This is shot at the Michigan State Alumni Chapel this past  June 4th, 2011. Their wedding was absolutely beautiful. The Chapel’s greatest part is the front of the building. It has so much character. Having the privilidge to visit the chapel has been one of my largest goals as a wedding photographer. As a Fellow Alumni of Michigan State University, I used to live right near this chapel.

About this particular shot (for the photographers):
This shot is about preparation. Being a wedding photographer means arriving early and finding the perfect spot and the perfect light. With this i was able to create a perfect moment. This was shot immediately after their ceremony was completed; after the whole walk down the aisle had happened.

They were so excited and such a cute couple. I took them up to the top of the wedding chapel and shot this photo overlookng the chapel. I admit this chapel is very difficult to photograph in. Luckily, with a lot of gear and a lot of patience i was able to find the right spot.

So he asked me to take his photos and now they’re asking me to shoot their wedding. I decided to take them on a tour of Detroit while taking the Detroit people mover. You’ll notice all the stops where we shot were on the people mover stop. I remember on this day that the Red Wings were playing that day as well and there were a bunch of Penguin fans everywhere. It was ugly they were all drunk and belligerent and talking trash.

I took jen & nelson on a tour of Detroit for their engagement session last month. It was just starting to get warm.  Too bad it’s still not warm enough. Summer seems like it just started here in Detroit. We walked around the new riverwalk. There’s a great area resting. Theres some well done landscaping around the new riverwalk. It’s definately beautiful and i’m very proud of the Detroit Renovation.

I usually only do family portraits upon special requests. I prefer to only stay focused on weddings and professional/corporate/executive portraits.

After discussing the venue we decided to do the portraits earlier rather than later in the spring. Mrs. Cavanaugh also requested that the portraits weren’t so rigid and posed. She was looking for more of a documentary/reportage type style of portrait.

I mentioned to her that I’d do that a long with a good mix of posed/staged portraits.

It wasn’t the warmest Michigan Spring Day’s but it was still a beautiful Michigan Spring Day to execute some portraits in Kensington Park.

Mr. Cavanaugh is a well established pet veterinarian and owns several vet pet hospitals in the area. As you can see they’re dog enthusiasts.

The dogs were really excited to get out that day and it made it a little difficult to keep them still.

Trying to get a good view of the stage was difficult. There were throngs of people lined up everywhere!

The alumni association passed out several banners for spartans to hold.

The event had recieved much media coverage as it was broadcasted live on several local news stations.

I’ve feverishly tried to sneak my way up to grab a better picture. It proved difficult since we’ve arrived only a few minutes early. Many had waited several hours beforehand.

This summer we have about 7-10 weddings to come. Stay tuned and you’ll see some gorgeous and beautiful wedding photography from the Detroit Area.

Save the Kronk Gym

The Kronk fundraiser was an effort to raise money to renovate and save the Kronk gym. The Kronk gym has been in dire need of renovation over the years. Kronk gym was previously the home of some very famous boxing champions:   Hilmer Kenty, Thomas Hearns and Mickey Goodwin.

The gym was managed by the famous Boxing Trainer Emmanuel Steward. The event hosted a various gala of auctionable items. One in particular was Mary Pott’s Portrait of Emmanuel Steward.

Some of the prizes were very reasonable like this weekend getaway package from the Townsend Inn that I’ve wished I was able to

The fundraiser had recieved a lot of press because of its high profile celebrities from around Detroit that made appearances. The Detroit News was there as well as the Wayne Dispatch, and many other various television channels.

Signed gloves being auctioned off.

Emmanuel Steward himself speaking.

Emmanuel’s Son, A Cop, Talking about the importance of saving Kronk.

The whole gang of photographers that were there to photograph Emmanuel Steward.

Time magazine in the March 26th, 2009 issue has a excellent series of photographs of Detroit Abandoned Building Photographs Shot by a photographer, Sean Hemmerle.

The photos are an excellent depiction of some current abandoned buildings and areas in Detroit. I think Hemmerle does a great job carefully framing and picking photos.

My Criticism & Insight

Trying to shed light on Detroit is what we really need. As an optimist, I feel it is important to spread and speak of good news and development of Detroit.  Unfortunately, at this point and in this case I feel Detroit has a plethora of gaping holes and abandoned buildings to pick up and restore. For a piece like this one, shedding light will provide a necessary cry for help from the national spotlight. The article by Time magazine also does a great job of showing that there is a semblance of hope for our City of Detroit.

See the Series by Sean Hemmerle

She told me the headshots were to be used for her business cards and marketing materials.

Pat is a bit shy and timid but a little encouragement and conversation goes a long way of creating warm and comforting headshots.

This is shot along a brightly colored wall of hers. The light was peeking in from the window there.

This one was shot on her patio. I suggested to her that she’d wear browns and neutral tones. It worked out very well with the browns from the trees that were still barren from winter.

This is one of my favorites from the Chicago trip. I was looking to shoot something with more dark of a density. I’ve been working a lot more with lots of artificial controlled light. I thought i’d push myself to work with only available light.

Doing so requires moving more and seeing different. Opposed to moving lights and changing camera settings in which and when i’m used to.

Spot this interesting composition while walking back to my car. I was quite worrid I wasn’t going to be able to find the lot where i’ve parked.

Another grab from millenial park. It was quite cold! The wind chill from the water brought it down to a pretty cold temperatures.

Another Abstract of Millenial Park.

The rest of the collections of the photos are actually photos shot on the way to Chicago and on the way home.

This is a photo of the Kellogg House. I was shooting this at midnight and it smelled delicious downtown Battle Creek. It smelled like cornflakes.  I miss night photography dearly. I used to photograph night photography as a means of meditation, renewal and just a way to get away from all things: Computers, people etc.

This is a building downtown. I spotted a janitor while i was shooting. I was afraid they’d call the cops and I’d have to run like a little criminal. It really isn’t a crime. I was in a public area. You can get easily paranoid when you’re shooting by yourself at night.

This is another shot of the Kellogg House from another side. This is the River Facing side.

Another view different composition.

This one took me by surprise because of the interesting signage.

The obligatory mirror ball in chicago. I decided to take my view of it. Abstracting it a bit more.

This is a view of Michigan Ave.

This is a grab of something I’ve been inspired by Detroit Photographer, Henry Callahan. He would photograph everyday scenes of the roaring streets of Detroit.

Saw this as a good grab. A very Dada pop art photo. Meaningless but aesthically interesting in a post-modern way.

In a lot of these photos the day was not the best nor the skies were super blue. Thus, I’ve wanted to experiment and think only in black in white. The cloudy sky did provide great tonality to photos.

This is in front of an Old Navy store. Just trying to grab a couple photographs while the normal folk attend to their routines.

This is a photo looking out on the people mover. I hardly use the People mover to travel around Detroit.

Same shot a few seconds earlier.

This is one of porsche’s SUV’s i think? Cayenne.

I really liked the look of the new Dodge Challenger. I’m glad i was able to see it up and close. The Dodge/Chrysler Exhibit was pretty sad unfortunately. It felt like a car lot. There were a bunch of cars but not really much signage or glitz from the past years.

This is one of the half a million dollar cars on exhibit. the sound system was flawless. You can lounge in this car and lean back.

This is the lamborghini exhibit.

Yes, Converj won best concept car of the NAIAS for 2009.

This is the famous chevy volt which is an evolution of the Saturn EV cars. Hopefully with this car GM will be able to save it’s company with this revolutionary electric/gas hybrid vehicle.

Ford displaying it’s new more aggressive looking ’10 Mustang.

This is the Taurus I think. I found the ceilings at the cobo interesting and helpful for composition of  my photos.

This is one of the Shelby Cobra Mustangs i think?

A met a to be bride in Royal Oak to discuss her wedding and some plans. She mentioned that she booked her wedding at the Henry Ford Museum. They did that because it was where they had their first date.

I told her i shot a wedding over the summer and i totally forgot to put these up.

Mito and jelina. This wedding a second shot for Mary Potts

She specializes in personal training and has over 35+ free very high quality episodes devoted to personal training.

She lives right here in Metro Detroit as well.

DEAC is a workshop aimed at creating opportunities for models and photographers to network and learn practice and learn about erotic arts as well as build their craft. I can only show you one set that is Pretty much Safe for work.

I thought this would be a great opportunity to work on glamour, posing & boudoir photography and add more pieces as well as refine my portfolio and break the rust that photographers get in the winter in Michigan/Detroit.

This model Kat was very experienced and very helpful in collaborating. I thought i’d share some of my photos from our DEAC photoshoot from the past weekend at the leland hotel in Detroit, Michigan.

For the lighting geeks. I lit this with one reflective umbrella in the first few shots. It was at 1/4 power and was at camera left of the subject. I set the camera to F/4 and wanted to delete any disgusting ambient light. So the shutter was at 1/200th of a second.

Photos in the break:

Finally took the time to upload a video of the Carnival Celebration. The cruise ship that we went on for our (my gf and i) vacation.

We went on a cruise to the bahamas. Make sure you check out the photos as well.

I am pretty confident I have one of the most excellant Black and White Digital conversion techniques ever. Thanks to David Williams, Dan Margulis & Dgrin.com

If you’re curious about the LAB Color space; theres an excellent book about it by Dan Margulis.
So here they are just a potpourri of black and white wedding photos (from several detroit weddings from around the area) that I have converted and would like to share with you.

Chatting with Chris Lee about headshot photography from Henry Balanon on Vimeo.

The questions go over various topics like tips on how to get good headshots, etc.

1. Work out 5 times a week (at least an hour). Minimum 3.

2. Try to meet new 3-5 people in a month.

3. Spend sundays updating the monthly financial balance sheet.

4. Spend time to reconnect with 3-5 old friends on facebook.

So a couple weeks ago my girlfriend and I  decided to head to the bahamas for a 4 day cruise on carnival. What a blast it was. This was my first cruise and first time ever visiting the Bahamas.

The food is excellent on Carnival Cruises and the service is unparalleled.

Apparently today we’ve got totally snowed in. Yuck! I think i’m staying in and enjoying some hot cocoa and hoping that it’ll be ok to get groceries later today.

They wanted an engagement shoot as well so we decided that we’d shoot in Royal Oak. It wasn’t the best weather but you probably couldn’t even tell from the photos.
I’ve been trained with super powers to shoot guerilla photography from my past careers. One of them would be at Retroduck. I would find models through classifieds and have them pose for new products like their tshirts. Anyways check out the photos:

I love this photo because of the moment. The moment makes this photo. The tenderness and love just exudes and oozes from this photo. Breathtaking. This is why i love my job. For photos and moments like this. I’m very lucky i caught this. All it takes is preparation, good rapport and placing them in a situation where more happy accidents like this will happen: essentially “fauxtojournalism” coined by Australian heavyweight Master WPPI wedding photographer, Jerry Ghionis.

I couldn’t pick one photo i liked the two together as a sequence. We just found this brightly colored wall from bright ideas right off main street. If you notice theres only a slight nuance and difference between the two.

Here I cracked a dirty joke probably. I love photos because you won’t be able to know what i’ve said here and I can keep it PG here. No earmuffs needed kids.

Then we shot at the fox theater. They saw the photos i’ve shot of bridget and wanted the same experience. Funny story – they had a sesame street show at the fox theater. so you can see the little green sign in the background (Bottom left).

The weather was beautiful for an October. The first thing they did was walk on the dock immediately after getting married. it was quite fun!

This is the first photo i shot that day. Amazingly it was one of my favorites. I should have just went home after that.

Meet Kelly. Shes so nice and rad. Shes got excellent taste as well. Look at that dress. )

We started with some photos at her house in Warren. She has a really nice backyard and many excellant places to shoot.

She has these beautiful and very friendly bridesmaids as well.

This is ginos surf where all the festivities occured: Ceremony, Reception, etc.

The guys really loved the jump portraits. They really got into it. I reallly mean that. They’re pretty good as well

Heres matt. Hes the groom.

Here we did the jump shot again but with a better background and more suitable for heights.

First dance is my favorite time of the wedding.

Matt had a friend bring a bike around and we shot some photos before sun down. We shot quickly because the light was getting less and less.

I might be working backwards but heres shots of Matt dancing. I think at this part hes a little inebriated.

The wedding reception was at ginos surf.

For anyone thats going to book at ginos surf i’d definately recommend it. They have such an excellant view. Well besides the roostertail.

Let me say it again; make sure you register! If you’re a michigan resident the last day to vote is Sunday at midnight.

Jay-z has been in the news here in Detroit michigan because hes coming to michigan to throw a free concert to register voters.

My summer was fantastic!

• I shot 16 weddings this summer. I shot 19 or so last year.
• I went to Philadelphia
• Shot a bikini Fashion shoot
• Which led to heading to sarnia to shoot a full bikini catalog. That was really some hard work. I was so drained afterwards.
• This is  the summer I moved out to Ferndale. I really love the Royal Oak/Ferndale area.
• After this summer my company might be finally out of debt.

With the bars really close i spend a lot of time there.

If you guys want to stalk me i’m on twitter: twitter.com/chrisjlee

I’m looking forward to slowing down and working on more side projects.

Good news.

I’m shooting my 50th wedding tomorrow (Friday). The couple is Kelly & Matt B. It should be a beautiful wedding. It’ll be somewhere near the East side of Detroit (shhh I can’t tell you!).

I’m excited. After that I have one last wedding to shoot for this year. Unless something shotguns. Which happened last year. Once in a while a December wedding comes up. I will be posting all my wedding updates starting next month. Keep posted!

Ford salutes GM’s centennial by lighting up the lights at Ford’s Headquarter.

Photo Provided by Ford Motor Company.
Related Links:

Detroit Free Press: GM Centennial

Detroit Free Press: GM Centennial Presentation Coverage