I was both humbled and honored to be asked to join Ramiro Gaytan of Gaytan Productions to be his second photographer/ behind the scenes shooter recently. The event occurred on Sept. 30, 2010 and it was an all day event. My morning started at 6:00AM, after working a full night shift and getting about (maybe) 5 hours of sleep; and I'd do it all over again in a flash!
Ramiro is one of my instructors at our local Community Photography Center, an awesome resource for beginning, advanced and professional photographers, Tri-Community is a blessing around these areas. To say that Ramiro understands the fundamentals of photography is an understatement. Ramiro is the type of energetic, approachable, willing to share his knowledge kind of guy, simply put, he's very good at what he does! He can step into a room, or outdoors for that matter, read the light simply by sight and call out ISO, F-Stop and shutter speed (and flash settings if needed) for any given light situation and be spot-on the exposure of that particular image; truely amazing.
Ok, so if you haven't already guessed by my continued admiration of Ramiro's work, style and overall personality, he is one of my inspirations, and I strive to one day (when I grow up) to be like him!
Some of the following images are the property of Ramiro Gaytan, copy-right Gaytan Productions, Inc. and are being used here with permission to show his work on my blog.
We started the with the groom Bryan, and his grooms men the morning of the wedding. We were welcomed into a complete strangers home and felt immediately the warmth of the day to come. It was an exciting and happy feeling floating in the household.
I love the angle of the shot, the open space to the right and the dramatic clouds. It had just finished raining (it actually poured), we thought we might not be able to get outdoors shots, but the rain stopped enough to allow us to step outside.
And below is my behind the scenes of this exact same shoot. As you can see, Ramiro does whatever it take to get the shoot. My image is not enhanced, it is unedited; straight out of my camera. I want to show the rawness of behind the scenes with my pictures for this post...
Here the chaps line up for a groom's men picture, I love the way Ramiro directly Bryan's swagger, it makes him standout, look at the pride he captured.
My behind the scenes below of the same shot showing Ramiro getting his image:
And my personal favorites, I was holding one of the flashes for the shots, so I don't have a behind the scene's. However I have a few leading up to the shots...
I was amazed again by how Ramiro captured these images. Had I not been there myself to see the end results, I would have said, "these images were totally manipulated in photoshop" - but very little editing took place. These are practically identical to what was captured on location by correctly exposing the images in the camera by El Maestro! The tones, and blacks enhanced a bit and a little dodging was all that was done to these as I understand it. One word: WOW.
Here are my behind the scenes leading up to the bridge and groom's spectacular photos:
And as all good things, this post comes to an end, I leave you with one of my shots of the end of the rainbow from that day, what a wonderful day, what a great experience, I hope to be able to again soon. Cheers.
