Nevada-Las Vegas

16.10.11 REVIEWS Part 5 -- Petunia Blum Photography

I have saved the best for last: Petunia Blum Photography.

As someone who has photographed a couple of weddings, I know how hard a wedding is to photograph. As someone who edits photos for a living, I also know that I would be a nightmare for someone else to work with in terms of post-editing. So I had a really tall order that I needed to fill: I needed someone within my budget, who I liked the portfolio of, and would give me all of the raw photos and printing rights. Damn near impossible to find.

All I wanted was a photo tour done separately; not day-of-the-wedding coverage because after photographing a couple weddings, I find wedding photos really... boring.

I was getting seriously frustrated trying to find a photographer that would meet my needs. I contacted probably 35 or 40 photographers, and viewed the portfolios of hundreds (seriously, hundreds). I started looking outside of the Las Vegas area to cities that were in driving distance to find a photographer to work with. I started trying to find a way to finance a photographer that cost more than our entire wedding. It was getting stupidly frustrating. And then @adverb posted her photos from her Red Rock photo shoot with Patricia at Petunia Blum Photography. 

I asked @adverb a bunch a of questions, and then finally contacted Petunia Blum, explaining my requests. She worked with me, completely got what I was laying down, and was willing to let me have access to the raw photos. Already, she's my hero and I'm super excited to work with her. I think we finally booked her in June or July before our October wedding. Originally, I was only looking for a photo tour of the Las Vegas strip (with concentrations at Paris), but we came to a deal where we got coverage for our wedding day as well.

Because I was in Vegas the month before, Patricia met me for coffee at the Rio and we sat in a darkened Starbucks to talk about who I was, who she was, and what I wanted. It was a great way to get to know her face to face and get a vibe as to what we wanted to achieve together.


We did something very different from most brides & grooms on this board: we did our photography not as part of our wedding day. My husband had already seen my dress (he was the first person I texted photos to) and we had no qualms about the "seeing each other before the ceremony" thing. I didn't have any interest in a "first look" or anything like that. In my email conversations with Patricia, she suggested doing a dawn photo shoot, where there's no one on the strip and it's easy to get night shots and day shots.

We ended up running late in terms of getting ready through no fault of anyone but myself (I underestimated how long it would take me to lace my dress, and how long it would take us to meet her at Paris). We met her at the valet for Paris and began our photo shoot just after sunrise.

We started by shooting at the Arc, because that was a big place for me. Shortly after that, we made our way over to the valet and the faux copper roof. During this time, an attendant threw out my flip flops (that I was using to walk from location to location so I wouldn't be traipsing around in 4 inch heels all morning), so I spent the rest of the morning walking around in bare feet and putting on my shoes for photos. Kind of hilarious.

 
We made our way over to the front of Paris, so we could get some photos at the Eiffel Tower (another huge place for me). During this time, the floors had all just been washed with a zamboni street cleaner thing. This was probably the most inconvenience we had while shooting: we had to make sure the street cleaner was out of the shots.



After that, we came back to the Arc and the flower gardens between Paris and Planet Hollywood to take more photos. At this point, the sun had rose so much that we had some amazing solar flares spring up in our photos that just were incredible in our photos. We had to watch for snails and had to move them back in to the garden, because we didn't want to kill them.



After that, we made our way over to the Bellagio, where we took some photos in front of the fountains, in front of the Bellagio gates, and overlooking Paris. What's really spectacular about these photos were that we have shots of us on the Las Vegas Boulevard, with absolutely no one around.





We then shot through the Cosmo, where we encountered some issues with hotel security being jerks (which we didn't let get in our way). We shot all along the second floor, and then to the parking garages to the installed art down there. It was ridiculously hot with the car exhaust, and with my husband being in a 3 piece wool suit, this was where we called it a day. We came back up to the main floor and said our goodbyes to Patricia and went back to the MGM to nap.




On Tuesday, Patricia joined us at our suite around 4:30 to do some getting ready photos and a mini boudoir shoot with me. I had given her a list of shots I was interested in (shoes, jewelry, the suite), which she did an amazing job with. She shot our "wedding party" as it were on the terrace before everyone arrived, and our guests as they came in, as well as doing some photos through the ceremony. As I said, originally I didn't even plan on having a photographer for our wedding day out of lack of interest, so this was such an added bonus to us. She got some amazing photos (of which I haven't edited because, well, I'm lazy), and some fun ones:




All in all, I could not be more in love with Petunia Blum Photography. She really got me and what I was looking for, worked with me every step of the way, had amazing ideas that I would never have thought of to improve our shots, and went above as a photographer to meet my crazy needs and ideas. I loved her edits and cross-processing, and I loved her flexibility and energy.
image
Sign In or Register to comment.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards