That was before we got to know Karen & Levi.

Karen found us through our contact information in The Bridal Boutique of Gloucester.

“When I saw your photos, I knew I wanted to have you as our wedding photographers,” she told us when she first met us.

What every photographer dreams of hearing…

Their engagement session took place on Levi’s uncle’s farm. Both Karen and Levi have an intense love of Gloucester and rural life. They also work as firefighters to keep local residents safe and sound.

The first part of their wedding, held in Gloucester’s historic, 400 year old Ware Episcopal Church, was an absolutely beautiful, traditional ceremony.

Almost 200 people came to celebrate with for the happy couple.

We weren’t allowed to photograph the ceremony for religious reasons, but the rector was kind enough to let us catch the kiss shot from up in the balcony.

After a love-filled portrait session in the churchyard, we went to the reception venue… and that’s where the party really started.

The tables were decorated with beautiful, tin-can DIY deco and floral arrangements.

The food looked great too…

It wasn’t long though before the entire crowd had poured out onto the floor, dancing their hearts out.

It was so beautiful, so energetic, so much fun…

The quiet moments came when a proud father danced with his daughter, a mother danced with her son, and a husband danced with his wife.

And then before you knew it, everyone was dancing again.

And when we left, everyone was still dancing.

<3

Karen and Levi, thank you for making us part of your special day!

Thanks to Anthony Le for assisting us on this photoshoot. Film scans from bridal portraits coming soon.

If you’d like to contact us with an inquiry for your wedding or couple session, send us a message at info@www.michaelandcarina.com, or call 757-401-2551. 

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

(these links return you to our homepage!)

This was the first time we photographed with film in harsh light and we are pretty excited! Check out Elaine & Ryan’s digital engagement photos here.

They will make a stunning bride and groom this July!

More film scans from Indie Film Lab!

Thank you so much for assisting us, Seth! You are the best film-changer and reflector-holder ever!!!

If you’d like to contact us with an inquiry for your wedding or couple session, send us a message at info@www.michaelandcarina.com, or call 757-401-2551. 

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

(these links return you to our homepage!)

We adore all their ideas and plans and all the thought they’re putting into their wedding preparations. Today was like a little preview of their wedding and we LOVE it.

Although it was quite chilly, we had a blast taking engagement pictures together; they are such a fun couple!

Julie and Tim, we can hardly wait for your wedding! Until then, we hope you enjoy your engagement photos.

If you’d like to contact us with an inquiry for your wedding or couple session, send us a message at info@www.michaelandcarina.com, or call 757-401-2551. 

Virginia Wedding Photographers | Hampton Roads Wedding Photographers | Williamsburg Wedding Photographers

(these links return you to our homepage!  

With the warm weather finally coming around we decided to take our cat for a walk with August. Yes, our cat.

Our cat Bhoomi loves going for walks. Well, she loves going outside wearing a leash, walking 20 feet, and then being carried for 10 minutes, put down, walks for 10 feet, and so on til we are back home.

But she really loves it. She’s as enthusiastic about putting on her harness to go outside almost as much as she is when I open a bottle of milk. Almost.

So, because there could never be too many photos of cats on the internet (Internet Rule #346), we took some on our recent walk with her and August (who was jealous as ever, by the way).

PS. Yes, we have two cats, but Jefferson would not be caught dead on a “walk.” He likes going outside, but as soon as you put a harness on him, he collapses in a heap and refuses to move.

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Alexandria and Jeremiah

Alexandria and Jeremiah are a very special couple to us.

Alexandria was one of the first brides to contact us about being her Virginia Beach wedding photographers when we first moved to Virginia about four months ago.

At our first meeting, we knew that she was “our” bride.

 She was so excited about her upcoming wedding, about the man she’d soon call her husband and about having us capture those magic moments.

She mentioned how important it is to her that her Mom was getting caught on camera, since she was always the one behind the camera as long as Alexandria can remember.

Alexandria and Jeremiah, as one of the first couples who booked us for their wedding in the USA, after leaving everything behind in Europe, gave us confidence that we could make it as wedding photographers on this side of the planet.

We are so thankful for this trust and enthusiasm. It helped decide our fate; just a few days after our “safety return” ticket to Germany became invalid, we finally photographed their wedding.  The wedding pushed us – the ceremony started late in the evening, which meant that there was absolutely no natural light. This circumstance really pushed us out of our comfort zone – but it gave us a chance to play with some cool flash techniques

The beauty of the day made up for the lack of daylight.

Alexandria getting ready in the church, surrounded by her lovely sisters, mother and friends…

Active duty military Jeremiah, anxiously waiting for his bride to walk down the aisle and the father of the bride nervously holding his daughter’s arm…

Alexandria and Jeremiah are perfect together. They were so happy to finally be husband and wife, they could hardly stop smiling.

Later on, the crowd showed off their best dance moves. Granddad was twirling Grandma, bridesmaids were spinning little girls around and the bride and groom…well, they got lost in each other’s eyes.

Alexandria and Jeremiah, it was an honor to capture your special day (and a lot of fun!). We know you’ll be a rockin’ husband and wife!

Virginia Beach Wedding Photography | Williamsburg Wedding Photography | Virginia Wedding Photography

We live in Yorktown and would love to meet with you to offer you a free consultation if you’re considering us for as your Virginia Beach wedding photographers.

Just send us an email at info@www.michaelandcarina.com! 

Pilar and Jarad approached us in the last week of November with a request you don’t get every day. After 7 years of being together, loving each other, and traveling the world, they wanted to give their families (and themselves) a special Christmas present by eloping this weekend! We were especially honored because not only were we the photographers, as they told us the day of, we were two of only three other people (the third being the officiant, Ivory Morgan Burton of Storybook Events) who were in on their plans!

We met in beautiful, historic Williamsburg for the wedding which was held at an amphitheater on the College of William and Mary campus. The weather was perfect and we had the most gorgeous natural light you could hope for at an outdoor wedding. We captured Pilar and Jarad’s bridal portraits in and around Colonial Williamsburg.

Pilar, Jarad, thank you so much for making us a part of your very intimate ceremony. We hope as you share these photos with your friends and family, they can get a sense of just how beautiful your special day was.You guys are a fantastic couple! – Michael and Carina

Carina at work (this bride made it easy!)










technical info: we photographed this wedding using Canon 5D Mark IIs w/ 50mm, 16-35mm, and 100mm L lenses, and natural light only.

April at the Wedmore Place in Williamsburg, VA. Kirstie Fals Makeup Artistry and Spring Wiley styling really took this bridal photography session to the next level!

These  bridal portraits were taken last month (October 2012) at the beautiful Williamsburg Winery. Kirstie Fals Makeup Artistry and Spring Wiley provided makeup and styling,  flowers were provided by Williamsburg Floral, cake was provided by Sara at the Courthouse Cake Company.

They are going to have GREAT photos for their personalized guest book at their wedding in Virginia Beach next month, and a nice set of images to compliment their wedding photos (which we are sure will be just as lovely)!

If you are in Central or Southeastern Virginia and would like to schedule an engagement or couple session, contact us today!

We took these with less than of hour of daylight left near Yorktown Battlefield, in only natural light.

If you would like to contact us for portrait photography, just send us a message in our contact form.

Jenny contacted us soon after we moved from Germany to Virginia. She found one of our ads online and contacted us to ask about meeting via Skype. A few minutes into our Skype conference we knew we had found our clients!

This couple had a funky personality and you can tell that even though she’s from Brooklyn and he’s from North Carolina, they’re made for each other!

It was FREEZING and windy that evening, so we didn’t want to ask our couple to stand out in the cold for terribly long. They made it easy for us, too! They were naturals in front of the camera. We had these portraits in about 15-20 minutes.

From here, we went on to the ceremony and reception, which was held in and catered by the Carlyle Club, a funky jazz club in Alexandria, VA.

The venue was atmospheric and cool, totally suited to Jenny’s & Richard’s personalities.

We had SO much fun. Jenny & Richard, thanks for inviting us to be a part of your wedding!

For photography enthusiasts: We photographed this wedding with several 5D Mark IIs, a 16-35mm lens, a 50mm lens, and a 100mm lens, with several strobes and speedlights. We edited the photos in

Adobe Lightroom 4 & Photoshop cs6.

Asking Bobby to pose for a few portraits was not a problem for him at all – he was in his element. We spent some time together in the late afternoon sun and we made these together, all natural light with a 16-35mm L lens & a 5D Mk II. The images are all unedited. I converted them directly from RAW to JPEG. The light was gorgeous, and Bobby and I got to spend some much needed time together (Carina and I have been pretty busy lately!).

Thanks for being a wonderful subject, Bobby!

A preview from a FANTASTIC wedding we photographed in Alexandria, VA this weekend! Thanks, Richard & Jenny, for making us part of your wedding! You guys were a blast to work with!

Hi Ben,

We really love your work. But we’re wondering if your packages include the raw files. We’re [graphic designers/photographers/creative people], and we’d like to process the images ourselves. We have all the necessary programs to do this, so if you could give us ALL the images from your day, that would be great too. Is this something we can do?

Sincerely,

Graphic Designer/Photographer/Creative Person

 

 

Now imagine going into your local McDonalds and asking for two raw beef patties, a whole head of lettuce, and two slices of bread. Doesn’t make sense, does it? That’s because it’s not what they do. They sell fully cooked burgers, millions and millions of them, in fact. Now let’s say you found a burger restaurant that did sell you those two raw beef patties, would it make sense to then ask for the cow? Probably not .

It’s a bit unorthodox for customers/clients/patrons to purchase something up the supply/production chain simply because they have the ability to produce a certain good/service themselves. By this logic, Morimoto would never dine at any sushi restaurant other than his own. This would also imply that Martha Stewart never buys finished window curtains either.  While neither of these postulations are likely true, we can probably assume that these folks go out and buy stuff anyway – simply because they can appreciate it when someone else does it for them. Just because I’m a pretty good cheeseburger chef doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t go out to enjoy a Big Mac, does it?

To be fair, there are probably steak restaurants that would happily sell you a 32 oz. raw slab of steak, just as there are probably wedding photographers who would be willing to put together shoot-to-burn packages for you. We just don’t happen to be one of them. But that’s the beauty of any marketplace. You’re not obligated to buy anything you don’t want, and the sellers aren’t obligated to sell you something they don’t offer.

When our clients inquire about our services, we whole-heartedly believe it’s because they enjoy our work. They’ve viewed our portfolio, done their due diligence and may have even reasonably concluded that we’re pretty nice people to work with. Quite simply, if it’s our style of work that they’re looking for, then it’s our style of work they’re going to get – nothing less, and possibly a whole lot more. They are receiving a premium product with premium service because in the end, they are most certainly paying a premium for it.

There are a laundry list of reasons why our clients don’t get raw images, least of which have anything to do with their ability to process the images themselves. We spend many, many hours culling and perfecting our images to maintain some sense of consistency for our brand. We take pride in this part of our work, and it’s one that we find most rewarding. We absolutely LOVE hand-delivering photo albums and canvas prints to our clients because we enjoying experiencing the look of joy in their faces when they finally open up their packages. While we realize we could probably shave off a considerable portion of our workload and spend more time with our families, we owe a certain obligation to our clients to produce the kind of work they see in our portfolio – the kind of work they’re not ashamed to share with the rest of the world. Any deviations from our usual workflow could potentially have negative impact on our final deliveries. We never took any shortcuts to get to where we are today, and we most certainly don’t plan an taking any shortcuts anytime soon either.

And quite honestly, we’re 100% confident that all of our clients, present and new, can appreciate that.

If you guys have any questions you’d like to ask us, please feel free to leave us a message below or send us an email at ben@benlauphotography.com.

Here’s to more burger and sushi (our two fave foods!) posts in the future .

Ben & Karis

 

Thanks Ben! You can check out more from Ben at his blog, http://benlauphotography.com/blog/.
The main point is – we do supply clients with full res .jpeg images (optimized for printing). These are finished products that have been processed in a manner signature and unique to Michael and Carina Photography, a style and manner which our clients like enough to book us for. RAW images are unfinished products, and like McDonald’s isn’t comfortable selling raw beef, we’re not comfortable selling raw images.