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With the second round of our Evolution Experience Workshop drawing to a close, I wanted to share some thoughts with all of you. We absolutely love what we do- I am sure you have heard that before, and so that should come as no surprise. From forming relationships with our couples, to being privileged to document such diverse and emotional events, to bringing it all together to create a reflection of who they are and what they mean to each other, to sharing their photo and cinema with them afterwards - the entire experience is very rewarding and deeply meaningful.

In hosting the Evolution Experience here at our studio, our intention was to try and reignite that passion that many have lost for the art they produce, to help them learn the tools and techniques to push themselves further, and above all, how to give their work more life, depth, and meaning. What we didn’t prepare ourselves for was how rewarding the entire experience would be for all of us at StillMotion, and for that we want to sincerely thank everybody involved.

We’ve shared a lot over the past couple weeks- our approach really was ‘all in all out’. There is a fine line between inspiring others, which can add excitement and depth to your work, and having others copy what we do, which provides neither. Here is the question - who really loses in this situation? Of course we send out letters and ask nicely that clips be taken down and that things aren’t copied in the future, but these instances really don’t hurt us, not nearly as much as a couple receiving something so devoid of meaning and personality.

With that, I would like to share with you two examples of clips that were brought to our attention recently (by inquiring couples nonetheless). By the time you see these there is a good chance they may already be removed, so I will try and update this post when that happens. The first looks surprisingly similar to Darshan and Raina’s trailer, which we posted a while back (and is posted again here as a reference).
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We hope everybody had a great holiday! Our blogging has slowed down errr stopped for the past couple weeks BUT we have a great excuse: we got to spend Christmas and New Years in Jamaica!

You can expect a healthy dose of updates to the blog over the next couple weeks with some big changes coming at the end of the month. Only three weeks until our first evolution experience workshop; very exciting.

Milena + Sam had a wonderful winter wedding. Milena setup her bridesmaids with some very stylish winter boots for their march to the church, and everybody braved the cold all day with huge smiles. Their reception was at the Paramount, which is a great venue in its own right, but as a location to share an SDE it is something else. Two large screens drop down from the ceiling on both sides of the room and their sound system really helps convey the feeling of the SDE. With that, on to Milena + Sam’s SDE.

Sam + Milena’s Same-Day Edit from StillMotion on Vimeo.

We wanted to try something that we had never done before, and the wedding of Josh + Laura were the perfect fit. They were open to all of our ideas and we were able to shoot their wedding in a different way, something that was a first for our industry. The differences in how we shot it aren’t as important as the difference in impact the clip has because of our new approach. With that, we would like to share with you a behind the scenes trailer from Josh + Laura’s wedding that was shot entirely with 35mm adapters. This trailer was meant to be a little silly and generate some buzz about what we put together.

StillMotion 2.0 // the revolution // what’s this? from StillMotion on Vimeo.

Laura + Josh // The All Brevis Wedding // Mexico from StillMotion on Vimeo.

So, what’s all this hype about?

With the newly released Canon 5D MK11 (a dSLR that shoots HD video) starting to get into the hands of consumers, samples of the quality of video this camera can shoot have started popping up all over the internet. In recent weeks this has sent waves of speculation throughout the industry. Some call this camera a ‘game changer’ with photographers now being able to shoot high quality video with the exact same camera body and lenses that they use to shoot photo. Many feel that this poses a serious threat to videographers, while some videographers are also looking at this as an opportunity to start adding on photography to remain competitive.
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Jess and Ryan really put the pressure on us to find a cool spot to shoot, and we couldn’t let this chance pass by.

After showing their SDE around 11PM, I headed back to the studio and got ready to fly out at 5am the next morning for another wedding that day. While I certainly wouldn’t recommend trying to shoot two weddings, in two days, in two countries - Anita and Sander were just so excited that we had to find a way to make it work. A special thanks to Casey from Mind|Castle Studios for flying down to Cali ahead of time with Michael just in case I didn’t make it in time. Not only is their work very tight, but Casey was a very cool guy to work with.

Here is the SDE from Jess and Ryan’s wedding. Thanks again for having us and a special thanks to Ryan for laying down your white Hugo Boss suit in the name of great imagery. For those who are curious, John got up at 5am the day of the wedding to shoot that sunrise.

 
Jessice + Ryan’s SDE - Hamilton Ontario from StillMotion on Vimeo.

What a treat to travel down to Tupelo and be a part of Chase and Betsy’s wedding. Though Betsy denies doing any modeling in her past, we are pretty confident she is a British supermodel. Chase, not to be outdone by Betsy’s talents, had to show us just how well he could hang from a ladder upside-down; and what a cool shot we got.

The superhero of the day though was Chuck Sims, the father of the groom and best man, who found us the best photo-session location to date (an abandoned warehouse) and sent out a small research team to find out who owned it and how we could get in. Chuck also gets superhero points for taking us to a small Southern restaurant to get some yummy BBQ and the tastiest homemade cake we’ve ever tried, and generally just making us feel really at home for our entire trip.

We are still getting the hang of remote Same-Day Edits, but this one really pushed us. What a time crunch- we started at the salon at 6am and the SDE was to be shown at the end of the reception shortly before 4pm. By the time we arrived at the reception and started editing, we had about 90 minutes before we needed to prepare everything to be shown. Chuck also owns Chuck Sims Images (CSI) and is a professional photographer in Tupelo shooting mainly seniors, which just added to the pressure. With such a time crunch, Mike and I had to both edit during different parts of the day, and it certainly is a good thing we did or we likely wouldn’t have been done on time.
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We are so fortunate to be surrounded day in and day out with so much positive energy, so much anticipation and excitement, and so much love and caring. It is rather ironic, and gratifyingly so, to put together a demo with a song about no more happy endings.

Weddings can be somewhat of uncertain events with so many details to plan and not enough time to go around. As it all starts to come together and the big day approaches, the stress level often rises and we wonder if everything will come together the way it has been dreamed about for years (well at least for the brides…) I view this piece as being very inspirational- a celebration of so many happy endings.

When we set out to create this compilation of our work this past summer, we really weren’t sure what to expect. What we ended up with was much more than we could have imagined.

Welcome to StillMotion!

Welcome to StillMotion - the Demo from StillMotion on Vimeo.

A link to the HD version on Vimeo.

We first heard about Griffen over a year ago when Amy + Alex’s highlights were featured on Weddingbee. Our first exposure to her very affectionate personality was through one of her many blog comments:

“If you were anywhere in my time zone I would hire you for my wedding, my trash the dress, my milestone birthdays, my future children’s milestone birthdays, and I’d even have it in my will that you should film my funeral. Okay, so that was a little morbid and creepy. I’m just so head over heels in love with your work.”

I emailed her saying that while we were a little iffy about the funeral part, we would certainly love to fly out and be a part of her wedding.

Griffen and Curtis had a very intimate celebration at V. Sattui winery in St. Helena. Their ceremony was outside in a gorgeous stone courtyard while their reception was in a very rustic wine cellar. Their wedding was contemporary with a very unique vintage vibe in there (even down to the tunes at the reception).

Thanks to Augie Chang (their awesome photographer) who was a blast to work with, as well as Lisa from BVWeddings, for all of her help in coordinating the event (which is oh so important with an SDE).

Enjoy their SDE, and good luck making it through their vows.

Griffen + Curtis Same-Day Edit, St. Helena, CA from StillMotion on Vimeo.

It was quite the treat to be involved in Darshan and Raina’s day this past summer. I don’t think I have ever seen so much happen in what feels like an extremely short 15 hours. They celebrated many Indian traditions, all of which were both fascinating to view and inspiring to shoot. Traditions such as the Bharat in which Darshan rode in on a horse while his family danced around him, or the Vhadu Agamana in which Raina entered the ceremony site and was separated from Darshan by only a thin sheet held between them. When the sheet was dropped, they viewed each other for the first time and placed (or in their case, threw) rice on each other’s head signifying that they will stay together through thick and thin.

Here is a trailer to give you an idea of exactly what we were up to.

Darshan + Raina Columbus, OH Wedding Trailer from StillMotion on Vimeo.

When we got a call from Bee we were super excited. We’ve been HUGE fans of Weddingbee for quite some time now and consider ourselves extremely lucky to have had some of our amazing brides as Bees themselves!

The history behind StillMotion is somewhat long and not overly interesting so we’ll just tell you about us now. We are a company consisting of 5 people: John, Amina, Patrick, Konrad, and Jessica. John and Amina are the photographers here at StillMotion, with Patrick and Konrad doing the cinematography. Jessica is our wonderfully amazing Studio Manager. When we started this company over 4 years ago, we did so with a very clear goal - to make wedding imagery less boring!! We noticed that a lot of wedding photography was so drab… don’t get me wrong, we love classical wedding photography, but the fake smiles and awkward kisses can be cringeworthy! We also noticed that wedding “video” was just straight out cheese. Bad love-heart effects, unprocessed colours, AWFUL audio and zero story. So we set out to produce imagery for our couples that we believe are refined, edgy, and sophisticated, yet timeless.

We are so lucky that our brides have embraced “us”, and allowed us to create some of our most amazing works. We feel that wedding photography and cinematography should be more than just images, it should be work of art, and the experience all along the way. We work with a small number of couples each year, hand crafting and tailoring their art specifically for them. Getting to know our brides in a very personal way, we are able to tell their story.

With all that said, we look forward to sharing our stories and pieces with you. We feel very lucky to have been selected to join this group.

Thanks again for having us, and cheers to possibly one of the most progressive blogs in the industry today!

Angela + James Day After Shoot // Behind the Scenes from StillMotion on Vimeo