2018 Year-in-Review {Second Shooting}

This was the first year that I really went full-force with second shooting. I’m lucky that I have an awesome friend in Mike Dragon of Dragon Studio who let me intern with him for what felt like a million weddings starting in May of 2017 and taught me a TON of awesome stuff so that I could be a legit second shooter.

This all started because I wanted to get better at photography.  I wanted to be a better photographer, and I wanted to get to go to weddings after being in the industry for so long.  There was a hilarious phone call that I distinctly remember (and Mike doesn’t), where I called and asked, super nervously, if I could shadow him at weddings because I just really wanted to learn.  I had no idea how fun it could be.  There’s been lots of dancing, hugs, getting to know people, taking awesome pictures, never eating cake (seriously, I don’t eat the cake – and I don’t know how I do it!).  2018 was one for the record books.

It was an incredible year of fantastic weddings – 29 to be exact.  I had the privilege of working with 5 amazing photographers: Dragon Studio, Kelley Stinson Photography, Valerie Demo, Leigh Skaggs Photography, and Justin Hankins Photography.  Here’s what I learned this year: photographers all work differently.  It’s SO much fun to learn and adapt to everyone’s style and what they want from their second shooters – but each and everyone has a blast doing what they do and their clients are amazing.

I got to go on a lot of adventures with these amazing people this year – whether it was a venue that’s less than 5 minutes away from my house or overnight trips to Lexington, Virginia or Cambridge, Maryland.  29 amazing couples.  29 awesome weddings.  If you can believe it, I’ve already got 17 weddings on the books for 2019 – and I’m going to some pretty cool places.  I get to go to New York City AND New Mexico (I’ve never been to either place).  I also get to work with some of my favorite photographers again – and I can’t wait.

These are some of my favorite images from weddings that I worked in 2018 – posted with the primary photographer’s permission, of course.  They’re all edited by the photographers that I took the photos for.  There are a lot of images from a lot more weddings that I love just as much as these, and this blog post could’ve easily lasted for days, but this is just a small sampling of some of my favorites.  If you want to see more of a portfolio, you can check it out here.