James “Jason” Lee Photography

Over the summer,  I attended a wedding of one of my wife’s best friends in Charlotte, NC.   My wife was one of the bridesmaids.  I found I had some time to kill while some of the “bridesmaid/wedding party only” activities took place.  

Since I am always looking for reasons to shoot, I did bring my camera for the festivities.  

Since I was not the hired photographer for the wedding, I took pictures during the reception and during  bridesmaid  “getting ready” session before the wedding.   The last thing I wanted to do was to step on the wedding photographers toes.  Covering the “getting ready” session was not part of his arrangement. 

 

As I was standing outside in a 6 feet concrete fenced in area in the back of the hotel when part of the reception was going to take place,  I met this easy going person decided to ask him what he did for the living.    He said his name was Jason(James “Jason” Lee) and he was a photographer.  He told me he had to get used to not glancing over concrete wells looking for snipers.  He was a photo journalistic photographer that was embedded with the American troops in Iraq.  

I explained that I had recently started my own  photography business and was always interested in other photographer’s input to help improve my craft.  Jason was more than willingly to discuss all aspects of photography.  He even corrected the way I used my camera strap to prevent me for looking  like a tourist and more like a photographer.

He showed me this technique where  I set the camera a very slow shutter speed like 1/8 or 1/4 with a high ISO to allow as much ambient light in the image as possible for a dark scene.   Also, we  set just a “wink” of flash to freeze the main subject  but not over power the ambient light.  These settings allowed the sparklers to show their “trails” and  the flash froze the couple keeping them relatively in focus.  

Interesting enough as I was trying this technique during the “sparkler” bride-groom departure , Jason was standing in the background of the picture.   I love this image not only for the couple(guests at the wedding)  sharing a kiss  but also for the fact the “mentor” was in the frame.

 

Be sure to check out Jason’s photography for truly eye-opening experience. Every picture tells a story.  He is truly a unique talent.