bride I had photographed while filling in at another studio a few years ago. Turns out she knows another bride I’ve photographed since and that’s how she found me. Long story short, she hadn’t contracted the other studio for an album and never got around to making one – until now. So she contacted me to see if I’d be up to doing that for her, writing:
"I LOVE the post-work/effects that you are doing on the photos lately... I really do love the photos and after you put your magic touch on them, they would be insane."
I like the way she thinks…
The other studio didn’t do any production work at all on the photographs, so I took on her assignment, and of course, that meant treating her wedding album to my brand of artwork, which means remastering all the images in her album, as well as designing her book.
This time of year around here we’re treated to some great colors! I always encourage my wedding clients to take advantage of that for an ePhotos session, especially when their wedding takes place in a different season, so they can ultimately have an image collection from this special time in their lives that portray a diverse range of environments.
Here’s a little slideshow (with music!) of a book design I created from a recent ePhotos shoot.
Click on the image to play.
All too often when I view through wedding discussion boards, I see posts of wedding album designs… where there actually isn’t any design at all.
A design calls for a theme and uses graphic elements with restraint and consistency not to go all over the spectrum but to stick to the concept.
That’s not what I’m seeing.
Instead, what I see is typically a hodgepodge of wedding images, all cluttered and crammed together, without any reason for being juxtaposed with each other. The alleged design changes from page to page and consists of an abundance of tilted images, overlays, opacities and cheesy text (do we really need the bridesmaids’ picture to say “the girls”?). Effects are heaped onto pictures for no seemingly valid reason other than effects for effect’s sake, it has nothing to actually do with the image itself that enhances anything particular to it. There isn’t any design skill or layout strategy involved at all, yet it’s being called a “design” nonetheless. As a former graphic artist, this treatment doesn’t pass me by unnoticed.
Do an image search on Google and you’ll see plenty of examples of just what I’m talking about. Like these: images.google.com/images
To my eye, many of these designs are all over the place. As I mentioned, there doesn’t seem to be a design at all, as any design specs are inconsistent, if they exist at all.
A well done design enhances the images much like a well designed gallery enhances the art on its walls. Less is more.
Too much of anything looks cluttered. If the design garners more attention than the images, it’s a poor design.
When you think about it, one realizes it wouldn’t be reasonable to expect to see professionally designed albums from photography studios. Why not? Because if you’re a professional graphic artist, schooled and practiced in the principles of successful art and design, chances are you’re not going to go work for the local wedding photography studio down the block. Nope. You’re going to look to work for a firm such as Getty Publications. You’re going to seek to establish a serious career.
Local studios hire whomever is available to them (I know of one that uses some guy in the Philippines because he’s cheaper than them employing a local high school student to work on the albums, another that uses the owner’s wife’s girlfriend because she ’s into scrapbooking), so my guess is they don’t get artists who’ve mastered the rules such as the use of negative and positive space, the ways of breaking space and organizing shapes and the use of compositional techniques. All sorts of little “rules” you may not think of but which contribute to great design. We learn this stuff in art school for a reason.
And that’s before we even start talking about what to consider when determining which of the images to use. That requires prudence and discipline to edit through. You can love, love, love an image, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it has a place in the final wedding album if it really just doesn’t fit.
Lots of great acting and cinematic shots in movie history ended up on the cutting room floor.
And film editors get Academy Awards for knowing what to cut… and doing it.
Jerry Ghionis is an Australian wedding photographer named by American PHOTO magazine as one of the Top Ten Wedding Photographers in the World. Here’s a video he made of a critique he did of an anonymous photographer’s wedding album design. You’ll get an idea of some of the considerations that go into how he chooses images for a wedding album. It’s an interesting peek into the thought process. Mr. Ghionis has won the Australian Institute of Professional Photography’s Album of the Year award 4 years in a row, so he might have a thing or two to tell us!
Storytelling qualities, impact, style, composition and creativity are all components of classic design that stand the test of time when executed well and never look dated. It’s not simply about placing pictures next to each other with all sorts of tilts and effects.
It was as if a lightening bolt had exploded in my mind. There were some elements to various wedding albums that I noticed conjured up certain words from different people to describe them, yet, it all pointed to the same descriptive vocabulary. Words like:
“Sumptuous”
“Luscious”
“Wow”
I had to put my finger on exactly what it was that was making us all drool looking at these books.
That’s when the bolt hit.
So I wrote down all the criteria and started contacting album manufacturers, until I found one that could make the kinds of albums I was dreaming of.
I’m in the process of now of having samples made and I am so looking forward to them!
I feel like Les Paul awaiting his namesake Gibson guitar.
These are wedding albums made to my specifications. High end, quality books with a look and feel that literally blow away anything else out there.
“Just no comparison” is what I’m being told.
Very cool.
I do believe you’ve never seen anything like this.
Even a picture of it wouldn’t show you what it’s like.
That would be like trying to show you a high def picture on an analog TV set.
“Wow” is about all I could manage to gasp when I received my latest Wedding Book.
From its first page to its last, it’s a huge, luscious, beautiful work, looking and feeling every inch a fine art portfolio, yet documenting a vibrant, exciting wedding day in ol’ New York. Looking as luxurious and unique as when you walk into a Barnes & Noble and behold those artfully designed, picturesque coffee table books on display. And looking at, as you take in each page, it’s enthralling!
Bridal couples are looking for something different, rather then the same old, same old (well, that is to say, just the hip couples are). And I don’t blame them. After a while in this industry, my eyes search for new and unique too.
That’s why I mostly feature Hardcover Books. They look amazingly cool, are very contemporary and to tell you the truth, are stunning. And now, there’s a new style out.
It’s the Hardcover Book style, but with firmer, lay flat style, hinged pages. They’re more durable, they’re glossy and OMG, WoW!!! Do they make a difference! It’s amazing. The book takes on this new dimension beyond the traditional album. It’s more like a story telling art book.
So I thought I’d render them as larger 22×14 and 28×11 size books and I have to tell you…they’re impressive! You’ve never seen anything like this. I sure haven’t.
Introducing… The Wedding Story Art Book.
(Pictures don’t do it justice. You REALLY have to see it in real life to believe it! It’s just jaw dropping!)
Yes, it’s only been a couple of weeks since I photographed this event, and yes, here’s some of their wedding book design. To quote a previous bridal client:
“We had our storybook album hand delivered within 2 months. 2 MONTHS.”
When I photograph engagement sessions, sometimes we create these cool little “carry around” books – they’re like miniature art books! – from the images so the bride & groom can take them around town with them to show to friends, co-workers… strangers on the subway…
Yes, yes, I know! I photographed this wedding just a few weeks ago. I blogged some of the photos and, yes again, the wedding book is now in the works and the honeymooners are eagerly expecting the arrival of their very first… wedding book!
It’s that I go about these things so differently then others – that’s why my clients are getting their books in their hands while others are still waiting for their photographers to even see their proofs! My, my. Life isn’t fair.
Here are a few pages from their wedding book design:
