What does your photographer do when you’re not looking?

Take silly pictures…

What would you do?

Aw, my long arm technique needs work – can’t get our faces in focus!

International men of mystery, the Ontario Place pavillions do look like something out of a mid 70′s James Bond film.

So we better act the part!

And turn it into a fight scene on the precipitous edge where only the strong survive the sunset.

Or maybe it’s a kung-fu movie, who knows – after working a wedding for 8 hours your minds a little bent.

Ok but just in-case this is the first time you’ve met me or Amish – take a look at what I shot that day, and here’s a few of Amish’s images if you’re looking for a Toronto area wedding photographer.  Just moment’s before our silliness:
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Are you looking for something different in senior portraits?

Then get on your dirt-bike and let’s rock you some cool images!

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“Hey Neil  - were the pictures good?”

“um, aaah, well….the face of God smiled on me”

I can’t really explain it any other way…in case you were wondering what I was doing earlier tonight.

We had to tolerate thunderstorm downpours – but we got to  receive  the blessings of the August sunset.  If you’re planning an August wedding in Upstate New York be sure to plan some time for sunset portraits.

Well, I’d like to brag that I just have a ‘nose for a wedding’

But, while that may partially be true – really I’m just lucky that I wrote Erik…

…and Danielle was smart to encourage him to call me back…

…and I was lucky enough to get the voicemail as I hiked to the top of Pilsbury mountain with Eben…

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I just uploaded three new events to www.Make Love Real.com for viewing and ordering prints from your wedding events!

We have everything from Rochester NY to the Scottish highlands!

I’ll update you with the stories behind all these images through the next week or two.

Ever heard of VFXY? imagine hovering over 1000′s of photo blogs from 6000 feet high in a helicopter, and you can swoop down and take a look at any photo that interests you! This week’s theme is blue, and I’ve recently recognized BLUE as a big theme in my work.

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So it’s been a while since I’ve discussed a picture, and I thought this would be a good one to talk about. I shot this image at a recent November wedding with it’s bride only counterpart. I enjoyed creating this image in an empty lot next to Christina’s (the bride’s) parent’s home where she prepared for the wedding. The enjoyment came from being able to create mood and style easily in the early evening that comes in November. The frame above was made at 5:03:22PM between the ceremony and reception. The early sunset gave me the chance to control the lighting in the image by using my strobes instead of relying on the mood of the natural light.

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While I was in NYC a few days ago for the Photo+ Trade show, I was able to meet up with Wendy and Billy, who were married in September of ’06 at the Ausable Club in the heart of the Adirondacks. So we met in the Madison Square park and shot under these weirdish silver coated sculptures, with the empire state building in the background.

And played around in the park… … Read more

The Thakrar family held a sumptuous wedding for their daughter Upta.

I say sumptuous, but maybe I should say scrumptious – I like the three square meal aspect of Indian weddings!

And as a wedding photojournalist, so many allegorical ceremony elements gives me lots of action to capture.

Ok so here’s some of the characters, that’s Upda looking like a bride and giving someone a wink as she’s escorted in by the boys – Amish her brother is picture right in the blue. … Read more

So we were on our way to see if we could get some nice sunset pictures from the top of Cobbs hill and we saw this mountainous pile of leaves near the playgroud. And I mean mountainous, to get to the top to jump Erica and Josh climbed a good 14-16ft up and Josh convinced Erica to jump with him. I only got one exposure per jump, but as you can tell – it was a good exposure! My clients are the bravest people in town – the 10 year old that was there thought we were the coolest adults he’d ever seen!

You can see some group photos we’ve taken on the wedding day at Cobb’s hill overlook of the Skyline of Rochester.

Grand Canyon rim wedding photographer, Flagstaff AZ and Las Vegas NV photojournalist. Shoshone Point wedding photos El Tovar Hotel, Thunderbird Lodge, Kachina Lodge and National Park wedding planning by destination wedding photojournalist Neil Cowley.

Contact us to book a grand package for your Arizona high desert wedding.

Blog readers meet Dave:

WWW meet Autumn:

They married and had a party at the nicely private Viceroy – Palm Springs

My favorite part however was working with my colleague Joesef Isayo out of Los Angeles who is a tremenous seer, and quality photojournalist. We’re both WPJA contest winners have a sightly ironic and sarcastic sense of humor and so hit it off nicely. I just hope I can develop my seeing to where he’s at! I went out to shoot with Josef to give myself a break from the pressures of being ‘the’ photographer and to hopefully break free from what I feel is a visual rut – doing the same thing over and over. I don’t think I’m quite out of it yet – but I’m working on expanding my horizons. Josef has a keen eye for ‘it’ – that sense of place while retaining mystery, the sense of style while remaining undefined. That vision is hard to develop and even harder to consistantly walk the artistic line of being abstract with literal objects. I didn’t find the new perspective all at once, thanks Josef for the opportunity to try!

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