Sara + Josh :: Motion

Happy Monday, and Happy February! (one month closer to warm sunshine!)

This project was a long time in the making, and I finally wrapped it up last week. As some of you know, this year, Jodi and I are launching a new product to our photography business, and it's what we call "Motion Photography". It itself, that phrase makes no sense at all but here's why we call it what we do. Obviously, we are in the art of photography, that's what we do. But, some new tools came along not too long ago that are allowing us to put our photography in motion, using the same cameras, same lenses, and same artistic eye that makes our still photography what it is. So, since we've been wanting to do this for a long time, because there are just certain things about a wedding where the emotion, and atmosphere of the moment just can't all be captured in a still photograph. So, it just made sense that we would launch this into Gehman Photography!

Take a look at our latest video, and you'll see what I mean...

PS. Go to our Gehman Photography Facebook Page to view the video in HD.

Melissa + Chris :: Forever

This is part 2 of our back-to-back weddings this past weekend.

Melissa + Chris are cool cats. That pretty much sums it up. We had fun with their engagement session back in September in the Iowa City park. The very nice people that work at the park have, since then, totally wrecked the location we worked with that day, which was created by the flood. Why didn't they ask us first? Come on, people. :) Ask a photographer before you wreck stuff!

It was mildly raining on Saturday morning, putting a damper on the plans we had made for their wedding pictures. But, we ended up finding a cool old House Museum to work with for their first glances, which had a nice porch to work under. So while I was waiting for the couple at one point, I grabbed my phone and Twittered "Lousy rain, go away for a few hours" and apparently God has Twitter, because that's what happened! :) It was awesome.

We totally love when a couple takes leadership on ideas for pictures that represent them in some way. That way, your wedding images/album are tailored to who YOU are as a couple. Chris was a very good baseball player in college, so they suggested some baseball pictures would be fun to try. So we grabbed up an old mitt, mask and a bat, which we ended up leaving at Ellis Park in Cedar Rapids. (so if anyone picked them up, let us know!)

Melissa + Chris.... You are a beautiful couple, and we enjoyed working for you both!

Megan + Charlie :: Love, Forever

Since these photo shoots were within a few days of each other, and they are of the same couple.... you get two posts for the price of one, today!

Megan + Charlie were lots of fun to work with this past week. They told Jodi that they enjoyed spending time together cooking, so we sought out a friend of ours at Naomi's Kitchen in North Liberty to see if we could do the engagement session there.

Then, a few days later, we were honored to photograph their wedding at Parkview Church. It was a short day for us, but we had some fun with Megan + Charlie in downtown Iowa City before the wedding. It was fun hanging out with them, and between locations, Charlie taught us some things about the Marines that we didn't know. For example... the Marines were formed to work security on Navy ships protecting the ship from invaders and the ship's captain from mutiny. I didn't know that. He has been with the Marines for 19 years, so here's huge props to Charlie and all of you serving our country... Thank You!

After a beautiful wedding ceremony, the reception was at Ms Susan's Catering and Reception Hall in North Liberty, which is a stellar little place with delicious food and a great staff!

Megan + Charlie, you guys were great, and it was fun working with you! We wish you all the very best in your lives together!

Shelley + Randy :: Forever

This wedding was very special to Jodi and I on a personal level, as well as a professional level, because Shelley + Randy have become very dear to us in the past year. Shelley started working for us as office manager last summer sometime, and it was great to get to know her better and become more involved in her life. During the course of work, she started to mention that she was seeing someone.... again. She had dated Randy before, and now their lives were coming back together!

So, she packed up and moved to Oregon to be with Randy and get to know his family better, and after a few months, she came home engaged!

We couldn't say enough nice things about these two... they were awesome to work with, and had a gorgeous day for the wedding. They were both so relaxed and fun.

There were several underlying stories to their wedding day, from Shelley's little brother not liking the color of his tie... to Randy's best man, his brother, being sick the night before and leaving both the family pictures and the ceremony to go throw up... to a bridesmaid getting stung by a wasp during bridal party formals... to Shelley + Randy jumping in a crappy old boat which had no paddles. We planned to keep them close to shore, so it should have been okay, but when Shelley put up her parasol, it acted as a sail! But Randy grabbed a board in the boat that worked as a paddle to get them back to shore!... And, rushing from the reception to our location for twilight photos with the sweet '57 Chevy truck, the newlyweds passed a cop without their headlights on, and somehow didn't get pulled over... it was a full day!

Anyway, without further ado, here is Shelley + Randy! Congratulations you two!! You have been a blessing to our family, and we are so happy for you! Thanks for letting us be a part of your lives! See you soon!

Singing to Randy...

Here are the some of the words of the song that Shelley wrote for Randy. 

The original song is The Call by Regina Spektor on Chronicles of Narnina

Shelley just changed the words... she sounded amazing

Don't wake me up if I'm dreaming, never had such a beautiful day.

Who would've thought I'd be standing here with the one who's swept me away.

God held the pen that kept writing and writing, just when we'd lost our way,

You found me, down a long road, no more goodbyes to say.

Today  I will make you a promise, on my own I will fail every time,

so I'll put my trust in our Father,  happy endings are His design.

I don't care what the world has to tell you, Love's only found in Him.

He walked down, down a long road, New life can now begin.

He found us, down a long road, new life can now begin.  

Sara + Eric :: Forever

We met Sara + Eric back in June for their engagement session, and it was cool to see them again!  It was our third wedding in Marion, this year, and two in a row, actually.  But, we didn't have a whole lot of time before the wedding to go anywhere, so these images were all taken between the ceremony and reception at some old metal building downtown, and then at soggy Noelridge Park.  

This cute little ring bearer was a relative of Eric's.  He lives far away from Eric, so he didn't really know him very well, and was a little afraid, I suppose.  Well, as you can imagine, that led to some difficulty during the formal pictures, of Eric and the little guy.  So, during the bride and groom portion of the day, I noticed the ring bearer admiring, and immediately stomping on, some pretty flowers. :)  So Eric and I decided to trick him into a photograph.  I walked up to the little boy with my camera behind my back, and just started talking to him about the flowers.  He was quite distracted as I asked him to point to his favorite ones, and Eric meanwhile, was sneaking around behind him.  Then I asked if I could take a picture of him (still very unaware of Eric's immediate presence behind him) pointing to his favorite flower and this was the result...

After this picture, I asked him if he would look at me for the next picture, and instead, he whipped around behind him to see Eric standing there!  The poor little dude bolted from the scene, crying, into the loving arms of his laughing mommy, realizing he had been tricked.  We kind of felt bad, but... hey. We got one picture. :)