Monday, May 11, 2009

269: a narrative of chris + michelle's wedding


(Post subtitle: In Which My Best Friend Gets Really Drunk and Plays a Starring Role)

(Subtitle to subtitle: And Steals My Writing Notebook and Writes a Lewd Prose Poem, Which She Reads Aloud to Her Much Embarrassed Husband)

Last Saturday Ryan and I headed up to Duluth for Chris and Michelle's wedding. To and from, on the three plus hour drive, we listened to Chris's podcasts of Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me (not to be confused with the groom Chris, this Chris has been my friend since high school). The wedding: indoors, on the steps outside the Moorish Room at Greysolon Plaza, our hotel room just across the bricked street. The wedding itself was sweet: the bride cried, the officiate was warm and sincere, the cake topper was fitting. Kelly had the evening away from Christian, and instead of strapping the cell phone to her ear, calling every three and a half minutes to check on him and her mother, she opted to check one last time, and then not let any champagne go to waste. Fortunately, she switched over to water halfway through, but not before she had a dance off with another bridesmaid and asked a few awkwardly personal questions of another guest.

Tomorrow: photos of Duluth's shore from the next morning.

Also: for those of you who know a little something about photography... I tend to love natural light, which is part of why I have yet to learn anything about the flash. But, especially with the U of MN's department events, which I am sometimes requested to take photos of, I need to learn how to adapt to indoor lighting. For now, I've simply shot in the low light, which leads to this awful yellow cast. Any tips? My flash stutters as it attempts to auto-focus, so perhaps manually focusing so I don't blind people? Ryan got me a fancy flash for Christmas, and I've only used it minimally.

And along the lines of photography: I think I started heavily uploading photos onto my blog about two years ago, and I can see a shift in the way I perceive things, both the written word and behind the lens. While these shots need a lot of work, and one day I'll learn one of those photo editing programs for touch ups (I still like the idea of the photos being more "organic"--more "out of the can"), I am enjoying the new framings of things, learning how to draw the eye not by the perfectly centered, fill-up-the-frame type shots, but in other ways too. And learning to use the blur to work in your favor, to shift the focus onto facial expressions of one, etc. (Ex: the one of Michelle + Kelly during the dollar dance.) I've got so much to learn, and I'm enjoying this self-taught process. Observe others, shift. I do think there's a photography class in my not-so-distant future, however.

And more photos of the wedding in this Flickr photoset.

And one last thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MERYL!

4 comments:

Allison said...

the photos are beautiful - a perfect visual narrative!

i go back and forth in my mind about photo editing. like you, i think there is something to be said for the as-shot picture. at the same time, i love editing a photo to a certain perfection because it feels almost like painting to me. both ways have their merits i suppose. either way, your photos (these and every other) are always lovely.

oma said...

hey molly--i agree--the photos are lovely. what kind of camera do you have? i have a canon rebel XT and i also got a fancy flash for christmas (a speedlite) that i haven't played with nearly enough. i, like you, like the natural light thing. the flash has worked when i've used it, though, much better than the pop-up on the camera. i have enjoyed shooting in RAW mode mainly to be able to edit the white balance on indoor photos and make them a tad less yellow.

KeLL said...

I remember it being a very lovely poem that I authored. And I'm sorry, but from what I heard, I seriously thought he was gay....
And it was a respectable wedding!!!

michelle said...

i realized that while i've looked at these photos a dozen times i failed to comment. thank you for taking such lovely pictures molly!

and kelly - no worries about the mistaken gayness. we all thought it was hysterical :) hee hee :)