Romantic Charleston Wedding Portraits

Charleston South Carolina is a very romantic city; the history, the humidity, the active nightlife…so if you’re getting married here, leave some time in your day to connect with your lover and take some romantic evening portraits. I recommend dusk, because the lighting helps your eyes relax – and the colors in the sky change giving your pictures a variety as dusk falls. Anywhere from the downtown historic streets of the French Quarter to the beaches of Sullivan’s Island or James Island make for wonderful locations.

Why I’m a wedding photographer | finding spaces and places

In these few recent video posts, I’ve taken snippets of my life and shown how they add up to make me a good wedding photographer, here’s the installment from Providence RI:
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Charlotte NC vintage portraits

I have some of the coolest clients in the world:

Charlotte NC Vintage portraits - before texture

Tom and Tracy, searched me out for unique style that would help define their relationship.

Tom was headed to Iraq
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A slow moment slideshow

Let your clock die, Reclaim Your Time is an article I read the day I made this:

PSSST – You’ll want headphones to savor this 4min experience.

The slideshow track is by John Martyn – Small Hours from the album Sweet Little Mysteries: The Island Anthology

Many of the slides on this slideshow are longer than 10 seconds.

I enjoyed stretching the rules and am beginning to feel the space between the photos more fully.

Check your wedding date to see if we are available for your wedding!

This was my last wedding in Lima, my once-upon-a-time hometown, where My wife and I bought our first house, and where the sky invites the face of god. It reminds me of the amazing tropical thunderheads I’ve seen in Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.  I am so  grateful  I was blessed to experience this August evening.

Just a technical note of interest – the web is the best place to view these photos because of the amazing Electric Magenta, or Fucia color of the sky.  It is nearly impossible to reproduce that coloring in a print as explained by wikipedia:

Electric magenta vs. process magenta

When electric magenta is reproduced on paper, it is called fuchsia and it is physically impossible for it to appear on paper as vivid as on a computer screen. In order to reproduce it, a small amount of cyan printer’s ink must be added to printer’s magenta to make fuchsia, and therefore fuchsia is not a primary color of pigment–it is the color of printer’s magenta that is one of the primary colors of pigment (along with cyan and yellow).

The name fuchsia was chosen as the alias for electric magenta because that is the color name for the color that in printed reproduction is its equivalent.

Since prior to the introduction of  personal computers magenta was synonymous with printer’s magenta, colored pencils and  crayons called “magenta” are usually colored the color ofprocess magenta (printer’s magenta) shown above.

So while we experience it – it’s not yet something that we can fully capture!

I just thought that was a beautiful analogy to a photograph.

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A note on love…

My wife and I are proud to present…

Who is Make Love Real? from Neil Cowley on Vimeo.

…the first section of four short films about our business.  We’re totally excited to share these with you over the next couple months as we book new weddings, meet new people and get used to our new home in Charlotte – anyone in the world can meet with us through our site.  A BIG thanks to Andrew Marzano the producer of our series.

I have to dedicate this first video to My wife, the love of my life – who’s inspired me to such great heights of experience, and such great depths of understanding.

With this post, I’m initiating a new category in the site called ‘Love Note’ where anyone can send in a love note that will be published as a public proclimation for the 5-10,000 people who visit this site every month.  We’re open to any kind of media, and will help you host and present it.  I hope to see us develop this into a little bit of a friendly competion – since my love note to My wife started with a big production budget – I’m winning!

But like the old horse says, “when you are real, you can’t be ugly” – so don’t be intimidated, start sending it in!!
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Wendy & Billys Adirondack Album

Wendy & Billy finalized their album from their Adirondack mountains destination wedding. My wife and I were both there to capture this amazing event, it’s so fun when clients hire us to work together. You may recognize their mountain sized photos populating the rotating headers here in the journal, or recognize them from their preview gallery from September 16th, 2006. Sometimes it takes a while to get to greatness……

…..over a year later I hope it shows in their album design.

destination mountain wedding photographer

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Finishing the day at the Athenaeum

Graceful down the steps
So we’ll draw to a close the wonderous day at Chautauqua with Britta and Cameron.

kiss on the rim of the fountain

Chocolate favor table detail

Fun girls

Tambourine sillyness

Pouring Tequlia

Tequila shots 1

Tequila shots 2

Tequila shots 3

Tequila shots 4

Tequila shots 5

Tequila shots 6

Tequila shots 7

Dancing kiss

Later in the reception

Funk style

Dancing smiles

Intoxicated groom

Party Down

Shout it out
Oh boy – what a great party, but every event must draw to an end.

Saying goodby
Britta and Cameron say goodby from the second floor landing through the windows with a kiss as the guests cheer goodby.

Headed to the room

Across the threshold

Caress on the bed

Falling in love

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Modern Urban style wedding album

Holly & John’s wedding was in downtown Rochester NY

modern urban style wedding album

Click below to see their complete design…

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