Q&A with one of our fab sponsors, Chris Michael Photo

Get to know the man behind the lens of Chris Michael Photo with this intimate chat session we had with him. He is one of our sponsors. Sit down, read, and then browse his site. My favorite part…his wife writes the “about me” session. So cute! At the bottom of this post, you will find all the details of the super exciting contest He is holding for one of the Entwined finalists.

 

I actually got started with a borrowed camera on my honeymoon in 2004. My dad resurrected an old camera from the bottom of his closet for me since we didn’t have one. We ended up taking that camera with us everywhere; I never wanted to put it down! I took photos of the most random things and geeked out over the developed images once we were back in Austin. I still remember my three favorites; bikes lined up outside of a pizza hut, a set of light posts, and a photo of my wife Erin sitting on the curb outside a restaurant. In retrospect, these photos aren’t that great. But, at the time I saw something unique in them. I was able to capture each of these images, exactly as I had imagined them and it was thrilling to see the tangible product. I continued to experiment with the camera for eight months before we went on our second trip to Ukraine during December of 2004. When we had the photos developed, I knew this was something I wanted to spend a lot more time doing. So that next semester, I changed one of my majors to Photojournalism. Shortly after graduation a friend of mined asked me to photograph her wedding. Completely confident in my ability to use a camera (after all, I did have a degree) I accepted her offer. I didn’t expect there would be much of a transition from photojournalism to wedding photography (after all, I had photographed college football games) but boy was I wrong! I quickly learned just how much I had to learn if I ever even wanted to even think about photographing weddings. I either needed to decide that I was never going to to touch this again, or get to work. So I got to work. (For the record, the biggest lesson I learned was that no photographer should ever commit to shoot a wedding unless they’ve spent a decent amount of time second shooting for professionals)

When the bride is putting on the dress for the day. That is the moment when the day becomes real to most brides and their families. Every time a friend or family member walks into the room and sees the bride in her dress for the first time, they’re in awe and the rush of anticipation begins. Also, the father daughter dance is a moment that gets us every time. We are suckers for that father daughter bond.

There’s usually a time during every ceremony that our heart strings are pulled. By far, the best, was Ryan & Candace’s wedding in East Austin. These two met investing in kids at an inner city school. Most of their wedding party was made up of students from Reagan High School. Their ceremony began with a video on a large screen at the front of this tiny church. The frames switched back and forth between the two of them as they shared their individual stories. They each discussed how important their Christian faith was and how God had changed each of their lives and then brought them together. They also shared how they planned to continue in life together, with their faith as a foundation for their marriage. It was absolutely beautiful. 

 

We have never offered anything this big before and are thrilled to give it to any of these couples! We’ve teamed up with our friends Scott Wade, Tiffany Tagle Photography and Lisa Jauregui at Austin Wedding Make Up to provide a fabulous photography package to one winner. We’re hosting voting for each couple on our blog through midnight on Thursday December 29th and will announce the winner Friday December 30th. For the remaining 9 Entwined couples, we’re offering a drastically discounted wedding package.

 

8 Hours of Coverage by Chris and Scott

2 Photographers

Photo booth

Choice: 10×10 Leather bound Album or 30×40 Canvas Wrap

Boudoir Session with Tiffany Tagle with professional make up application by Austin Wedding Make up

Your choice of a Bridal Portrait or Day After Session for the bride and groom