Gronde Photography: Behind the Lens

grondephotography@gmail.com

Saturday, March 3, 2012

{Rock Boudoir} sTorri of a Rock Star

     So I promised you guys I would start posting more photos on the blog in between my stories, advice, and occasional ranting about life in the world of art and photography. With the weather starting to get unseasonably warm I thought it would be a good idea for Torri, a friend of mine I’ve known since we were probably 15, to heat up the blog a little bit.
     Torri will always be one of our favorite models to work with. She’s been with us since the very beginning, and is always willing to get in front of our lens whether it’s photos for her or just us wanting to experiment.
     When it came to her boudoir session, we knew that a white bed, some lace, and pearls just wasn’t going to cut it. We needed edge and a little more excitement. She is a rock star you know. So how does one imagine a chick rock star getting ready for her debut. Yeah… this is it.

A 24x36 print of this photo is currently on display in the annual Tyler Gallery Photographic Arts show in Alexandria, VA.

Credits:

Model & MUA: Torri Barth (@CaffeineCupcake)

Photographers: Chris Gronde (@grondephoto) & Brandy Gronde (@photog_princess)

Creative Director & Styling: Brandy Gronde (@photog_princess)

Thanks for Reading!

Chris and Brandy Gronde

Gronde Photography

grondephotography@gmail.com

Monday, January 23, 2012

Brides Choice Award 2012

Hey everyone...so I just realized that I haven't written or posted anything inside the blog since we found out that we were Rated by Wedding Wire two years in a row, last year. All that meant was that brides were using our services and that they were leaving reviews for us, good or bad. I was glad to be able to say we were rated because this told brides that we weren't just yahoo's with fancy cameras but we were out shooting weddings and brides felt the need to tell other brides about how we did. All our clients have always left the most heart felt reviews for us. Some of which have litterally made me tear up. But THIS YEAR, Wedding Wire has seen those reviews and understand the quality of work we do and have seen the wonderful things that have been said by our past clients and have chosen to award us a Bride's Choice Award! We will display this badge with pride and let everyone know that you, our clients, have helped to put us in the top 5% of wedding photographers! 2012 is starting out as a great year and we can't wait to see where this takes us! Here's a copy of the press release from WeddingWire.com!

Thanks for Reading!

Chris and Brandy Gronde

Gronde Photography

grondephotography@gmail.com

CONGRATULATIONS TO GRONDE PHOTOGRAPHY ON THEIR

2012 BRIDE'S CHOICE AWARD!

{Washington, DC} – January 23, 2012 – WeddingWire, the nation's leading wedding Marketplace, is excited to announce Gronde Photography has been selected to receive the prestigious WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ 2012 for wedding photogrpahy!

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Gronde Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Gronde Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

“WeddingWire is thrilled to honor the success of the top-rated wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community,” said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire. “Since the launch of the Bride’s Choice Awards™ program four years ago, thousands of outstanding wedding professionals have been recognized by the bridal community for their supreme service and dedication to the wedding industry. It is with great pleasure that we congratulate Gronde Photography for their continued professionalism and commitment to enriching the wedding planning experience for engaged couples.”

We are happy to announce that Gronde Photography is one of the very best wedding photographers within the WeddingWire Network, which includes leading wedding planning sites WeddingWire, Project Wedding, Brides.com, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Weddingbee. We would like to thank our past clients for taking the time to review our business on WeddingWire. Thanks to their positive feedback we were able to receive the WeddingWire Bride’s Choice Awards™ for 2012.

For more information, please visit our WeddingWire Storefront today at http://www.weddingwire.com/grondephotography.

To learn more about the Bride's Choice Awards™, please visit www.WeddingWire.com.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire™, the nation's leading marketplace serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 reviewed wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers. WeddingWire also offers a comprehensive suite of online planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklists, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire is the only all-in-one marketing platform for businesses online and on-the-go. WeddingWire offers one simple solution to build a professional network, improve search visibility, manage social media and reach mobile consumers. Businesses that advertise with WeddingWire appear on WeddingWire.com, ProjectWedding.com and other leading sites, including MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), Brides.com and Weddingbee.com.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Two Years in a Row...That's called a Streak!

For the Second Year in a row Brandy and I have managed to accomplish being rated by one of the leading wedding planning sites on the internet. It isn't exactly the greatest of all awards that a photographer can achieve, but it does remind us that we're on the right track. The photography industry is flooded right now with every out of work soccer mom and teenager with a fancy camera that you can find and wedding wire provides a way to somewhat help separate us from those "photographers" out there that really aren't taking this business seriously and think snapping a few snapshots during your most imporant day and then putting them on a disk for you is going to make them some easy money. Wedding wire helps organize the legitimate non doctored reviews from our previous customers. Anyone can pick and choose their best reviews and paste them on their own website, but that's about as trust worthy as reading the risks of smoking on Marlboro's website don't you think? We can't affect the reviews we get on wedding wire, so every single one is there, the good and the bad. Unfortunately that leaves us wide open for attack from anyone who would want to attack us whether it were an uncooperative bride or a rival photographer with a fake weddingwire account, but it's important to us that you KNOW what your experience with us is going to be like! Please take a moment and read the press release sent to us from Wedding Wire and view our profile and reviews on their site. If you are a previous client who has left a review on weddingwire.com. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Your words and feedback mean the world to us and we couldn't have done this for a second time without you! If we continue to provide you with the best photography experience money can buy and get great reviews I have no doubt we'll surpass the "rated" award and achieve "Brides' Choice Award" for 2012!

Gronde Photography is now WeddingWire Rated for 2011

Washington, DC - July 5, 2011 - WeddingWire, the nation's leading wedding technology company, is pleased to announce that Gronde Photography is WeddingWire Rated 2011 for wedding photography. WeddingWire Rated is an annual award program that distinguishes wedding vendors across the country for their excellence. Based on hundreds of thousands of recent wedding reviews, WeddingWire Rated is the most recognized and trusted brand among engaged couples looking to find the best local businesses for their wedding.

Gronde Photography has multiple reviews on WeddingWire. Reviews by our newlywed clients include detailed ratings and insightful descriptions about their experiences working with our business and staff. Our reviews provide transparency for potential clients, assisting them in making the most informed decisions for their big day.

"We are delighted to unveil the 5th annual WeddingWire Rated program," said Timothy Chi, CEO, WeddingWire, Inc. "Gronde Photography has made a commitment to capturing their clients experiences on the nation's leading wedding review site."

As the largest site for wedding reviews, WeddingWire empowers engaged couples with the most comprehensive and trusted review system available. The WeddingWire Rated program provides Gronde Photography with a simple platform to capture customer feedback from their wedding planning experience. Newly engaged couples can easily access all of the reviews for Gronde Photography on WeddingWire.com. We would like to thank our newlyweds for our WeddingWire Rated 2011 recognition.

For more information, please visit Gronde Photography on WeddingWire at http://www.weddingwire.com/grondephotography.

For more information on WeddingWire Rated 2011, please visit http://www.weddingwire.com/.

About WeddingWire, Inc.
WeddingWire, the nation's leading technology company serving the $70 billion wedding industry, is the only online wedding planning resource designed to empower both engaged couples and wedding professionals. For engaged couples, WeddingWire offers the ability to search, compare and book over 200,000 local wedding vendors, from wedding venues to wedding photographers to wedding cakes. WeddingWire also offers an online community and a suite of cutting-edge planning tools for weddings, including wedding websites and wedding checklist, all at no charge. For wedding professionals, WeddingWire provides free online management tools creating the only market opportunity that gives local businesses control over their clients, reviews, leads and performance. Businesses that join the WeddingWire Network appear on WeddingWire.com and other leading sites, including ProjectWedding.com, MarthaStewartWeddings.com (NYSE: MSO), Weddingbee.com, and Celebrations.com (part of the 1-800-Flowers family of brands, NASDAQ: FLWS).

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Sunday, July 10, 2011

Buzz Words: Translating your photographer

     Is she called a house wife or a Domestic Engineer? Are you a consultant or do you just give your opinion too much? Many moons ago (said in deep stereotypical native American voice), I was a tour guide at the Pentagon, but my business card said "Public Liaison to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs". That sounds WAY more professional and was much more impressive to women at the time. We all do it. We tend to over emphasize the title or importance of our jobs (not to say the stay at home spouses are not important!).  BUT! When it comes to picking a professional photographer or any kind of professional to do a job for you that costs you a substantial amount of money you should know what you're asking for and know what it means when these people use big buzz words.

     When you search for "Photographers" on Google, you'll see your side bar and search results light up with sponsored ads with hundreds of photographers claiming to be "photojournalists". (I suddenly have this feeling I'm going to be using a lot of quotation marks in this blog post). This is because asking for photojournalists has become the trendy thing for brides to do. That style of photography seems to be IN these days. The reason, I've gathered, is that brides are no longer impressed with old fashioned "traditional" posing (i.e. groom behind bride with hands on waist, bride and groom facing each other with bride hand on groom chest, etc), and who can blame them. They want to look beautiful without LOOKING posed. That isn't photojournalism, that's a good photographer who KNOWS how to direct a shot. There's a lot of photographers who claim to be photojournalists because of this trend. All this means is that they have no idea how to pose people and aren't going to try to do so. Lets face it, if you haven't had a photograph in an article in a newspaper or magazine that you were assigned to shoot; you are NOT a professional photojournalist. I know of a photojournalist who used to shoot for the Washington Post who then did weddings. As the bride, he told you that you have no say in what he shoots. He will shoot only candids (no formal portraits) and only what he deems is interesting enough to shoot. If he is standing around and not shooting, that means there is nothing interesting going on. Oh yeah, did I mention he charged $10,000 for his services. Don't get me wrong, he was an amazing photographer, but is this the kind of photojournalism brides and grooms want? So if you want portraits and candids, you may want to ask for someone who specializes in natural posing or at least ask for what publication they've appeared in, if they don't have any, they are not photojournalists.

     Another term I see and hear a lot from the photography students at my college is that they are "professional, natural light" photographers. This means that they only shoot on location 1. outside or 2. near a window, and only during the day when there is natural light. I think one of the judges from the youtube web series Shutter Wars said it best when she said, "All 'natural light photographer' means is that you don't know [anything] about lighting." All professional photographers should at least know a little bit about lighting; whether studio strobes, studio constant lights (hot lights), or at the very least an on camera speedlight, otherwise it seems pretty amateur (just my opinion). I'm not one to say I know everything about studio lighting, but Brandy and I have been shooting at Union 206 Studio for almost a year now and have learned TONS from a few of our mentors there and continue to learn as should all professionals. These photographers might be very good at what they do, but what they do is very limited compared to the photographers that have experience with lighting. Good lighting can add an ambiance to your photos that is far beyond what can be done with natural lighting. Here's an example of a photo I shot where I used a speedlight that could not possibly have been done with natural light.

This was done in a dark hallway that had very little light available, but am I going to not shoot here just because there isn't enough natural light? NO! That's a missed opportunity for what I think is a great photo. I guess you could boost your ISO (camera sensitivity for all you non-photog readers out there... think of it like film speed for old cameras) to 6400 or something to make the exposure better without a flash, but 1. you're going to have an overly noisy or grainy photo for no reason and 2. you won't get that great spotlight look that is hard to get without external lighting. So basically natural light is fine, but you're only using 10% of your photog brain.

Likewise, with that same photo I can go back to the photojournalism argument. Does it look posed? not really. They look pretty natural and comfortable. Was it posed? again, not really. It was simply encouraged! "Hey guys there's a nice quite corner away from the crowd... oh, don't mind me I'll be up on those stairs" True photojournalism means that I am in NO way influencing the photographs, but don't you want a photographer that has artistic ideas? Ok I think I've beat that horse enough.

The third and final term I'll discuss pretty briefly is "Fine Art" photographers. Now for a moment I'm going to talk directly to those girls out there wanting to start a modeling career and would love for a photographer to offer them free photos if you pose for them, so you go on craigslist or model mayhem to look for a photographer. STAY AWAY FROM THESE GUYS!

Now don't get me wrong, there's true fine art photography that is true art, but it's like 10% of "fine art" photographers that are advertising out there. Most of them are old creepy guys with studios in their basement that just want to take photographs of young nude women and say it's "fine art". Model Mayhem is FULL of photographers that take what I personally find to be absolutely trashy and disgusting photos for the sake of "art" and these models are basically selling themselves extremely short. 99% of fine art photography is all nude and some of it is just unnecessary, the photo would be JUST as good or even BETTER if the girl had a dress on or at least something. So, if you meet a photographer who claims to specialize in fine art photography, they may be legitimate but be weary of them at least.

So, what are we? Well you can be rest assured we have no interest in that kind of "fine art". Are we photojournalists? No, I have too much artistic vision for that kind of work. My influence needs to touch every photo I take. I would say our style is a "Naturalistic Dramatic Portraiture". Naturalistic meaning that although we encourage posing, we don't really pose. Brandy is phenomenal at encouraging movement and placement. Instead of placing your hands and tilting your head, she'll just ask "can we get a kiss?" "Hold her close." "Now, pretend you two love each other." (That typical gets a nice laugh or smile). The subject does each movement the way they naturally do it and it looks like there is no posing at all. Dramatic means we're telling a story, but instead of journalisticly we tell the story YOU want to tell. Also, it means that the photos are enhanced either through framing, effective lighting, or post processing to add drama and create a striking photo that is worthy of being treated as art; something worthy of being in a gallery or hanging on your wall. And portraiture because it's all about you... the subject and everything else just compliments you and the love you guys have or your personality if you're by yourself.

Well I hope you learned a little something today and hope that it helps you the next time you're choosing a photographer to take your photos either for your wedding or any other occasion. And if you're a photographer, like us, than I hope you'll think about these kind of things and do as much as you can to set yourself apart from the mass of photographers out there putting out the same product. If my history of working in Information Technology has taught me anything, it's that if you aren't trying to always be innovative you are very quickly going to become yesterdays news.

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Friday, July 1, 2011

Vanished...With a Trace: a theatrical narrative of long exposure night photography

So the first few weeks of this summer I took a Night and Low light photography class. A lot of what we shoot are daytime outdoor weddings, but ocassionally we get to shoot receptions that carry on into the night or may someday have a candlelit wedding ceremony. I thought this particular class would be a good excuse to play with the settings on my camera as well as practice with high ISO's, long shutter speeds, and low light situations. I had three weeks to come up with and execute a final project; which was to be made up of a 10 photo series. As I was walking my dogs one night by the playground one of the swings on the swingset was swinging, but nobody was there? Was it the wind? Is somebody there? Thus, I knew I had a concept brewing.

When I started this project I wanted to capture the stillness of the night and experiment with long exposure. I then realized that the stillness was boring, so I added a single aspect or item to each photo that would create drama, movement, or tension in the photo but keep the inherent stillness. I was hoping to pose many questions in each photo. What happened? How long ago? Who's doing these things? etc. I've always hated the orangeness of street lights but in these photos it become another motif that I decided to work with. My intent was to build the tension and the suspense through each photo. I find shooting with a tripod more challenging than shooting handheld. I hope everyone enjoys this series. Take your time looking through each one. Put yourself in the shoes of a person walking this path and finding these items. What conclusions do you draw from each place? Ask yourselves the question an investigator would ask. Do you naturally start to build a story in your head like I did?

So what do you think happened? Comment below with your story!

The full set of photos can be seen in larger size on our Flickr page.

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Thursday, June 2, 2011

Sorry for the Inconvenience: A DC Metro Documentary Project

While in my second term of working on my degree in Photography, two out of three of my classes were photography related. One was a Documentary Photography class. Why would a portrait photographer such as myself take a Documentary Photography class, you ask? That's a good question, thank you for asking! Well, as most of you know I've been doing portraits for a while and I consider myself pretty good at it, BUT I'm always looking for ways to be more innovative in my portraits and my style, so I've decided to look at other styles of photography and see what I can merge from each style into a style that is all my own. What I found in Documentary Photography is the world of "information". It's all about what information you can get out of your photo. "If somebody 50 years found a print of mine what information can they get out of that picture alone." That's the question our professor asked us over and over again. If she asked you why you included an object (for argument purposes let’s say a tree) in your photo and you said, "I thought it looked cool" or "it helped frame the subject" or anything remotely related to aesthetics, she'd have your head! This posed an interesting dilemma for me as an artist, but also as someone who "documents" weddings for a living. We're not just making beautiful photos for our clients. We are documenting their entire day and there is a lot of information to be captured as well as the beauty of it all. We're documenting all the details (flowers, place settings, invites, food, etc.), the attendees, and so much more! But at the same point it can't look like an evidence photo. Nobody wants to see a picture of their ring next to one of those CSI yellow right angle ruler thingies. Balance is the key! Balancing the highest amount of information with a photo that is also aesthetically pleasing to look at. Because the information doesn't matter if nobody wants to look at it!

So when it was time to work on a final project I went COMPLETLEY outside my comfort zone. I didn't have 6 weeks’ worth of weddings to shoot for this, so she asked us to think about something that interested us, intrigued us, or irritated us. Immediately I thought about something that irritated me. Anyone who lives here in DC knows that everywhere you go on the DC metro there's a broken escalator. Whether completely torn apart or just not moving. There have been escalators that have collapsed and ones that the breaks fail and they go out of control! At one stop all escalators started going up, so there was no way to go DOWN into the metro station. So weekend after weekend I traveled out to the metro to document as many broken escalators as I could find and why! Some things surprised me, some things didn't, but by the end I had a new knowledge about these escalators and series of pictures on Flickr (the site we use for class to turn in our photos) showcasing what I found.

The Washington Metro Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is a tri-jurisdictional government agency authorized by Congress, that operates transit service in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, including the Washington Metro and Metrobus. They have been accused several times of being negligent with their maintenance. In October 2010 an escalator at the L'Enfant Plaza station had its breaks malfunction causing it to accelerate out of control and injure 5 people. This sparked an independent audit to show why so many of them broke that often. Then, in February 2011 a Foggy Bottom Station Metro escalator completely collapsed, at the bottom, injuring three people. WMATA has put forth an action plan to improve the operation and safety of these escalators, including a full modernization of many of its escalators. The work at these stations involves the removal, refurbishment or replacement of all escalator parts including existing escalator steps, handrails, safety devices, and the electrical systems within the units. Each modernization should take approximately 12 weeks to complete.

A barrier stands in the way of an escalator at the Gallery Place/Chinatown Metro Station. A reusable sign has been posted explaining why the escalator is out of service and letting everyone know when the escalator is expecting to be back in service. This escalator is part of a wide spread modernization of most of the WMATA escalator system which will replace or refurbish every part of the escalator before opening it up for service. On the day of this photo 85 of the 588 metro escalators were down or broken.

The light from overhead shines down on the drive motor of an escalator that is undergoing modernization and upgrade maintenance at Union Station. The right side of the picture shows the chain and wheels that allow the stairs to move up or down the escalator. On this day 78 escalators out of 588 on the DC metro were undergoing maintenance.

An escalator at the Metrocenter Station has had its stairs removed for modernization. The motors and drive wheels have been replaced and look like new. All visible pieces are clean of any grease or grime. On the the day of this photo 85 of the 588 metro escalators were down or broken.

All four escalators leading to the 4th street exit of the Judiciary Square Metro Station are out of order and blocked. Only two of the eight escalators in the station were operational. On this day 75 out of 588 escalators on the DC metro were down for service.

The right hand escalator at the entrance to the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station has recently begun its modernization maintenance. Its hand rails are hanging loose from the drive wheels. A cable wrap lies in spiral on the grungy bottom of the escalator cavity. On this day 81 out of 588 escalators on the DC metro were down for service.

Only two of the three escalators remain at the Foggy Bottom Metro Station in Washington, DC. On February 18th, the bottom of the left hand escalator collapsed under three of the riders. It has since been completely removed. The plans posted nearby state that two of the escalators will be completely replaced with new escalators and one will be replaced with stairs over the next year. On the day of this photo 85 of the 588 metro escalators were down or broken.

You can see the full set HERE.

I would like to especially thank a good friend, fellow Hoosier (person from Indiana), and a documentarian/wikipedian herself, Sarah Stierch for helping me get some exposure to this project by adding it to her site, The Culture Feed and allowing me to get over 200 views on Flikr. I hope you enjoyed seeing these and maybe even learning something about WMATA. Stay tuned! Summer semester just started and the next style I'm absorbing is "Night and Lowlight Photography". Wish me luck! And you can see ALL the work I do for school down on the link below on our Flickr page!

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