One of the best parts of my job (and life in general) is meeting new and interesting people. When those people happen to share a passion of yours it makes it even more special. Shaun Bailey is one of the latter. He is a Dallas/Fort Worth based film wedding photographer. We met during his brief stay in Arizona, which is an interesting story and is told on his blog (the Arizona part not the meeting). We share a love of film in the age of digital and also attended the same photography school (although at different times). We have stayed in touch and I asked him if he would share a couple of photos and give the story behind them. So enough from me, here is Shaun.
After moving to Arizona from Texas, our family had some adjusting to do. I found it quite a bit harder to find nice green areas for pictures. So my wife, son, and I went exploring. We ended up in downtown Mesa on the grounds of the LDS Temple. It was a wonderful afternoon. Soft cool breeze and a happy 1 year old made for some fun pictures. I chose to shoot on Ektar 100 mainly because I hadn’t shot it much for portraits and wanted to try it out. If you don’t know much about this film, the reds are quite strong, so it looks great on landscapes, especially at sunset, but for skin it can be a bit harsh.
When I got the scans back from the lab, I had to do a little work on them to tone down the reds on their faces and found it challenging to keep the vibrance and integrity of the images while having to desaturate the reds, but I like how they turned out, and I hope you do to.
Thanks for contributing Shaun. I feel lucky to have bumped into you on your brief stay in Arizona. If anyone wants an excellent photographer for their Texas based wedding (it’s a big state if you haven’t heard) then you would do well in hiring Shaun. If not then just follow his blog to keep up on some film based photographic loveliness.