Camilla & Norman Wedding 2/15/09

Wedding is a Fantasy, my job is to amplify that fantasy!

Wedding is one big fantasy, how often is it that we spend $5,6,7000 on a dress that we are planning to wear only once? invite 150-200 people for dinner and take care of the bill? How often do we blow $100,000 in a single day? FANTASY!!!

As a photographer, I recognize that fact, thus my job is to amplify that fantasy! My job is to make my bride look her absolute best. Brides tell me that I am silly, goofy, funny up until they see their photographs. They love them, they cry, they laugh and they remember all the emotions that they were feeling at the moment the photograph was taken.

I don't have a problem making a fool out of myself to make my bride and groom show off the emotions and feelings without a single reservation, hold back or embarrassment.

I just came back from a meeting with a bride that wants to book Treasure the Moments Photography to document her wedding day. The first thing she told me is that she wants the photographer to be a "fly on the wall".

I am sorry, a fly on the wall? You are booking a photographer, you are spending $5-$10,000 don't you want to know that the photographer is actually there and you are getting your money's worth? Bottom line is that now a days anybody can TAKE a picture, the camera's are great and if you give a 3 year old a point a shoot and ask them to take a photo, well one out of 20 shots might be usable. How many times do I see guests at a wedding photographing themselves? They don't even need us anymore :-).

On the other hand, how many can CREATE a photograph, evoke the emotion, create the moment? I love playing games with my couples, I want them to have fun. Some purists claim that I am imposing my own ideas onto my clients.... Well I am not, I am merely offering a suggestion that I know will cause a reaction. I have no idea what reaction but I will be there in the right place in the right time and capture it, making it look like the most photojournalistic moment has just occurred and I have captured it.

There are moments that you can not physically wait to occur. Or that magic will never happen.
Many photographers I talk with often tell me that I am lucky. Lucky??? I absolutely do not believe in luck. I work my behind off to get the photographs that my clients get.

I photograph each wedding with an incredible sense of urgency, honestly, photographing weddings for over 13 years I still feel that if I don't do my absolute best on the wedding day, i will be killed. This helps me be creative. So when photographers tell me I am lucky, that brides that they get are not "working it", I always tell them that absolutely not YOU ARE NOT WORKING IT!

Bottom line, I love photographing weddings, I think I will be doing what I love until the day that I crossover to another world. In the meantime, if you are a photographer do it for the love and the passion that have originally got you into photography.

Greg Khitrov 2009

Underwater World in Riviera Maya Mexico

As you may already know, we have come back from Mexico. In addition to photography my passion has always been an underwater world. Here are just a few of my favorite photographs from our snorkeling trip off the coast of Riviera Maya, Mexico.

Family Vacation

We at Treasure the Moments spent the whole winter revamping, reviewing and redesigning from our services to our website. As you might have noticed our website has changed, please feel free to comment on the feel and quality of the website.

Finally after the hard work, time was to take the family to a winter vacation. This year we decided to go to Mexico, Riviera Maya to be exact.


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Here I am posting some of my favorite images from the trip.


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Wedding of Jessica and Wellington 11/09/08

Can you tell what she is telling him?


Groom with his best men, who is also his younger brother

Mother of the bride during the ceremony



Now how can the pro compete with this?

Inspired

About a week ago I have afforded an opportunity to listen to one of my favorite wedding photographers, Jerry Ghionis. He is an Australian photographer with an amazing ability to see light. He has opened up a completely different world for me with his ideas about light utilization.

So this past Friday I had a beautiful wedding of Shanna and Kevin and I could not wait to try some of the new things that I have learned on this lucky couple.

For example this is a photograph of a bride (Shanna) who is by the way 6 months pregnant. Congratulations! I have never looked at reflection before, I have never paid attention to them up until this recent seminar. So this is what I get when I sit the bride in front of a grand piano and bring a kind of a stained glass very close to her left side.

One bride is great, four however is better :-). I could have easily created this photograph in Photoshop, but being able to capture it "live" and convert your vision into reality is priceless. For my light I have used the light that happened to be in the room. I shut off all the lights in the room, closed all the blinds and asked the bride to look at the light and reflect on her childhood growing up in this house. Isn't this an incredible portrait?

Here is another one of my favorites:

The bride just got into her limo to go to church. Mom and dad have escorted her and helped her into the car. For a split second, the bride happened to open the window and I saw this increadible image in my head with bride looking at her parent for the last time as a single girl and the parents reflection and emotion seen in the reflection of the limo's window.

This to me is a priceless image that this bride will cherish for the rest of her life.

Here is another image inspired by Jerry. This is a photograph of a groom right before ceremony in the back room behind the alter. The light was terrible as always, but I saw this little window from the side. I have asked the alter boy to turn off all the light, I set the groom on the chair and asked to fix his coller. How coold does this look? Than I asked him to look up at me while he is fixing his collar, take a look at the second shot.







The best man was also in the room with the groom so I really wanted to capture the emotion, the fun and the joy of Kevin's special day. Using the same light from that window I have asked the two brothers to be themselves and just chat and "hang".

Here are few more shots from that day.