Welcome to Art Studio 21 Photography!

Karla and Tomoslav’s wedding was the first wedding we photographed in Victoria in the 2010 wedding season!  You guys had a great wedding and reception– it was elegant and beautiful, and I think  your guests had a great time.  Thanks for being such great clients!

We shot these engagement portraits of Claire and Dan early in the summer of 2010.  We love finding cool spots in the city or down by the ocean and creating great memories for our clients!  Claire and Dan, you guys were great!  We’ll post some pictures of your wedding later in the fall!

Summer is the perfect time for having portraits taken during family reunions and gatherings.  Make sure you take lots of photographs of your family and friends!  Keep people in the shade for nice, clean skin tones and to minimize squinting.  There are so many beautiful places to photograph portraits in Victoria and all over Vancouver Island.   Here is a client’s portrait from the other day– I love how there are three generations in this one image.  What a priceless memory!  Please give David a call if you have any questions!

I would recommend that you have a prepared family portrait list for your photographer on your wedding day– it makes it much easier, and more efficient to photograph the family groupings with a list.

Preparing a family portrait list also gives the bride and groom and their families some time to think about who they should include.

I recommend photographing the groups with children and the grandparents first and then finishing with the portraits of the smaller family groups.  It is probably better to photograph one family at a time so when one group is done, they can go to the reception for preparations, or relax before the reception.

Remember to include those special out of town family members.  How about a generational photograph (Grandma, Mom, and Bride)?

It is also helpful if there is a family member who can help get people ready for the photographer as this will allow the photographer to spend their time taking the pictures!

Most importantly a prepared list and helpful family member will mean the bride and groom will not need to coordinate or think about who they want in what photographs during their wedding day which mean more fun, and less stress!

Most stress on a wedding day is the pressure of time.

Either perceived or real, the pressure of time may have a huge impact on how you are feeling on your wedding day, and that will determine how you look in your photographs!

To help start the wedding day off on time, I recommend that the bride should NOT be the last one to get her makeup done.

The makeup goes on before the dress (obviously), so we can’t create any photographs with the bride in her wedding dress until she is finished.  If the makeup artist is running behind, this will hold everything up.

I recommend that the bride should have her makeup done somewhere in the middle of her bridesmaids so her makeup is still fresh, but it still gives us lots of time to help get the bride ready and create wonderful photographs of the bride in her dress and with her friends and family before the ceremony.

If you have any questions about timing on your wedding day, please don’t hesitate to ask me!

Thanks Karla and Tomoslav, for having us photograph your wedding!  It was so much fun.  Hope you love the images we created for you!

David and Yasuko

We know what works!!

With experience photographing weddings for brides, grooms, and families as the photographers at over 300 weddings in Japan and Canada, we know a thing or two about timing.

Plan for the Time to Do It Right…

One of the more important aspects of successful wedding photography is having enough time to create outstanding images of the bride and groom.

For most of our wedding photography commissions in Victoria we recommend a 2 o’clock ceremony, and 6 o’clock reception.  That allows enough time for the ceremony, travel time, photographs of family and friends, fun photographs of the bridal party, and terrific photographs for the bride and groom at two or more locations.

Many images at a wedding are traditional by nature (e.g. family portraits, ring shots, etc.), and if you don’t give yourself enough time, often the bride and groom photography time is cut short.  Remember to factor in travel time, time for a receiving line, and time for unusual traffic.

Finally let us help you plan the photography for those great ‘getting ready’ shots or reception photographs.  These images are great additions to your wedding collection of memories, but needed to be timed well for best results!

We can help you plan your wedding photography schedule to make it stress free and fun. But most importantly of all, there will be lots of time to create those great wedding memories!

If you have any questions about your wedding photography, don’t hesitate to call David at 250.888.0865.

Gerber daisy flowers are very beautiful, colourful flowers that are quite popular for weddings.

However, I don’t recommend them for your boutonnieres because of their fragile stem.

I have seen many broken gerber daisy bouttonieres on the ground, whose stems had been snapped by clumsy fingers trying to fasten the bouttonieres to the tux jackets!

If you must have a gerber daisy for a boutonniere make sure the florist provides a plastic sheath to go around and protect the stem from breaking, or combines the stem with other greenery to protect it!  They can also wrap the stem in floral tape, or insert a wire into the stem to strengthen the gerber daisy.

Handle with care!

What to do with those negatives? Yes, I mean negatives from film, not digital files.

First of all, I hope your negatives are somewhere safe– preferably in acid free sleeves, in a binder or folder somewhere dark and cool. I have all of my client’s negatives sorted by date, and titled with their name and I also attached the small index print to the front of the negative sleeve sheet for easy identification.

If you haven’t already had your negatives printed or think you may want to print images in the future, I would recommend doing it sooner than later. The emulsion on the film fades over time, and more and more printers are not familiar with how to optimize their machines for printing negatives.

Your ability to get quality prints from these negatives will diminish over time.

In Victoria I would recommend Prism Imaging (250.386.7787) to print and digitize your negatives. Digitizing negatives can cost $10 – $18/roll depending on the resolution. The digitized files can be printed and used on your computer as screen savers and for social media applications like Facebook.

If you have negatives (or if your photographer has your wedding photography negatives) I would strongly recommend you get them and have them digitized and printed.

Photographs are the most precious record we have of our past– our hard-copy history to share with our children, friends, and family.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

We just finished compiling a new video of some of our more recent wedding photography commissions.  Most of these weddings are in Victoria, but some are from Duncan, Parksville, and Qualicum Beach.  Please let me know if you have any questions!