I love you for the man you are,
I love you for the things you do,
I love you for the things you say.
But most of all I love you because
you love me for the woman I am
for the things I do and
for the things I say. I love you
–Unknown

Love and life is the purest thing to capture and I love to tell stories of my couples. This couple was now for the third time in front of my camera and it was everything but boring. We went together to the “Bagno” which is a wonderful old park in Burgsteinfurt – not too far away from their home and my new office in Germany. We didn’t meet alone but together with our friend Maxi and my intern Jakob. It was such a great fun being with friends at -10 degrees on a frozen lake. Having them the third time in front of my camera reminded me that as a couple you should have a photo session regularly to capture your story and not only the moment of your marriage. When you ask me what was the most beautiful moment with my love I would say just that one Thursday evening on the couch at home in our living room with a glass of good red wine and a movie where he looked at me and said “Did I already tell you today that I love you?” and I smiled at him and said “Yes just half an hour ago” – those moments are precious and special and – yes very ordinary. Why not have those ordinary moments captured on an ordinary Friday afternoon – I am sure Eva and Reinhold will treasure these pictures as much as their wedding pictures. These pictures will remind them of this time of their lives together, their hope and their dreams they have. Looking back at these images will make them say “Do you remember that Friday afternoon with Jennifer at -10 degrees when we just got our pictures taken “, and they will smile at each other and remember an ordinary afternoon in February 2012. Can you remember one of those ordinary afternoons that were just perfectly ordinary ?

Their wedding colors were all fuchsia and green. These bright colors lit up the rainy summer day. They got married together with just the closest friends and family at St. Petronilla Handorf in Münster. After the celebration and a short sunny moment outside the church and time to congratulate the happy couple the group went to the Wienburg in Münster for the reception, dinner and party. When I now look back at these pictures I remember this day and don’t have one raindrop in my memories. Everybody was just happy and their little girl Mathilda who didn’t want to wear the brand new dress that was specially for this day smiled and the whole day smiled back.

I wish you all a “belle” day !

One program that really improved my workflow was “Photo Mechanic“. It makes your picture selection after a wedding easy as a pie (though baking pies is still a miracle for me) and fast as a train.

The program is just for the selection – it does this one thing for me and it does it quick and perfectly.

This is my way of working with Photo Mechanic – please find below all the credits of photographers who inspired me with their workflow to finally get to my very own workflow

Step 1)

I have a structure of different maps. In the first map with the name RAW I save two folders: CUTS and PICS. Inside the CUTS folder I save all CF cards. Every card that I used gets a single name. What is important about this is that I change the name on the card and copy it to at least two or three places to save them. When I change the name of the CF cards the camera wont be able to read it anymore and I know for sure when I use the card again that it is saved. I hope this makes sense to you.

 2) Step 2

I open Photo Mechanic and with a double click on every single CF card folder I can see the content of the folder.

You will immediately see how quick the RAW pictures show up – something Lightroom is never able to do!

3) Step 3

Open from the menu Photo Mechanic -> Preferences

Under the tab “Accesibility” you can chose the Single Key Shotcuts. I like to work with the stars instead of the colours, so I’ve set it to 0-5 sets Rating.

Step 4)

Now you can browse through your pictures and select with the numbers 1-5 on your keyboard a rating for each picture.The rating will show up under the image. Like here the four stars.

 Step 5)

Once you are ready you just unselect all pictures without stars. On the bottom of the screen you will see a bar for the stars and for the colors. Just unmark the 0 stars and all that is left are your images with stars rating.

Under file you will find the point Copy/Move Photos. Here I select move photos.

! Don’t move photos unless you are sure you saved the on another location as well !

As I selected only pictures with stars rating I will move these selected images from the CUTS folder to the PICS folder.

I will do this with every CF card folder until I selected all images.

In the end I will have a PICS folder full of the images that I want to edit and a CUTS folder full of images that  I will not edit. I leave them there instead I need one of those pictures later on.

The most fantastic thing is: after making this quick selection with the stars in Photo Mechanic I can just import them into Lightroom and start editing. Lightroom will recognize my stars, so my ratings will still be there.

If you want to speed up your editing I highly recommend Photo Mechanic !

I like simplifying things so if you have better or different tips to speed up the workflow I would love to know !

Have a great day !

Jennifer

Thanks to these following photographers who inspired me with their workflow to create my own workflow:

Roland Michels, Lesley & Adam, Christine Meintjes, Zach & Jody, Millie Holloman

I felt very honoured when Anke from Zank you asked me if you wanted to submit pictures for ther 101 wedding checklist post.

Today her amazing post about everything you need to think about when you are getting married went online:

http://www.zankyou.com/nl/magazine/p/ultieme-zankyou-checklist-101-tips-voor-het-plannen-van-je-huwelijk

Make sure you read it !

Have a wonderful week.