Web Profiles

Elegant, Exciting Wedding Photography
The renaissance in wedding photography happening in America's heartland that combines photojournalism, fashion, and illustration produces fresh instead of recycled images. Brody Dezember is a Utah photographer whose wedding photography (www.dezemberphoto.com) combines the exuberance of the events with his unique and elegant imagery. Using a gallery format not too different from Scott Hirko's, the photographs couldn't be more different. Many wedding photographers may be asking themselves how Dezember talked wedding guests and a bride and groom to form a "human pyramid" for one of the images (you won't find that shot in your father's wedding album) but my guess is personal charm. That word seems to exemplify his style as seen not only in the Wedding Gallery but also in the stylized Bridal section that features some of the best color and monochrome bridal portraits I've ever seen.

Liberally sprinkled throughout all the galleries are classy black and white infrared wedding photographs shot with cameras that Dezember himself converted to IR use. He'll convert one for you, too. Tucked away under the Dezember Design menu is information on converting Nikon Coolpix 990s to black and white infrared (only) use for just $125.

Lake Wobegon Meets "North To Alaska"
When I contacted Pat Costello about his website (www.JuneauPhotos.com) he told me, "There's more to the story than meets the eye." Costello is an accounting technician and between raising his 18-month-old twin sons he tells me it's a "miracle I can find time to shoot the photos!" From the "World Headquarters of JuneauPhotos.com," a.k.a. his dining room, Costello has been posting his photos since the Internet was a novelty. In 2001, he took up the cause of "bears and garbage" and his website photographs generated so much public support that City Hall finally had to deal with the problem. The following year he posted a photo of an all-white black bear and the next thing Costello knew the photo had traveled around the world and appeared in news articles and on television. A surreal moment occurred when his wife handed him the phone and said, "It's the BBC...they want to interview you."

Support from around the world allowed Costello to successfully petition the Alaska Board of Game to rewrite the law to prevent shooting the white bear (www.anchoragepress.com/archives/document5a26.html). In 2003 and 2004, people who visited the site contributed money to keep it going. He told me, "I don't know how to express it, but it's the community that's evolved around this site that is the more than meets the eye part." There is something special going on at JuneauPhotos.com.