Denver Life Weddings magazine just released a nice story asking a bunch of Colorado photographers to discuss some of their favorite recent images, and they reached out to me for the story.

The shot they ran was from Ivan and Amanda’s celebration at the Beaver Creek wedding deck and reception at the Park Hyatt. Their engagement is here.

Here’s what I had to say about the shot:

I always try to capture a couple from a different angle to create a unique portrait, and oftentimes, the best way to do that is to climb a tree to get a new vantage point.

Over the years, I’ve gotten pretty good at climbing aspens since they’re often the only trees around. Necessity is the mother of invention!

Amanda and Ivan put a huge priority on photography and were game to do just about anything, including laying down on the ground in their wedding clothes after the ceremony. If you’re careful about how you arrange a wedding dress, you can get a shot like this done on a wedding day and keep the dirt and mess to a minimum.

I shot this from about 15 to 20 feet up in the tree — had I gone any higher, I think the tree may have fallen over. This was their favorite image from the wedding.

Stay tuned for an upcoming blog post about getting a shot from another unique angle. You may have read about it online: shooting while half submerged in a frozen lake… Oops… ! Sometimes the best first step to a great shot is to just get your feet wet…

Anywhere, here’s the article. Note that I didn’t shoot the cover shot, just the image later on from up in the tree.