From Wedding Wire:

The esteemed annual awards program recognizes the top local wedding vendors from the WeddingWire Network who demonstrate excellence in quality, service, responsiveness and professionalism within the wedding industry. While many industry awards are selected by the organization, Tina Jay Photography was selected based on its stellar reviews from past newlywed clients.

Tina Jay Photography is recognized as part of the top five percent of wedding professionals in the WeddingWire local vendor community, comprised of over 200,000 wedding professionals throughout the United States and Canada. The Bride’s Choice Award recognizes the best local wedding vendors across 20 service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers, based on their overall professional achievements throughout the past year.

Again, THANK YOU, from the bottom of my heart. It means the world to me! You can check out my reivews here

Yes, we're photographers and still can't get the hang of photobooths - why can't we figure out you need to look at the CAMERA, not at the SCREEN? And why do photobooths give me anxiety? By the time the last shot is taken I can't figure out what to do, I think that's evident by my creepy/Cait's drunk look.

I broke out the creepy hand for this one.....we actually got a nice one in the last shot!

Remember when I said photobooth photos are super unflattering of me? Check out that first one below. Quite possibly the worst photo ever taken of me:)

Can't wait to hop in more photobooths in 2012:)

I can't tell you how many times I've taken a picture near a mirror and realized, "crap! I'm in the picture"....and don't ask me why I have a flash on my camera outside in full sun. Just trying to work out my arms, maybe?

Yikes, who knew I look so intense while giving posing instruction....I swear I don't bite.

I'm not gonna lie, I love to get my dance on at receptions. I mean come on, check out my moves.

Cait has some fierce moves also. Yes, the bride's dad is thinking "she's an amazing dancer", and definitely NOT thinking "what the....?"

Love that my job sometimes takes me to a golf course, while the next weekend I'm on the water....

Whatever it takes to get the shot. Sometimes that means laying in alleys next to trash cans. Other times it means kicking the driver of a horse & carriage off so I can steal his spot. Then there are other times I'm doing something SO intricate (aka eating a quick snack) that I manage to get gum stuck in my bracelet, and proceed to get it all over my face and hands. I keep it classy folks.

Loved all of my shoots on railroads this year. That's Jess & Matt below.....they happen to live about 2 miles from Jay and I, so we've gone out a bunch of times....it's the best when clients become friends:)

Ahhh the glamorous life of a wedding photographer. Aka shoving food and water down your throat in a parking lot in the 1 minute you have to spare between locations.

I promise there was a reason I was shooting in front of a speed limit sign:)

Photobooth fun:)

Cait just loooooves when I test my reception lighting on her:) I think I have a variation of this shot at every.single.wedding.

Happy 2012!!

Can't wait for more in 2012!

Here are some of my favorite wedding shots from 2011, I'll be posting more re-caps in the next few days!

Happy New Year to you all!!

I love everything about this image, so I'm happy to share:)  This image was taken at our good friends' engagement party, so I didn't bring as much gear as I usually do (since I was technically a guest), especially since we had to travel from the upper east side (I think that's where we were?) all the way to Brooklyn carrying this gear.  And when I say "we" had to carry my gear, I mean Jay.  There was no way I was carrying that heavy bag in 4 inch heels:)  So all I brought was my 5D Mark II, my 24-70 mm 2.8 lens (since it's the widest lens I have, and I wasn't sure how close we'd be to the Brooklyn Bridge), my 580 EXII flash, and some pocket wizards (just bought the new ones with no cords, which I LOVE).

So here's where the improv comes in.  We walk out onto the rooftop, and this amazing view takes my breath away.  I'm all set up with my camera and flash, ready to go, when I realize....hey, it's pitch black out here.  There was ZERO light on that rooftop. None whatsoever.  And you know what's impossible to do when you're in the pitch dark? Focus. When I have ALL of my gear on me I usually have a flashlight that I'd have my assistant hold, shine it on the subject so I can focus, have her turn of the flash light and take the shot.  Well crap, had no flashlight since I was trying to keep my gear light.  So this is what my first shots looked like:

Totally out of focus.  So I started to sweat a little, pretended like I was just "working on my settings", when in reality I was freaking out in my head like "SELF, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU FORGOT THE FLASHLIGHT".

Meanwhile I have a husband thinking it would be funny to jump in a shot as I'm testing things out.  Guess he didn't realize he was holding my only light source, so that didn't pan out in his favor (that beer he is holding may not have been his first).

Anyway, back to business.  So I run over to the employee who took us to the roof, asking if he has a flashlight. No luck.  Then he says "oh! but I do have the flashlight app on my iPhone!".....hey buddy, whatever works.  So I have him stand over by Katie & Jerry, giving me the tiniest bit of light.  It wasn't enough to allow me to focus, so things are still looking blurry at this point.

So my next option was to have him hold the light DIRECTLY next to Katie's dress, since it had a great contrast (with the red and white), allowing my camera to grab focus.  YES!! Finally nailed the focus.  So I planted my feet and didn't move (hence knowing they'd always be in focus), and just zoomed in and out with my lens.

For my settings I first exposed for the ambient light, and then underexposed by about 1 stop.  This left me at an ISO of 640, f/2.8, and 1/15th of a second.  I knew I could get away with this low of a shutter speed because 1) I asked them to stand still hah, and 2), flash freezes the subject, and that would be my main light source.  So I had Jay stand to my right side, about 15 feet away from them, holding my flash which I fired with the pocket wizards.  The flash was initially at 1/32nd power, but that wasn't enough light so I went up to 1/16th power.  From there, I got this image:

I knew I wanted to do something just a little bit more dynamic too, so next I had Jay sit on the floor directly behind them, and told him to point the flash up at their heads.  From there, I got the final image below:

Voila!  And that's how it was done.  Nothing like doing a little improvising along the way, right?

So the basic idea is this: have your ultrasound, put the pictures of the ultrasound (which have the gender on them) in a sealed envelope. Take the envelope to a bakery, and have them bake you a cake - a cake with blue icing inside if it's a boy, and pink if it's a girl. Throw a party. Cut the cake, and find out along with your friends and family what the gender of the baby is!

How fun is that? I'm definitely doing that one day:)  I was more than happy to stop by the party and snap some photos....I mean lets be honest, I wanted to find out the gender when everyone else did!

April was such a little party planner, so get ready for a bunch of details.  First up, the guessing station - every guest held up a sign that either said boy or girl, based on what your guess was, then snapped a polaroid of yourself:

That's my photo in the top right:)  I think I counted 15 "boy" guesses, and 1 "girl" guess:

She even set up this super cute lemonade station:

Guests brought both boy and girl gifts, depending on the reveal.....and how gorgeous is that cake? They made sure you couldn't see the inside icing until the cake was cut:)

Definitely the funniest gift of the day - those are sperm and egg stuffed animals:)

Time to cut the cake!!

IT'S A GIRL!!!  Almost everyone in the room (including April and Kevin) thought it was a boy, so it was a big shock when we saw the pink icing inside!  I totally teared up, stuff like this gets me every time:)

April's mom was so excited:)

Everyone's reaction:

Let the baby girl gifts begin:

Now they could FINALLY look at the ultrasound pictures!

Then we ran down the street for a few quick maternity shots:

Is this the perfect dress on her or what?

Congrats guys!! I was so happy to be there to document everything for ya:)  Can't wait to meet the baby girl!

Hope you enjoy the new design!  There are some new pages under the "info" tab, so check those out too - and if you're reading this in Google Reader, just hit "v" to open up my blog and check it out!!

Happy Friday!!

People often ask me if I hate having to work on the weekends.  You know what? I don't hate it.  Would I rather be spending time with my husband? Sure.  But I really don't mind working on Saturdays....that's because the week days are my own.  I love being my own boss, having complete freedom during the week.  I love that it's just me, stay at home moms, and senior citizens doing our errands on random Tuesdays at 10am.  I love being able to meet up with friends for lunch at the drop of a hat.  Or taking Holly for a walk at 2pm because I just have to take a break from my computer.  So no, I don't hate working on the weekends.  Because in a weird way, working Saturdays feels like freedom to me.

And of course I wouldn't be able to shoot all of these fabulous weddings without my right hand (wo)man, Jaime:

We hopped in the photo booth at Brett & Liz's wedding, I think the top photo is my favorite:)  Makes me giggle every time I look at it!

Since I've been long over due to get some new headshots of myself, I figured this blog launch would be the perfect time.  Last week April, Ashley and Amanda and I met up for a 4-way headshot swap:)  It was so fun!  But it also reminded me how important it is for photographers to jump on the other side of the camera once in a while.  It reminded me how nerve wracking it can be, and how my clients must feel....I should really do that as a reminder more often!  Here are some of my favorites, that will be featured on the new blog:)

Thanks for all the new shots girls, we should do that more often!!