Digital Wedding Forum - Wedding photography's home on the web.

Location - Massachusetts
Business Name - Jamison Wexler ~ Photographer
Years in Business - 3 Years
Number of Posts - 1,149
Website - www.jamisonwexler.com
Blog - www.jamisonwexler.com/blog
PM - Contact Jamie

DWF - Let's start off with a little bio, tell us a little bit about yourself.

JAMIE - As much as I've tried to deny it, I am a redneck from Central Florida transplanted into New England. Though I was born in MA, we moved down to FL when I was very young. My dad trained racehorses, so we traveled around quite a bit growing up. After graduating from high school, I went to school in New Zealand to become a Minister. After serving in that capacity at a church in FL, I decided to make a change, and moved up here to MA, where I met my beautiful wife, Melanie. We currently live in Grafton, MA (about 30 miles west of Boston), with our 2 year old son, Luke and 12 year old beagle/retriever mix, Maya.

DWF - How did you become a wedding photographer?

JAMIE - I became a photographer by "accident". A few years ago, took a job where I was traveling a lot for business, leaving my wife Melanie at home to "man the fort". All of a sudden I was getting to experience a lot of really cool new places (we joked that I got to go to all the "O" cities - Chicago, Toronto, San Francisco). I really wanted to share these experiences with Melanie, so I bought myself a digital camera. That began a bit of an obsession, and when the new camera purchases began to cost $1,000's instead of 100's, I decided to see if I could get the "hobby" to pay for itself. I started shooting location portraits, and found that I really enjoyed working with people more than anything else I had photographed. So when I was asked to photograph a wedding in October of 2004, I agreed. After one wedding I was hooked. What a cool experience to have a "backstage pass" to such a personal event, and be able to capture it!

DWF- Who or what inspires you as an artist?

JAMIE - New experiences inspire me artistically. I am a very visual person, and I love to visit places that I have never been before. I sometimes think that I have a disease because I tend to compress life into a 2:3 frame in my mind, and (since I've been doing weddings), put a bride in a white dress into the scene. One of my favorite things to do, is to walk around a city I've never been to before, or a new part of a city I have visited, and just look at the buildings and the prople - I can do it for hours at a time. I love the feeling of walking into a new venue that I have never photographed on a couple's wedding day and exploring all of the nooks and crannies together - my heart sinks a little bit when i book a venue that I've already photographed. The other thing that inspires me is fashion work. I am not a fashion photographer, but I love to look through Vanity Fair and Cosmo, just for the photos. I love the perfection that the masters of fashion photography are able to create with lighting and posing. I especially love it when a good fashion photographer is able to bring in the elements of the surroundings and blend it perfectly with the model.

DWF- If we were getting married why would we book you? What makes you unique?

JAMIE - I'm not sure that it makes me unique, but the style that I strive to achieve is to combine fashion inspired portraiture with photojournalistic candid imagery to give couple a finished collection of images that accurately chronicle's their wedding day while making them look like supermodels. I blend into the background when the business of the wedding comes along, but when it is time for the portraits/formals I become a director - posing, adjusting, instructing, controlling the situation...there's definitely no PJ involved in the posing parts of the day! I am also a pretty passionate person, and I try to bring my excitement and my passion to their wedding day. To me, wedding photography is the most fun one person can have (that's legal in all 50 states), and I want the couple I work with to feel the same way about their wedding photography. The best compliment I have received at the end of a wedding day was "We were really dreading the photos, but it was so much fun".

DWF- If you had to pick a favorite "Tool of the Trade" what would it be? and why?

JAMIE - Well this year I would have to say it's my flash. I try to develop a new skill every year, and for 2007 I have really been focusing on creating light, rather than wandering around trying hard to find good light. That's not to say that I will shun good natural light - I use it every opportunity I can - just that I like the freedom that a flash gives me to create good light in any situation. Getting the flash off my camera was the biggest change I have implemented this year, and it makes a big difference in being able to create the fashion inspired style that I aspire to.

DWF - Care to share your favorite photograph? and tell us a bit about it?

JAMIE - This wedding was one of my favorites because the couple was so much fun (it was the drunkest reception I've ever photographed)...oh yeah, and also because it was at Marshall Point lighthouse on the coast of Maine. As the ceremony progressed on a small bluff overlooking the lighthouse, this thick fog rolled in from the ocean, completely obscuring the coast. I asked the wedding party to walk to the end of the lighthouse, turn around, and walk back. As they did it, someone told a joke, the bride and groom looked back, and I got the shot.

Here's one from a session I did with my good friend (and DWF Member) Lisa Rae. Lisa was shooting weddings for a studio when I met her through a mutual friend just after my first wedding. She was the first photographer to comment on my work and has been a constant encouragement and amazing friend since. When Lisa asked me to do a few bridal portraits before her wedding last November, I knew she'd be just the type of bride to go for anything. So as I was pondering how I wanted to push the envelope a bit, I thought about the burned out shell of an old mansion in the woods by my house and a bride standing defiantly in front of it with a shotgun. Excited by the idea, I emailed a few other local photographers with whom I'd been corresponding, and we made a group shoot out of it. So the coolest part of this photo was not creating the image that I had envisioned while brushing my teeth one morning - but in the awesome network of Boston (and Providence) photographers that came out of the shoot (the so called Boston Mafia). This is also the first time that I used an off camera light on a location shoot.

This wedding was the first time I'd worked a high end venue, the first time working in downtown Boston, and the first time I charged more than $1500 for a wedding (they paid 3K for way too much product)! The event took place at the Old Ritz on Newbury street in Boston, and this couple not only agreed to see each other before the ceremony, but they gave me an hour with just the two of them to walk around Boston and shoot their portraits. So I really wanted to capture the "Boston" vibe of their wedding, but before venturing outside the hotel, I wanted to take advantage of the big beautiful plate glass windows in the bar. I asked them to kiss and as I'm setting up to shoot, this Boston duck boat drives by. Now I was about 1/2 second slow on the shutter (you only see the duck's tail), but this shot says "Boston" to me more than any other I've taken.

This wedding was on a rainy day during this crazy June where all my weddings were on rainy days! These guys planned their wedding at a venue right on the water and wanted some outdoor beach shots...unfortunately it was pouring during formal time. So at one point during the reception, I noticed that it had stopped raining and asked if they wanted to try a few outside shots on the boardwalk. It was crazy windy, but it made for some funs shots. It was also black dark, so we were shooting available light from the lights on this small boardwalk. The bride was so expressive!

This couple planned their wedding ceremony outside on this set of steps leading down to the Merrimac river in Manchester NH. Unfortunately, the wedding fell during one of the rainiest Junes in recent years, and the Merrimac was flooding over the platform where the wedding was supposed to be held...and they had no "plan B". So we all stood outside in the sprinkling rain and they got married on the steps leading down to the flooded platform. When the ceremony was done, I asked if they'd like to go inside for the photos, and they said they were fine in the rain - my kind of couple! With this shot, I wanted to capture the motion of the river that was raging by. I set them up halfway down the steps, and shot from the top bracing my 70-200 on the railing with a SS of 1/15.

As soon as I saw this car, I knew I wanted to drape the bride and groom all over it - it was just so bad ass (and came complete with a driver straight from a 40's film). So when we arrived at the beach for their portraits, I took a few safer shots with the two of them on and around the car, then laid my suit jacket on the ground and asked the bride to have a seat. She went for it! I was really going for a grungy retro noirish feel to the photo, since that's the vibe I got when I first saw the car.

I owe this shot to my friend (and kick ass photographer) Jeff Newcum. He sent an email to the BMob inviting us all to shoot a TTD with him. Everyone was kinda busy, so it just ended up being the two of us. When he asked if I had any locations I've wanted to shoot, I had just the place. I had visited this dam a few years ago with friends, and have alwys wanted to shoot a model in a flowy dress in front of it. When we arrived they had closed the dam off for a bit of construction, which meant that the grass in front of it hadn't been mowed in a while, providing an even cooler shot than I had envisioned.

Another really cool couple that give me lots of time to wander around with them for portraits. This was a December wedding, and the bride wore a blood red cloak over her dress. Before the ceremony we were all over the "little red riding hood" shots in the woods next to her house! Anyway, after the ceremony we went to the train station in Worcester for their portrait session. As we rode the elevator to the top floor, I noticed what a cool pattern the lights made in the gold metal wall and asked them to kiss in the corner.

DWF - How about some final words to live by?

JAMIE - Photography is the most fun job I have ever had, so my words to live by are "have fun - and let your clients see you having fun". What could be better than a job where you get such intimate access into the lives of so many people, and get the opportunity to make them look so good!