Our Wedding Photographer, Ben Blood

I purchased my first dSLR in March 2010 and to say that I’ve become obsessed with photography is an understatement. I’ve probably taken about 20,000 images with my Canon Rebel T1i since its purchase and poor Chris can’t even get his hands on the camera long enough to take any images of his own. I take my camera with me everywhere I go and guard it with my life.

It isn’t a huge surprise that choosing a photographer was probably the most daunting task of all our wedding planning thus far. The other stuff was easy, almost TOO easy. We asked Chef Dustin of Art Of The Table to cater our wedding 15 minutes after we got engaged. We only went to see one venue, Urban Light Studios, and fell in love with the place. It was a no-brainer to ask Lindsey Watkins to do hair and make-up. Things were mostly falling into place neatly and according to plan.

I spent about two months scrutinizing hundreds of wedding portfolio sites. After a while they all started to look the same. Most photographers were quickly crossed off the list because they were too traditional and posed photography with a lack of artistic vision makes me want to vomit. There were others that took too much of a photojournalistic approach to which I wanted to say, “You’re photographing a wedding, not a war.”

Then there was budget to think about. We knew we wanted to spend a good chunk of our budget on amazing photos to cherish the day, but we also didn’t want to break the bank. Who wants to spend $7,000 on photography alone?! We met with a bunch of different photographers whom we instantly liked, but always felt like something was missing. Something that we couldn’t quite place our finger on.

And then, there was Ben. His photos depicted a story with a hybrid of candid and artistically-posed shots. His pricing was SUPER reasonable for the quality of photos he provided. (I actually think he is underpriced.) All packages included an engagement shoot, which I was vehemently opposed to at first, but then changed my mind after hearing Ben’s logical reason about wanting to get to know the couple before shooting the wedding. He also provides you with an average of only 250 expertly, edited shots rather than a firehose of ~1,000 images, with only a fraction of them edited.

A snapshot of Chicago, by Ben Blood

Honestly, I don’t even remember how I came across his site. Maybe he was listed in some directory of wedding photographers somewhere. It didn’t matter because my gut told me that he was going to photograph our wedding. I mentioned this to Chris as we were walking to Stumptown to meet Ben for the first time. Chris probably thought I was nuts, but politely smiled and nodded at my determination. Our meeting with Ben was at 6 PM and by 7:16 PM that same evening, I had already sent Ben an email asking him if he would photograph our wedding.

Words are lacking when I attempt to explain why or how Ben’s photography is so spectacular. I think it’s something that you’re just going to have to see for yourself. This is Ben’s latest blog post.