Shutterbug!

With our DJ plans solidified, next up on the decks was our search for a great photographer. Finding a great photographer was really important to me; besides being a little bit vain, I'm also a total photography enthusiast. While I'm no great artiste myself, I've definitely learned enough about good (and bad) photography through my years of mucking about with cameras that I knew exactly what I wanted - someone with a photojournalist style who could also deliver great portraits, someone who was great with composition and color, was excited about using different film formats and above all, someone who could make simply beautiful pictures.

I dove headfirst into researching local photographers. Living in New York, we're lucky enough to be surrounded by talented people. I briefly considered asking a friend of mine, who is a professional wedding photographer, to shoot our wedding, but decided that I'd rather have her attend as a guest and not a vendor. So onwards and upwards, through a ton of websites and portfolios and recommendations. Many of the photographers whose work I loved were well out of our price range, and a lot of the folks who were more affordable just didn't have work that really moved me. I was worried that we would have to choose between splurging and settling - until I came across Daniel Krieger.

Daniel's portfolio is incredible, and while his prices aren't exactly bargain basement, he could easily get away with charging twice what he does. He is an immensely talented photographer with a really amazing range. Seriously, how many photographers are as good at capturing intimate moments....

 

... as they are at capturing spontaneous ones? 

Daniel's pictures are so perfectly composed, they don't scream "wedding picture!" so much as "gorgeous piece of art that I would totally hang on my wall and love to death."

And his talent for taking truly gorgeous portraits of people? Incredible. You know how sometimes people are just really talented at getting what's really beautiful about a person into a picture? Daniel's totally got that down. 

 

His work makes stunning use of the interplay between light and dark....

 

... and he even has a Hasselblad! Oh man, I love me some medium format. (And look at the way that he turns what could be a regular old posed photograph into something really beautiful and cool.) 

I am so cuckoo-bananas excited to be working with Daniel Krieger as our wedding photographer. Our engagement shoot is coming up in a couple of months, and I totally can't wait. In the meantime, I'm feeding my inner photo junkie by checking his blog at danielkrieger.com quite frequently - and you should too, as these pictures are really just the tip of the awesomeness iceberg. 

All photographs are copyright Daniel Krieger, posted via danielkrieger.com.