Josh and Claire were married at the beautiful riverside location of the UBC Boathouse. Their ceremony showed so much emotion from tears of joy and thoughtful vows, to massive laugh out loud moments, which made it a wonderful ceremony for us to be a part of and of course photograph. Josh and Claire had a Jewish and Christian wedding ceremony and they worked very closely with their commissioner, Chad Chomlack, to create just the right vows that would include aspects of both traditions and their wedding theme.

The main theme Josh and Claire had created for the day was to celebrate and honour their family and friends, which we really connected with, as that was the ambiance Justin and I had created at our wedding. One of the lovely ways they showed this was in the family style seating arrangements they made at the reception. Their guests sat at square tables and the food was served in large dishes for everyone to share at each table, which really brought people together in such a nice way and created a real togetherness (which lead to a fantastic party that night!).

Getting ready at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver Airport.

Gorgeous bouquet! Such a beautiful selection of flowers- elegant, yet playful.

I just love that Claire wore purple shoes which matched her to her bridesmaids. Cute clutch!

All eyes on Claire while she’s getting into her dress.

Josh waiting for guests to arrive.

Josh and his dapper groomsmen.

It’s so lovely to watch a proud father walks his daughter down the aisle.

Josh and Claire giggling during their Christian and Jewish wedding ceremony.

Breaking the glass under the chupah. Claire totally missed the glass, hence her big laugh!

Married!

As a gift to his groomsmen, Josh gave them all different, classically styled sports runners.

UBC Boathouse with a rainbow over their reception.

Massive flower centerpieces and their ‘Middle East Meets West’ menu, including a traditional matzah ball soup and the best sticking toffee pudding outside of England by Savory City catering. Yummm!

Instead of wedding favours, Josh and Claire donated to a case that is near and dear to their hearts- the BC SPCA Biscuit Fund in honour of all their guests.

Heartfelt speeches were enjoyed by all.

Claire and her bridemaids listening to every word of Josh’s thoughtful speech about Claire and the importance of family.

Instead of clicking glasses to get Josh + Claire to kiss, guests had to sing a song, say a poem or something related to family. Also to get guests attention if the MC was trying to make an announcement, the DJ would play “We are Family” song.

Last dance!

Samineh and Reza are enjoying a wonderful engagement together that’s a little longer than most couples get to enjoy. Thinking back, Justin and I were engaged for over a year and a half and that period of our relationship really was just such a nice, almost dreamy time. It was as though being engaged gave our relationship an extra heightened awareness and loveliness. We met Samineh and Reza in the winter of 2008 and photographed their lively engagement party at The Vancouver Rowing Club with great music, dancing, family and friends- meanwhile a foot of snowflakes fell outside. Since then, they have been living and working in the Northwest Territories keeping warm and enjoying so much time together. On their recent visit to Vancouver, we spent a quintessential Vancouver winter afternoon on Granville Island for their engagement photo session and here are a few of our favourites.

I was  just listening to  The Q on CBC with Jian Ghomeshi and he had a guest on his show who speaking about a town in Haiti that won’t be getting any aid since their area was not as badly hit as others. Still, everyone is living out on the streets because many of the buildings were so poorly built, that they are on the verge of collapse and completely unsafe. This prompted me to want to tell you about a charity that we donated to yesterday called Architecture for Humanity. Their focus is to go into communities in need and rebuild buildings using quality materials so the construction will last and be safe in the future. They are truly an upstanding charity worth giving to and they are involved in so many projects that are soooo worth while, even in our local Vancouver.   Thanks, steff

Check out their website to learn more: www.architectureforhumanity.org

To donate go to: Help Haiti: Long-Term Reconstruction

Building a more sustainable future using the power of design.
Through a global network of building professionals, Architecture for Humanity brings design, construction and development services to communities in need.

It’s a familiar question for photographers to hear, what’s your style?  One of the hot catchwords right now is photojournalism or reportage.  Whilst Photojournalism is the predominant style of coverage that Steff and I do for our clients at hyperfocus photography, we do use other styles of photography as well.  We really like to use a variety of techniques and shooting styles to create the story, mood and atmosphere of the day that will show the viewer what the day was truly like.  But for now, lets take a look at wedding photojournalism.

The photo-journalistic style of wedding photography involves photographing a wedding day as its actually happening, capturing real moments and true emotion; the end result are images that are real and can be related to on a much deeper level versus something that is staged or set up.

Any photography that is staged, or set up by the photographer is not photojournalism (this includes staged photojournalism, which are images that are staged or set up to look photo-journalistic).  Real photojournalism is often a much more difficult style to do well than other popular styles of wedding photography; the result however is that you get a much deeper emotional connection to the images.  Nice, well composed photo-journalistic photography has been our preferred style of shooting for the last 9 years now and our clients really love it.  And we love it too! But don’t worry about missing out on anything, we still love to shoot contemporary fashion-inspired portraits, great details and family portraits.  We feel the best wedding coverage is an expertly blended mix of techniques and styles.

If you have any other questions about photographic styles or would like to book a meeting with us to see our work first hand just drop us a line or give us a call.

Thanks,

Justin

I just love this moment!

A truly spontaneous piece of wedding day artwork.

Holly and Jeremy cutting their cake at the UBC Boathouse (with her nephew eagerly waiting for his slice–priceless) And yes, it was a REALLY good cake!

Hello 2010!

Justin and I would like to wish you all the very best to come in the new year.  We had a lot of fun on New Years Eve with Friends, delicious food, drinks and a seriously fun Photo Booth.  Friends and family is really what the holidays is all about, hopefully you enjoyed some quality time with your friends and family too.

Sincere wishes,

Steff + Justin

Wishing you lots of giggles and happy times together with your family and friends over the holidays.

steff + justin

Sometimes it can be pretty sweet having the last word, or in this case, the ‘Last Moment.’  Real Weddings Magazine’s Autumn 2009 issue has just hit the news stands and we are happy to see that the closing image of the magazine is one we captured at Fenella and Jason’s Bowen Island wedding this past July 25th.  The image shows their garden reception venue along with bride, Fenella underneath a bright orange sky with dual lightning strikes AND two rainbows- this really was quite the moment in time!

One of the amazing things about this image is that this is the shot straight from the camera, there have been no special effects added to this.  Those of you who were lucky enough to be in the Vancouver area that night will surely remember the evening well.  With no rain or storms in the forecast that day, everyone was set to go ahead with their summer plans and for us, that meant photographing Fenella and Jason’s big day.  While we were on Bowen Island that evening, many people around English Bay in Vancouver were treated to a double light show of both the lightning and the finale of the Celebration of Light fireworks display.  The lightning storm with it’s surreal red sky was definitely the most spectacular display of its kind that we’ve ever seen and we watched it all unfold from Fenella and Jason’s outdoor wedding that went full steam ahead, despite having no rain plan.  Anyhow, we don’t want to give too much away on their wedding story because we will be running a blog article soon on the whole day experience, and it was a spectacular day, even without Mother Nature and her surreal show in the sky that evening.  So, check back soon and we will have more tales to tell.

Steff + Justin

Liliane and Alan’s wedding last October was full of fun, heaps of friends and some heavy raindrops…

Our day with Liliane and Alan started out early in the morning with playful games, where Alan and his entourage of best men and groomsmen tried to win Liliane’s bridesmaids over, doing all the silly tasks and games they asked. Everyone had a blast and shared many giggles watching the boys sing, eat wasabe and all sorts, while Alan then went and found his bride, Liliane. It was then off to his parents house for the Chinese Tea Ceremony and the first gathering of both their families from Vancouver, Hong Kong and Chicago. Afterwards we headed into downtown Vancouver for our photo session with the wedding party and the rain began to pour! We always pre-plan for rain and it certainly came in handy, as we had selected some excellent shooting locations, even in the sideways rain and the power even going out downtown for a bit! Despite the bad weather, we all had a good time and got some great shots to the whole group and just the two of them. Their ceremony and reception was at the elegant Terminal City Club, where so many of their friends and family gathered to attend their wedding ceremony. Their reception was enjoyed by all with heartfelt speeches and the tasty catering at the TCC. Over all a fun filled day from start to finish!

I was amazed at how well the girls teamed up in getting Liliane ready. I love this shot because it so easily could have been a similar scene hundreds of years ago with ladies-in-waiting helping a princess to get ready.

Love the traditions of the Chinese tea ceremony.

Liliane catching her breath. It was a really special moment leading up to Liliane walking down the aisle.

In case of rain we always pre-plan rain locations, so when it started pouring, we quickly headed undercover and continued shooting and captured this great image of Liliane on the escalator.

When the rain stopped for a few minutes, we went for a quick walk before it started again.

Making a few adjustments to the wedding cake.

Moments after Liliane delivered a truly heartfelt speech.

Congratulations to you both on your 1st year wedding anniversary!

steff + justin

We met with Travis and Janna over a year ago at their home which was full of large paintings and photographs. We learned that they were both creatives and Travis, being a  graduate from the Western Academy of Photography (one of Canada’s foremost schools of photography), we felt honoured that they chose us as their wedding photographers. We are so pleased to hear that contemporaries in our field truly value our work. For their wedding, it was really important for them to put a mark on their wedding, so they created a consistent brand for their wedding right from the beginning, starting with a wedding logo, amazing printed pieces of artwork and it all even tied in with the decor on the cake.

Janna getting ready at her Aunt’s Victorian home with the help of her Mom and sister.

Janna and her Dad riding together in a vintage car to the church. Janna had decided to get married at the same church her parents had over 3o years ago, so it was a pretty special ride for him to drive the same route now with his daughter.

Travis with his groomsmen and grooms-gal. Travis loves working with paper, so he chose to have paper cranes as their boutonnieres.

While Janna had the vintage 50’s car for her wedding transportation, Travis and Co. had urban-cool wedding transport; the SkyTrain.

3 year old ring bearer eyeing up the aisle before going in. He did a great job!

Janna’s father proudly brought Janna down the aisle.

We love Janna’s laugh! This photo really captures them both so well.

Their wedding coat of arms designed by Travis. It’s a Danish tradition to give a special wedding cake to their guests (that’s what was inside those boxes). How cute are these buttons! We wore ours proudly all day. The ‘peas+ carrots’ button was a hit, but we liked the ‘Scrabble’ button too. And ‘I Heart J+T’!  Super fun!

All the printing for their wedding was done by Hemlock Printers and the buttons by Chris at www.thisisplanB.net

Beautiful and very tasty wedding cake by Cupcakes all done to match the whole branding of the wedding ‘look.’

First dance! This was especially important as Janna had badly broken her leg and torn all her ligaments in her foot in January and was unable to walk for most of the year. She was one very determined women to walk down the aisle this summer, so she worked really hard at rehabilitating her leg and against many odds, she achieved it! This was their first dance together as husband + wife, but also with her now rehabilitated leg. Go girl!!

Guests tearfully watching Travis + Janna’s first dance.

The dance floor was consistently full all night with groovy tunes by their DJ from First Choice Mobile Music.

Here is what Travis + Janna had to say after they saw their photographs:

“Thank you so much for all your hard work. The photos area amazing! The quality is unreal!! You two did such an incredible job of capturing the special moments of our big day. We can’t thank you enough!!”

Thanks guys! :-)   steff + justin