Yesterday I joined Cecil and Kristina during their beautiful uptown Whittier wedding. Here’s a preview of some of the photos we captured together, with more to come soon!

Eduardo Suastegui serves the Los Angeles area in the cities of Downey and Whittier with wedding photography that tells your story

Here are a few more photos from a recent engagement session at La Mirada Creek park. Cecil and Kristina were fun to work with during this shoot, and we’re really pleased with how their photos turned out.

Eduardo Suastegui serves Los Angeles clients with wedding photography that tells their story.

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to join Cecil and Kristina in La Mirada, Creek Park for their engagement session. We had a great time, and I’m even more super excited about photographing their wedding. I’m still working on the full set of photos. In the meantime, here’s a black and white preview of our session.

Eduardo Suastegui serves the Los Angeles area with wedding photography that tells your story.

If you are like most of my wedding clients, you probably prefer color photos. But do you know which color look you would prefer for your photos?

We all perceive color differently, and we also have many preferences. Maybe you don’t care much about the subtle or significant differences that color rendition may cause in your wedding photos, but if you do, make sure you select a wedding photographer that can deliver the look you’re after.

To illustrate the impact different color processing may have on your photos, let’s look at some samples. For this first set, the first photo is more or less what the camera would have delivered without any further processing. The subsequent samples show alternative ways in which the original might be rendered.

Which do you prefer? Your answer may come down to preference. It’s also important to note that color will be affected by light. Outdoor sunny lighting will look very different than overcast or shaded lighting. The following set of were taken in overcast lighting and processed in different ways to show the impact of color processing.

Eduardo Suastegui serves clients in Los Angeles, California with wedding photography that seeks the heart and spirit in each image.

The danger for any wedding photographer is to become so focused on getting a certain shot that he misses moments when they come up. You have to be ready, quick and perceptive with lots of anticipation. In the words of a wedding photographer I admire, “if you see it, it’s too late.”

Some of my favorite photos came from what I call in-between moments, those instants in time between posed photos we were setting up or had just taken. It’s often unplanned, unarranged personal interactions that make these in-between moments happen.

Eduardo Suastegui serves clients in Los Angeles with wedding photography that seeks to capture special moments, even those that just fall “in-between” the more significant happenings of a wedding day.

Should you give your wedding photographer a shot list? Following advice you read online or in various magazines, you may develop a pretty detailed… and lengthy list. It might include things like:

• Putting on the garder
• Granma walking down the isle
• Dad removing my veil
• Exchange of rings
• The kiss
• …
• The first dance
• The dollar dance
• The toast
• Cutting the cake
• …and so on…

We all understand wanting to make sure no shot goes missing, but do you want or need to give your photographer a long list of must-have-shots? Or can you trust your wedding photographer to be experienced enough to take all the important shots at the important moments? Some questions to consider:

• Do you want your wedding photos to look like someone else’s wedding shot list, or do you want your photographer to capture and portray the unique and special elements of your wedding day?
• Do you want to constrain her with a checklist, or do you want your wedding photographer to be open and on the look out for special images, whether or not they are on a list?
• Do you want the stress of having to check every shot off a list, or do you want to have fun and let your photographer capture you and your guests enjoying yourselves?
• Do you want every shot to be arraged or pre-planned, or do you want spontaneous, genuine moments captured as they happen in front of an unhindered camera?

Take a look at the next few shots, and ask yourself whether they happened because they were on a list.

Here’s my recommendation: come up with a short list of photos that you are pretty sure are unusual enough, or special enough that they merit your photographer’s attention. Think, “this is unique to me and my family, and he’s probably never photographed something like it.” Go ahead and also specify the list of formal shots — if you and your photographer have agreed to get family group shots, etc. — that you absolutely need captured, and still keep that list short enough that you won’t spend the bulk of your wedding day posing with groups of people. Then relax, have fun, and let your wedding day and the photographs that come with it happen. You’ll enjoy your day and your photos a lot more.

What then is the best wedding shot list? The one that frees you, your guests and your wedding photographer to live in and capture each moment as it comes.

Eduardo Suastegui serves the Los Angeles, California area with wedding photography that seeks to capture the heart and spirit in each image to tell your story.