T-Rex Weddings

I had my first meeting for my internship with event photographer Beth Ely. Somehow, I managed to make it through a design degree without ever doing an internship. I don't know, maybe there was a point at which people thought that academic experience was what you were supposed to be getting while in school. Crazy, right? In any case, this is the first time that an internship makes sense for me because I am trying to learn a set of skills from a working professional in a career that I actually want to be involved in. I always knew I didn't want to practice interior design (okay, not always but approximately two semesters after beginning my master's degree).

I am actually somewhat terrified. I am used to being an expert; an authority in my field. Now, it is back to being a novice. Also, there are people involved. And I have to stay awake at night. The only thing missing is giant spiders that crawl down the back of my shirt without warning (typical spider warning: hey, lady, we are going to climb down the back of your shirt...). Beth is very enjoyable though and I met with her for the first time on Monday at her house. I was also interviewed by her english bulldog Winston. His major concern seemed to be whether or not I would get along well with his stuffed frogs. I think it went well.

I love that the groom appears not so much to be pulling his bride forward as trying to hold her back so he can get away. Image by Quentin Miller as featured on the BBC

The first wedding that I am attending is on Saturday. I won't be taking pictures, more just watching Beth out of the corner of my eye in an attempt to not just creepily stare at her while she works. She apparently wears two cameras in holsters and I have got an awesome picture in my head to accompany that. She was telling me about her style at which point she mentioned something called the t-Rex shot. I spent a couple minutes trying to imagine what the words were that she had really said that I had somehow mistaken for t-Rex. Coming up empty handed, I finally asked. Apparently, the t-Rex shot is when the wedding party stands in a line on the far side of a field and when counted in they all run towards the photographer with terrified looks on their faces. Then you Photoshop a t-rex into the background (scroll to the bottom for the dinoshot) as the photographers at DWJ studio did for a 2013 Idaho wedding. I do not know how I did not already think of this. I'm imagining a lot of zombie shoots in the future...

I will be photographing the wedding of a friend of mine (who may or may not want her name revealed...so I will call her 'fluffy bunny slippers). She got approval from her fiance and so in August, I will be trying to capture Fluffy Bunny Slippers magical moment...and I really don't want to give her 3,700 underexposed JPEGs and realize after the party is over that I didn't ever actually take a picture of the bride and in fact all I have are selfies of me pretending to eat a cake. 

With a t-Rex in the background.