Recreation of Wedding Portraits
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February 2nd, 2016
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Andrea & Jacob Wedding Recreation
January 31st, 2016
Photo by: Jerry Grugin
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Gloria and I love it when our models become our good friends. Two people, in particular, have become our good friends -- Andrea Tomer Lewis & Jacob Lewis. The story is simple, yet complicated; It is the everyday, yet extraordinary; It is a story of how friends became family, figuratively and literally.
I first met Andrea Tomer in the Master of Social Work program at Asbury University. Andrea is an exceptionally bright and intelligent person, so I made it a point to sit by her in several classes that we shared. Sometimes, during particular boring parts of a lecture, we would draw silly pictures of the professor or other silly things students sometimes do.
Andrea graduated a year before me, but we remained in contact. One day, she told me that she had met a wonderful person in, of all places, the Nicholasville Wal-Mart. Before I could blink an eye, she became engaged to this person.
Gloria Weigle, my girlfriend, also became friends with Andrea Tomer and "friended" her on Facebook. Andrea put out the word on Facebook that she needed a photographer to do her engagement photos. Gloria happened to be searching the news feed of Facebook and saw this message. She got in contact with Andrea and suggested that I take their engagement photos. Andrea spoke with Jacob and they then asked me to do their engagement photos. At that time, I only had a Nikon point-and-shoot camera. The camera took great pictures, but I was very hesitant and nervous about doing engagement photos because I did not have professional equipment at that time. That being said, I agreed to do the engagement photos. When all was said and done, they were extremely happy with their engagement photos.
Then came the shock; Andrea & Jacob asked Gloria and I to come to their wedding to take some of their wedding photos. Jacob's family already had a photographer booked, but they still wanted me to take some photos. Even though I was honored and humbled, I declined. After being repeatedly asked by them to do some wedding photos for them, I finally relented and agreed to do some wedding photos. Needless to say, I was very, very apprehensive because I still only had an amateur point-and-shoot camera. I was extremely worried that some of the wedding pictures would not be what they expected. Again, just like with the engagement photos, they were extremely pleased with the photos I took.
After the wedding, Gloria and I began to wonder what we could do with professional cameras. We talked for a while and decided that we would invest in professional Canon cameras and attempt to make a go of the photography business. So, off to the camera store we went. We started out with one Canon camera. We started taking nature photographs of birds, flowers, and butterflies. Gloria likes old barns, so she took many pictures of barns. She photographs interesting looking barns to this day.
Our first photographs we took were OK. They were good, but not the greatest. It takes time to learn about aperture, ISO, shutter speed, lighting, composition, studio setup, etc. Along the path of learning, Andrea & Jacob agreed to let us experiment using them as subjects. They were our test subjects. We've taken thousands of pictures of them. They have helped us learn and to become fabulous professional photographers.
It's not surprising that we all have become great friends. Taking photographs of people requires not only good camera skills, but it requires conversation. So, during many of these photo shoots, we would eat or watch a movie, or sit by a campfire. On one visit to their house for a photo shoot, Andrea had some surprising news for me. Andrea is a genealogist and so am I. We've both done extensive research on our family trees. Andrea examined my family tree and noticed something strange. She noticed that Jacob and I had some family members with the same last name. She began researching and found that Jacob and I have the same 8th Great Grandfather. This means that Jacob and I are cousins. When Andrea broke the news to Gloria and I, we just couldn't believe it. I wanted to make sure that Andrea was correct in her research, so I double checked. She was right. Jacob and I are cousins. That makes Andrea and I cousins by her marriage to Jacob.
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Andrea & Jacob Wedding Portrait Recreation
January 31st, 2016
Photo by: Jerry Grugin
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So, what started out as a friendship between Andrea and I back in graduate school, evolved into a friendship between Gloria, Andrea, Jacob, and I. Not only are we friends, we are family. Not only that, Andrea & Jacob have been very instrumental in helping Gloria and I build a successful photography business. What good fortune and blessings!
Gloria and I have a portfolio on a site called smugmug.com. To view the portfolio, just click on this link:
We also have a Facebook page. To view the Facebook page, just click on this link and "like" the page:
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