I love wedding photography. I love looking at pictures of people in love and being able to capture that energy in a photograph. Since I've been taking photography classes, I almost feel that wedding photography is looked down upon and overlooked. I think that wedding photography might be one of the most stressful photography businesses you can do. It takes a lot to be able to direct a crowd, please the clients, and capture each moment perfectly. I think one of the main reasons people in the art world overlook wedding photography may be because it all tends to run together and become posey, or predictable. Since I've been engaged, I've been on the search for the perfect photographer to not just take a pictures of two people, but to truly capture our day and our personalities. However, I've mainly come across lots of posed, rigid photographs. One photographer I found and I have come to really admire is Elizabeth Messina. She is a mother of 3 and a romantic at heart, and you can really tell in her photographs. A lot of her pictures have an almost old-timey, antique feel. She uses both digital and film and her photographs have been the cover of numerous wedding magazines. She has traveled the world photographing weddings. You can absolutely tell she loves capturing the love between a bride a groom and the special moments they have together. She also does work on her own. She photographers her two children, and has created some beautiful portraits of them.
I don't know exactly what it is about her photographs that speak so loudly to me. The images she takes are the images that I strive for. The more I've gotten into photography, the more I've realized that I love to photograph people. Her photographs(mostly portraits) are soft, romantic, and innocent. I love that. She has a style and sticks with it. I love how natural her photographs are. The expressions, the lighting, the environments...
I'd love to recreate some of these themes in my own work.

Here are just a couple of her photographs that I found on her blog...