Before & After with Mircea Brânda

Several weeks back, our friend and colleague Mircea Branda had us scraping our collective jaws off the pavement with these gorgeous images. So, yeah, we had to learn more about how he crafts these rich and intimate wedding portraits. Check ‘em out, guys!

Mircea. You. GO!

Hi there. I am a photographer from Romania. More recently I've been shooting weddings, but it all started as a hobby seven years ago when I bought my first camera. For a long time my artistic focus was macro and street photography. Then, a good friend of mine and a great photographer as well, Lucian Borza, asked me to join him and shoot a wedding together. That is how it all started.

By what artists/creatives are you influenced? What inspires you?

I'm inspired by the work of some great wedding photographers such as: Ed Peers, Jonas Peterson, Dylan Howell & Sarah Byrne, Gabe Mcclintock, Gianluca Adovasio and many others. Also, the fact that I did macro and street photography for many years has trained my eye to focus on the little details that matter.

Do you have a vision in mind before going out and shooting? Tell us about about your workflow and how the vision comes to life before shooting and in post.

Before a photo session, I like to meet with my clients first and find out a little bit about them. What are their interests or passions?  I also observe them as a couple. Are they adventurous or reserved? These bits of information can really set the mood to a session and even inspire a location. Then during the session my main concern is to keep it all natural. The first thing I tell my clients before a wedding is to try to forget that I am even there.

I like to keep my workflow as simple as I can. At a wedding I shoot somewhere around 3,000 photos. The first step, which I consider most difficult, is selecting the photos that I give to my clients. Then I import all my photos to Lightroom, choose an action and start working.

Now tell us how this amazing image came together, from conception to completion.

I had this location in mind after finding out that the groom is an architect and that the couple also loves nature, just like me. The place itself is a complex of traditional houses in a village near my hometown. We woke up very early in the morning and started shooting. Long after the sun rose, as we were heading back, I accidentally saw this wonderful place behind a hill where the sun hadn’t shown up yet. That is where I took this photo. Back home, I selected Kodak Gold 200 and started to get to work.

SOOC

Final Edit

Bonus Eye Candy!

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Post by LOOKSLIKEFILM contributing editor, Seth Langner | www.karmarthartic.com Jacksonville, Seattle wedding photographer

Before & After with Thomas Morel

This image by Thomas Morel is just gangbusters! Now get the low down on how this fine art masterpiece came to be . . .

Thomas. You. Go!

I am Thomas Morel, Dutch photographer living in Norway. Born 1988. Official Hasselblad ambassador. I have been working professionally since 2007, with customers like Nike, Puma, IOC and Maui Theatre and Scandic to mention a few. For the past two years, I have mainly been focussing on creating art for customers who wish to decorate their venues with taylor made photography. I am specialized in freezing motion that goes by too rapidly for the human eye to register.  I don’t have any education whatsoever, and have chosen to rely on my own instincts to shoot imagery that I feel comes straight out of my heart. It is simply a way of trial and error; if something doesn’t turn out good enough, I have to change something until it is exactly how I want it to be. Don’t let anyone define the value of your work, stay true to yourself at any time.

I make a point out of not creating the motion or gesture in post production. Off course I do use photoshop for minor adjustments like color correction or removing disturbing elements, but the motion itself is unmanipulated. I do this because I believe the true art of photography is it’s ability to tear something completely out of context, it is a slice of time within the absolute universe of the frame. You only see what I want you to see, and the fact that it is not manipulated is something that I hope intrigues the viewer even more as to how the shot was taken. The beauty of photography is that you don’t see the sweating of the models, you don’t hear their heavy breathing, and you don’t see that they don’t land on their feet right after the shot is taken. You just see the slice of time that I find interesting, without seeing the context.

By what artists/creatives are you influenced? What inspires you?

I am inspired by perfection. Other artists who don’t stop until they have exactly what they are looking for, artists who keep pushing their own limits as far as they can go to create something that gives the audience a glimpse into the creative mind of the artist.

This basically involves every singe creative artist who follows his or her heart, no matter if it is music, painting or photography etc. that they create.

Creativity, and the feeling it gives you, is really personal. So I would be an idiot to point out artists that do “good" work; you have to decide for yourself. But artists that create photographic work that inspires me tremendously, are for instance Lois Greenfield and Tim Flach. The technical perfection of their work is something from another planet, another universe. I get emotional when I look at their work, just because of the sheer technical and creative perfection of their imagery.   

Do you have a vision in mind before going out and shooting? Tell us about about your workflow and how the vision comes to life before shooting and in post.

I started working the way I do because I felt that I wanted to control the situation that I was shooting completely. I don’t want to be a spectator, because I want to create something that I find interesting rather then something that is “correct” or “realistic”. I much rather manipulate the truth to get my results then manipulating the photo in post-production, and that means that I have to be able to control the setting completely in order to visualize my idea. Before I start organizing a shoot, I know exactly what I am looking for, and what I need to make it happen. That is basically the whole essence of my workflow.

Off course, during the session itself, there are always surprises, and I am completely reliant on the models to be able to do what I want in a natural way. The fact that I always shoot tethered enables me to communicate the vision to the models, and they can come with their input to get is as good as possible. It is always a close collaboration between me and the people I shoot. When it comes to post production: as you can see the only thing I did was darken the background even more to point the focus as much as possible on the dancers and their gestures.

Now tell us how this amazing image came together, from conception to completion.

I took this shot in Lois Greenfield’s studio in New York. I had no gear or experience at the time, I just knew that I loved the way Lois worked, and I knew what I wanted to create. This was my first ever try at doing something professional, and I owe Lois a lot to give me the chance and confidence to realize it. After this shot, I went back to Norway and persuaded the bank to give me a loan to buy my own gear to continue creating artwork like this.

It was such a great experience to get to work with such talented dancers like these four (Miguel Quinones, Dario Vaccaro, Patricia Foster and Colleen T. Sullivan) it is one thing to have a vision, but a whole other thing to find the dancers who are able to actually realize it. 

BONUS EYE CANDY

Now mouse over this image for that sweet B&A magic!

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This post edited by Seth Langner ~ www.karmathartic.com 

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Before & After with Maggie Sheffield

This week's Before & After is brought to you by BACON! Yeah, no, seriously . . . bacon.

Maggie! Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Maggie Sheffield. I am a lover of Christ, Wife, & Mother.  I live in a little farm town in Oklahoma. My husband, who was my high school sweetheart, is a farmer and we have two beautiful kiddos, Drake (5) & Dru (3).  My husband gave me my first camera about 4 years ago. I literally had no intentions of starting a business from it, I just wanted pictures of my kids with a "good" camera.  I was a stay at home mom & about a year and a half later, I decided to really dig into photography.  I had help from fellow photog friends, inspiration from other photographers on social media and just practiced my rear off. I learn something new ALL. THE. TIME. I think that's what I love most about photography. You always evolve, you don't have to have one certain style, & I am constantly pushing myself at seeing things differently.  

By what artists/creatives are you influenced? What inspires you?

Tarah Sweeney is one of them. I have followed her work for a while & bought her E-Book a while back. I love her style and messy view. I am all over the place and I think she is too and I just love how she put that into her work and how she photographs her own children. I love the mood in her photographs and how she uses available light.

Mae Burke is another. I love how she photographs motherhood. Obviously, that's one of the most important things in my life and to see her whole career be focused on that, I was just like WOW. I love that whole take on it. I love the raw feeling in her images and you can just feel the emotions for new moms.

Another thing I am influenced by is not a photographer, but a television show. My husband and I are obsessed with FARGO. I literally say on every episode, "Babe, pause it. Look how amazing that would be if it were a still image." The tones are phenomenal, it is always gloomy & moody and I LOVE it. I get so much inspiration out of it after every.single.episode.

My husband and my kids definitely inspire me-- My husband is the most encouraging person and literally- whatever I need, he makes sure I have it. He's my free advertising! We can't go to a store without him telling everyone about my photography! Ha!  My kids inspire so much of my photography. My favorite images are of them . . . biased? Yes. But, I think when you have so much emotion in your photographs and the ones that make you feel something. They're always your favorite. I love looking at their images and remembering exactly what was going on in that moment. Something I'll have forever. Can't beat it.

Do you have  a vision in mind before going out and shooting? Tell us about about your workflow and how the vision comes to life before shooting and in post.

I usually don't have a specific vision before shooting, maybe a few ideas or things to try, but for the most part, no. Sometimes when photographing my kids I do. I feel like I step outside of the box with them. I'm trying to put that into play on all of my sessions :)  My workflow is super simple. I'm a wife & a mama and I literally don't want to (CAN'T) spend my evenings at my computer editing all night.  

I shoot with a Nikon D4s and my main lens is Sigma Art 35mm 1.4. I also have a 70-200 2.8 that I love, but for the most part, my 35 doesn't leave my camera.  I edit mainly in Lightroom. Photoshop if needed, but I try to avoid it, because I have no idea what I'm doing in there most of the time. Ha! I love my presets from VSCO and the new ones from Tribe Archipelago. If I can get one click & go, I'm a happy girl.

Now, tell us how this amazing image came together.

Okay, for real.... BURNT BACON. This has cracked me up! I'm not kidding.. We were cooking breakfast on Christmas eve morning and the bacon got a little burnt, so it was smokey in my house. We are all sitting at the kitchen table eating and the sun is shining through our door and the blinds. I'm thinking wow, that would be a neat photograph. I get up from the table without saying a word and my husband jokingly says, "Oh, man, I need to grab my camera for this..." (I said he was encouraging, I didn't say he couldn't be a pain!) My kids were kind of playing in the rays and then my son went back to eating and my daughter was standing there still and I said, "Dru, look outside. Tell me what you see." Then I just started photographing her there. I knew I would love the images, but I wasn't even sure I would post to Facebook. I imported into Lightroom and clicked on the Kodak Gold presets, tried the 101- bumped up the temp a little and I was like wow, that looks REALLY good with just that. (I'm simple, I told ya) I saved it and uploaded to Facebook & that is that. I'm BLOWN AWAY by all of the feedback. I was literally sitting at my computer about to log off Facebook and kept seeing all of the notifications from everyone, I had to give my husband an "I told ya so!"  

Thank you guys so much, I am so inspired by all of the photographers on this page and all of the photographs I see daily. You all push this small town girl out of her element and I love it.

SOOC

The bacon

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