Last month I flew to New York to cover a wedding in Manhattan. It was held at The Riverside Church in upper Manhattan and the whole place was just stunning.  It was raining a day before and there was a chance of a storm/hurricane on the day of the wedding. Luckily, it all cleared up by the time I arrived at the hair salon and we had no rain until the wedding was over.

As with all cathedrals, use of flash was not allowed for most of the ceremony. That really made me thank myself for upgrading my cameras recently.:)  I shot most of the ceremony at ISO4000-6400 at 1/30-1/60/sec at 1.8f.  That really made me think how far digital cameras evolved since I first bought Canon 10D in 2003. Back then ISO800 was the maximum I was willing to do as anything past then looked terrible.

Back to the wedding.  The wedding was absolutely amazing.  We took a few photos inside and outside right after the ceremony. Our reception was on the 9th floor of the church! One thing that caught my attention was their wedding cake. On top the cake there was a figurine of a bride and groom dancing.  Immediately an idea came to my head to use this somehow during the actual dance. A photo of what came out of it can be seen in one of the examples bellow.

Funny:  A day before the wedding I attended A&J’s  rehearsal at the church and then spent a few hours walking around lower Manhattan and randomly taking pictures( I proudly call myself a photo addict ).  At some point I felt like someone was watching me. I turned around and noticed 2 12-14 y.o.  boys standing about 40 feet away and looking at me. About 20 minutes later I glanced back and noticed them again and this time a bit closer.  Right away I knew something was wrong and it was NOT my expensive camera.    I looked at my pockets to see if perhaps I had some $bills out on the open. Then took off my photo backpack. Oh God…My laptop was sticking out from the side pocket to the point where any more and it would’ve just fallen onto the ground.  I smiled and looked back at them.  They started laughing,turned around and ran away.  I often forget to zip up this side pocket and I guess it was a good wake up call.

Getting Ready

split moment candid

The Riverside Church

Wedding Cake