Some of the images from Alyssa’s session:

A fave:

another fave:

I’ve got to give kudos to Leeann for seeing this stairwell and suggesting we use it for a few shots.

We started walking over to this grate hanging on the wall, and next thing I know, Alyssa is climbing right up there, heels, big dress and all.  Gotta love enthusiasm like that (and the images that resulted)!
 

another fave:

and one of Alyssa and Leeann together:

Can I just begin by saying how much I love, love, love doing these sessions? If you’re unfamiliar with the Trash the Dress concept, it’s a session after the wedding day where the bride dons her dress again for some fun and creative portraits without needing to worry if the dress gets dirty or takes a little beating during the process. (Now, I’ve seen this taken to the extreme; I’ve seen images from sessions like these with the bride cutting up her dress with scissors, rolling around in paint, and similar instances that really do trash the dress.) My approach is more along the lines of creating edgy, beautiful, creative images without having to worry about sitting or laying down in urban places, or occasionally getting wet. I love doing these sessions because they give me a chance to be creative without many constraints, and they give my clients a chance to get glammed up and wear their dress again and get some ultra-fun, fashion-oriented imagery in the process.

Anyway, when Leeann and her best friend Alyssa first contacted me about doing a session I was stoked. They decided they wanted to do an urban theme, so we made plans to begin in the Strip District and see where the evening took us. It had been threatening rain all day (so much so that we almost postponed the session), but in the end it worked in our favor- providing nice diffused light and some really moody skies as a backdrop.

On to a few of my faves from Leeann:

I spent a few days at a photography workshop by destination wedding photographer extraordinaire David Beckstead. We spent the day with a few models in Harmony, which is about 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh. Here are some of my faves:

Jeremy first contacted me about doing a trash the dress session last year. Alas, we had to wait until he and Heather were married before we could safely trash her dress. If you don’t know Jeremy, he’s a fantastic DJ , and he and Heather just got married last month. These two were up for anything, which is always quite fun from the photographer’s standpoint.

Jeremy invited our friend Joanne along, so the two of us were equally delighted at the creative freedom we had.

Jeremy and Heather had scouted out some brilliant locations ahead of time, so we spent a few hours hanging out and getting some delicious images of the two of them. Here are some of my faves from our session: (Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that at the end of the day, the dress was wet and dirty, but nothing a good dry cleaning wouldn’t take care of).

These ferns were fabulous.

Love, love, love these last images. How hot are these two?

more coming soon…

simone wanted to do a trash the dress session to celebrate her two year wedding anniversary. not wanting her husband don to miss out on the fun, they decided to do a joint session to celebrate their marriage with some fun, sexy photos. simone swore to me all this week that she is shy and self-conscious in front of the camera, so i was prepared to have to do some coaxing to get her to open up. was i in for a surprise!

simone and don were both so natural! not only is she incredibly sexy, but she and don both have amazing chemistry together. they were a dream to work with. i would start to give them direction or have them change positions, and before i would even finish the sentence they were doing exactly what i had envisioned. we had a blast walking around station square (in the rain, no less) making some great images and sharing some laughs.

here are a few of my faves:

this is actually the dress simone wore for her wedding. there’s not much traditional about simone. that’s one of the things i like about her.

simone is originally from jamaica. she has the most beautiful skin.

the chemistry between these two is incredible.

i love this one.

we were pretty wet by this point

seriously. how sexy are they?

i love that you can see the rain falling in this one.

and some more in their slideshow

happy anniversary simone and donny! you guys were amazing to photograph and work with! thanks for making it a fun evening.

I shot a bridal session (with maybe a little bit of trash the dress action happening) with rachel this past weekend. The always fabulous dee dee did her makeup, and we went to a playground by her house, then stopped at some train tracks on the way back. Super fun:

i was in love with this green wall at the park

isn’t she stunning?

and then a quick stop at the railroad…

and here’s the slideshow. (The song is she moves in her own way by the kooks- I have it incorrectly listed on the slideshow). enjoy!

i’m editing a bridal session i did with rachel on sunday, and i just had to post this image. isn’t she stunning?!

i’ll post more later, i was just so excited about this one i had to share.

i love to photograph abandoned spaces. a lot of people know that, and give me hot tips on great places to check out. someone told about this junkyard at my last gallery show in march, and i’ve been dying to get out there to photograph since then. i finally made it this weekend, and did an amazing trash the dress session with emily. here are some of the results:

check out her rockstar shades- aren’t they awesome? they fit so well with the locale that we decided to keep them on for most of the shoot.

incidentally, the dress didn’t get totally trashed- just a little dirty. for more pics, check out the slideshow from our session.