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" Orange County Event Photography
"
Over fifteen years we have been serving
residents
of Orange County and the surrounding areas.
We are grateful for being your first choice and will continue
to strive to surpass your expectations as photographers.
Email or Call us to discuss your event or
wedding needs.
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Website Optimized and Maintained by JNT
Media Solutions
Copyright 2008 © LeeRandallStewart.com
an Orange County Wedding Photographers | Top 5
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Welcome to Lee Randall Stewart Photography - a unique, artistic experience
amidst an ocean
of picture takers. Browse this site to find all kinds of useful
galleries and samples of our work, wedding photography advice, informative
articles, wedding day photography tips, and contact information to schedule
an appointment to book our services. Our style is very unique.
Most fellow wedding photographers say that we have a very unorthodox
approach to wedding photography...and that's fine by us. Our style is
a combination of traditional portraiture, candid photography, and
photojournalism, with an emphasis on photojournalism.
When researching, most brides need information in an orderly format.
This format seems to have worked with numerous brides in our 15 years of
experience.
Photo Samples
Engagement
Shoot Samples
Wedding Shoot Samples
Pricing
Contact Us to Schedule an Appointment
Lee Randall Stewart Photography, and Hawaii Photo Studio service
Orange County,
San Diego, some areas of Los Angeles (most of Southern California) , and all
of Oahu (Honolulu and Waikiki) Hawaii without any additional travel fees.
Los Angeles Wedding Photography
Orange County Wedding Photography
Hawaii Photo Studio
Wedding Photography
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Many Brides ask us what our style is. Some others
ask us directly: What is Photojournalism?
Dictionary.com
defines photojournalism as:
1.) journalism in which photography
dominates written copy, as in certain magazines.
2.) news photography, whether or not for primarily pictorial media,
publications, or stories.
Simply stated, Wedding photojournalism (Orange
County, Los Angeles, San
Diego, and Oahu, Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii
are all covered without travel fees by Lee Randall Stewart Photography and
Hawaii Photo Studio) is a style of photography that is becoming more and
more popular in the wedding business. Traditional photography has a
dated look when it comes to designing custom wedding albums, and
photojournalism adds more flavor by telling the story of the wedding day
from a photographers perspective, rather than just having a series of
snapshots, and posed pictures. And while these may be pretty, they
don't
often possess a sense of elegance. We see these types of pictures in what we
in the industry call "formals", or even jokingly we refer to them
as
"prom pictures". and the photographer shoots posed
pictures of the bride and groom, bridal party, and even the bridal
family. Photojournalism is different because we try to remain as
unobtrusive as possible during the wedding ceremony. We try to capture
images from an artistic perspective that also tell the story of the
day. While there are many photographers who claim to be
photojournalists, it is doubtful that many of them truly understand what
photojournalism is, and where the term came from.
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Bill
Hurter, Editor of Rangefinder
Magazine, and author of "Best of Wedding Photography" (Amherst
Media) shed a great deal of light on this subject. Here are some
of his thoughts:
We live in the midst of a great renaissance of wedding photography. It is a
time when divergent styles collide with changing attitudes to produce the
finest imagery this genre has ever known. At no other time since
photographers began recording the wedding ceremony to preserve its history
has the style and artistic merit of wedding photography been so
remarkable. The focus of the modern wedding photograph is emotion and
intimacy, and through the tools available, like digital capture and Photoshop,
the end result is romance.
In the earliest days of photography, weddings were photographed in
styles that captured the bride and groom in stuffy, overly formal poses.
Even with the emergence of “the wedding album,” which incorporated group
portraits of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, and the bride and groom with
family members, posing remained stiff and lifeless—no doubt a byproduct of
the required length of early exposures. As the style and variety of
wedding photography progressed, posing techniques closely mimicked the
classical arts, and there remain many flawless wedding portraits in evidence
today from those early years.
The tools at the disposal of today’s wedding photographer are vastly
superior to yesterday. This classic wedding image captures the romance and
mystery of the wedding by incorporating areas of softness and high contrast
to define the mood of this inconspicuous bridal portrait. It is
against this backdrop that wedding photography evolved—or rather,
rebelled. In this early style, each shot was a check mark on a long list of
posed and often prearranged images. Even spontaneous events like the bouquet
toss and cake cutting were orchestrated to reflect the classical posing
techniques. Spontaneity and the joy of life had all but disappeared from
this most joyous of ceremonies. Amidst such a controlled environment, it is
not difficult to see why there was an active rebellion in the world of
wedding photography.
Today’s wedding photographer works unobtrusively and while he or she may
set up the situation, the participants define the action. A class of wedding
photographers known as wedding photojournalists, spurred on by their leader,
the articulate, provocative and talented Denis
Reggie from Atlanta, GA, rebelled against the formality of the art form.
The photojournalists believed (and still believe) that capturing the emotion
of the moment is the most important aspect of a good wedding image. The
story of the true and natural unfolding of the day’s events had to be the
end result of such efforts. Furthermore, everything about their methods and
procedures was different than those of the traditional wedding photographer.
They shot unobserved with high
speed film using available light. They used 35mm
SLRs
with motor drives—and flash became a last resort for the wedding
photojournalist.
As you might guess, the
traditionalists recoiled in horror at this new breed of wedding
photographer. They denounced the grainy and often out-of-focus “grab
shots” created by the photojournalists, and they predicted that the final
days of wedding photography as a profitable and predictable livelihood were
at hand. As at many other times in history, a spirited clash of ideas
and artistic differences spawned a new era of enlightenment. For the first
time, brides were able to make real choices about how they wanted their
once-in-a-lifetime day recorded. In addition to pristine color and a wealth
of storytelling black & white imagery, brides can now choose from a
diverse range of styles, imagery and presentation. Add to the mix the
incredible and explosive creativity introduced by the advent of digital
imagery and we now find ourselves in the midst of a true Renaissance.
Masters of the medium, like Yervant
Zanazanian from Australia, are gifted at creating the subtle intangibles
in an image. In addition to flawless posing and emotion and design, note the
hourglass shaped highlight covering the steps. Artful burning-in and dodging
was required to produce such a skillful effect. Once viewed as a
near-deplorable way to make a living, wedding photography now draws the best
and brightest photographers into its ranks. It is an art form that is
virtually exploding with creativity—and with wedding budgets that
seemingly know no bounds, the horizons of wedding photography seem almost
limitless. This book first appeared a little more than two years ago
and this is now the second edition. During that short time, I have
“discovered” dozens of new and amazingly talented wedding photographers,
most of them of the photojournalistic persuasion.
The trend away from traditional wedding photography continues but with some
surprising new twists. The new breed of wedding photographer has no problem
“directing” an image, as long as the results are spontaneous and
emotion-filled. This is a surprising turn of events, considering the almost
evangelical mind-set of the pure wedding photojournalist. To be sure, there
are many more of these kinds of photographers who exhibit the same fervor
for the “captured image,” but there are also a growing number of new
photographers who don’t particularly care if they are purists, in the
photojournalistic sense.
There are few limits to today’s wedding photography. How about a posed
kiss and dip in the middle of Grand
Central Station? The move away from film and towards 100% digital
capture continues unabated, although the current breed of digital wedding
photographers is aware of the increased time and effort involved in being
purely digital. New methods of workflow and image editing continue to evolve
and new software is helping to aid in the transition. The little
picture is just as important to the wedding album as the big picture.
Also evident is a move towards fine art imagery, complete with the elements
of abstraction, symbolism and the finer points of design. Yes, it is a
changing genre, to be sure, seemingly forever redefining itself and always
growing more popular among brides. The modern-day wedding photographer is
among the upper echelon of the photographic elite, both in status and in
financial rewards. This book then is a continuing celebration of this great
and evolving art form and its fabled artists.
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The question we are asked most when meeting with
brides, or even when we are on-site at a wedding is: "Do you shoot film
or digital"?
The answer we give them all the time is "100%
Digital."
Now I know some purists out there are moaning and groaning right now, but in
our humble opinion, there are too many reasons to shoot digital over
film. The main advantage of digital photography is feedback.
With a professional Digital
SLR camera, we get instant feedback on what the basic exposure is.
With film, we don't, and let's be honest: with film, there is still some
guesswork. One of the biggest arguments that film shooters still use
to this day is: that digital images don't enlarge as well as film
images. And that may be true to a certain point. But, as long as
you are not ordering a 20x30 photo album,
you have nothing to be worried about. Through the use of Photoshop's
Image size with stair interpolation method, and the use of Genuine
Fractals, enlargements can be made very easily, and with little to no
loss of clarity. Today's professional Digital SLR Cameras like the Nikon
D2X, or any other professional grade camera body that one could purchase
at Ritz Camera, Calumet
Photo, Samy's Camera,
Best Buy, Circuit
City, Walmart, Target,
or just about any other retail establishment that sells camera gear, costs several thousand dollars, and the reason for that is obvious:
They produce images as good as film cameras, and have more controls built in
to the camera to optimize exposure, than film cameras do. When
developing film, there are still many variables that one must fully
understand in order to get perfect prints. Digital eliminates a bunch
of those complications.
Ken Rockwell, a great photographer and industry guru has written several
articles on this subject. Here is a excerpt from one:
The choice depends on your application. Once you know your application the
debate goes away. The debate only exists when people presume erroneously
that someone else's needs mirror their own. I can get great 12 x 18"
glossy prints from my digital camera, and we all can get fuzzy results on
film. It's the artist, not the medium, which defines quality. If and only if
you're an accomplished artist who can extract every last drop from film's
quality then film, meaning large format film, technically is better than
digital in every way. Few people have the skill to work film out to this
level, thus the debate. Most people get better results from digital. Artists
print their own work, but if you use a lab for prints you'll have more
control and get better results from digital. Convenience
has always won out over ultimate quality throughout the history of
photography. Huge home-made wet glass plates led to store-bought dry plates
which led to 8 x 10" sheet film which led to 4 x 5" sheet film
which led to 2-1/4" roll film which led to 35mm which led to digital.
As the years roll on the ultimate quality obtained in each smaller medium
drops, while the average results obtained by everyone climbs. In 1860 only a
few skilled artisans like my great-great-great grandfather in Scotland
could coax any sort of an image at all from a plate camera while normal
people couldn't even take photos at all. In 1940 normal people got fuzzy
snaps from their Brownies and flashbulbs while artists got incredible
results on 8 x 10" film. Today artists still mess with 4 x 5"
cameras and normal people are getting the best photos they ever have on 3 MP
digital cameras printed at the local photo lab.
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Long before wedding day even arrives, I start planning the shots and
angles ahead of time. Since we have worked at just about every major
venue in Orange County, Los
Angeles, San Diego, Oahu,
Honolulu, Waikiki,
and Hawaii, we
are already familiar with their lighting conditions, and we know what shots
will work, and what shots won't. It has taken long years of experience
to understand the delicate balance of artistic wedding
photography vs. standard portraiture, and we are presented with constant
challenges that keep us on the cutting edge of education and understanding.
Black and white photography vs. color
photography vs. sepia toning
photography is a constant evolution and knowing how to capture those
moments on your wedding day, and to know which moments work best in color or
black and white is essential. Each wedding is unique, and we are constantly
looking for that one subtle difference in each wedding so that we can
exploit it, and make your treasured wedding moments stay captured so they
will be with you for a lifetime.
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Website Optimized and Maintained by JNT
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Copyright 2008 © LeeRandallStewart.com
event photography for orange county
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