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An Adventure Elopement Styled Shoot

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It’s always fun to indulge when creating a styled shoot. They explore the realm of what’s possible, not what’s reasonable or likely. For this Austin styled elopement we set out to create a classic small wedding ceremony in a country church, with a couple somewhat informally dressed. All the details: wedding bouquet, boutonniere and the brides head wreath  stuck to the clean white pallet. We wanted to portray a more relaxed version of a wedding that was still classy, and one that ended with something special: a trip to a great honeymoon destination via a private bi-plane.

This styled shoot was a collaboration with Uptown Events and Travel and their spirit of adventure shows through.

Austin Styled Elopement

This tiny church is located in Kingsbury, Texas. Similar churches are dotted around east Austin including New Sweden Church in Manor. It felt right to have our couple start out at an old country church.

Austin Wedding Style - Styled Wedding Shoot - Couple kisses in front of a old country church outside Austin

Austin Wedding Style - Styled Wedding Shoot - Wedding portraits outside a small country church in east Austin.

Austin Wedding Style - Styled Wedding Shoot - Wedding portraits in front of small country church with nice stained glass near Manor.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and groom make their way to their classic camaro get-away car.

A Classic Car Get-Away

Why a classic car? We love cars. It’s always fun to combine genres so we brought in some of our automotive photography to this styled wedding shoot.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride drives the couples classic camaro get-away car.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride drives the couples classic camaro get-away car.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride drives the couples classic camaro get-away car.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom pose next to their classic camaro get-away vehicle.

A Secluded Evening Together

Continuing the theme of adventure, we imagined a secluded evening in a natural setting complete with a reflected sunset in a still lake, a camp fire and music.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom enjoy sunset reflections at a secluded spot.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom, guitar and camp fire.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom, guitar and camp fire.

Time for the Honeymoon

What is not to love about a beautiful couple paired with a great vintage style biplane?

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom make their way to a vintage bi-plane for a honeymoon get-away.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom make their way to a vintage bi-plane for a honeymoon get-away.

Austin Wedding Styled - Styled Elopement - Bride and Groom make their way to a vintage bi-plane for a honeymoon get-away.

Breaking the 4th wall for a minute, this part of the shoot was probably the most challenging. The biplane lives at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. We had about 2 hours total in the middle of a July afternoon, including setup and tear-down. And of course, it was a crystal clear and scorching hot Texas July day. Thanks to having a great team, everything went quick and smooth. If anything, we made way more great pictures than it makes sense to share.

The Team

The photos in this blog post were shot by #TeamBlue partners Josh Baker and Andrew Fritz. Coordination and much of the styling, including access to the Biplane was handled by Uptown Events & Travel. The biplane was provided by Austin Biplane. The Bridal Bouquet and other floral styling provided by Malleret Designs.

Black Supra, Ninja Light

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Black Supra in front of Austin Energy

Challenging myself is always where I want to be in my personal, creative work. I want to fail trying in new things on my own time so that I can experiment and take the few successes we find onto my client work to wow them. In essence, this is my playground, but a fifth grader just punched me in the gut and took my lunch money. You see, lighting a black shiny car at night is akin to photographing a sphere of mirrors. The body panels can “see” all of the lights, and photographers, and cameras, and assistants, etc, etc, etc (in my best Yul Brenner).

We tried small bare strobes to light just the edges and wheel wells. We tried huge PLM’s above and beside the car. We tried just ambient. And we combined variations of all three of these. After more than an hour we got as close as we were going to get. Luckily, I had another kernel of idea that I wanted to try, which was using a low shutter speed to show the car in motion through the streets of Austin. Now, we didn’t have a cool suction cup magic arm. But we did have a 25 foot Dodge Truck with a camper shell (useful for avoiding unwanted attention).

Congress Bridge in a 750 hp Supra

So my ninja light is the ones you don’t notice, mainly straight ambient exposure which doesn’t give off any strange shadows that would give away a strobe’s signature. For someone who loves to add a strobe or two or three, shooting straight ambient and still getting exciting is a good exercise for me. And tomorrow I am getting my lunch money back.

Thanks to Darin and his patient bride for allowing us to photograph your stealth 750 hp car!
–JB