John Shim Photography | Knoxville Wedding Photographer

Alex + Paula | A Knoxville Engagement Sneak Peek

admin — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:40:39 +0000

Sometimes you meet someone and you just know that you’re going to click with them. That was Paula for me. From the moment we first met to all the emails we exchanged, I had a feeling that we were going to work well together. So if she was this cool, I knew Alex had to be pretty cool too if he was marrying her. Yeah. He’s pretty awesome too. They were quite the troopers walking through the drizzling rain all evening to get their pictures made. She said that I should mention to my future clients that taking pictures with me is like going through boot camp. Did I mention we probably hiked a good 2 miles or so yesterday? It was totally worth it though.

Good lookin’ couple.

They were like this entire session. Pretty much made my job super easy.

I had to lay down on the wet ground to get this shot. Yes, the measures we’ll go through to get the shot!

Love it when couples can have fun and then pull off an awesome serious pose.

Chet + Anita | A Knoxville Engagement

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 21:22:54 +0000

It’s always a pleasure and honor to shoot a friend’s wedding. I’ve known Chet for at least 4 years now. He’s always been the coolest guy I’ve known. His smile and laughter light up a room and can bring a smile on everyone’s face. I don’t know Anita too well but from the time we spent together I can tell that she’s super sweet and has to have an awesome sense of humor if she’s marrying Chet. This is definitely one of the weddings I am most looking forward to shooting this year.

I love the fact that Anita is full-on grabbing while Chet has gently placed his hand on her…

Quite the impressive dip, I must say.

Clayton + Ashley | A Flintstone, GA Wedding

admin — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 21:00:26 +0000

I love reliving wedding day through pictures. Looking back on their wedding day pictures helped me remember not only the colors, decorations, and people that were a part of the day but also the actions, reactions, and emotions. Clayton and Ashley planned their wedding meticulously… even down to the way that Clayton would wear his socks. A small gathering of friends and family made this a private and intimate affair to remember.

Chet + Anita | A Knoxville Engagement/Elopement Sneak Peek

admin — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 01:03:00 +0000

Chet makes me laugh. From his random Rad watching party (mind you while being sick) to doing a calendar shoot for girls, this guy is just plain awesome. One of the funniest things these guys have done is their fake engagement announcement for April Fool’s 2011. As a joke, they told their friends and family (and put it all over facebook) that they had gotten engaged. Who knew they’d actually get engaged 10 months later? Fast forward about three months and what turned out to be their engagement session actually turned out to be their elopement…

…. okay okay, just kidding. They didn’t elope but we couldn’t pass up this setup. A wedding had just finished up earlier in the day and they had left things out so we went ahead and grabbed this sign off the ground and took this picture. Totally their idea. Now for the sneak peek…

In honor of Titanic’s 100th anniversary, they decided to reenact the famous scene from the movie, with a special touch from Chet.

Probably my favorite image of the day but the one of Chet looking up is pretty amazing too.

If you go to KBGA, you have to get a picture inside their small bamboo forest. I’ve seen lots of pictures done in here and thought we needed to do something different. Turned out pretty cool.

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Tech Thursday #2 and Random Give-away

admin — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 22:00:58 +0000

Ha! It’s been a while since I’ve done a tech Thursday or given anything away. I figured with my recent post hitting the most views in a day (Eric and Heidi’s wedding sneak peek), I’d do a tech Thursday post (randomly connected I know) and give something away.

I recently purchased a Canon 5D Mark III to replace my aging 5D Mark II. I love the Mark II. It’s been my go-to baby for the last 3 years. I’ve decided to keep it for as long as I can. In the mean time, the shutter is just about ready to go. So I thought shutter would be a good thing to talk about for tech Thursday.

Pretty cool, right? Who knew the mirror bounced so much? Okay, lots of people did, hence why they have a mirror lock up function on cameras so you don’t create small vibrations in your camera that can mess up long exposure shots.

If you watch closely you’ll see the shutter (curtain) drop down and then a second shutter (curtain) follow immediately. What that means is that the entire sensor on the camera is not “exposed” at a given time. Instead, it gets exposed from the top moving downwards (in actuality this translates to bottom of your picture to the top – images are actually taken upside… grab a lens and look through it. You’ll actually see that the image is upside down). However, this only occurs when the shutter speed is greater than the “sync” speed of the camera. At the sync speed, the camera sensor is completely exposed. There is no shutter in the way of the sensor. Anything slower than the sync speed, the shutter will not be in the way. What’s interesting (and makes sense) is that the sync speed is the max speed at which you can fire off your flash (minus using fancy E/I-TTL and hypersync blah blah blah) since this is the point that your sensor “sees” everything and light hits the sensor in its entirety. Sync speeds will vary from camera to camera. Most Canon camera’s are limited to about 1/200th of a second or 1/250th of a second. I think Nikon goes to 1/300th of a second or higher. Here is a good example of what happens when you try to take a picture above your camera’s sync speed. Because you are trying to take a shot faster than the sync speed, the second curtain starts to move before the entire sensor is exposed causing a black line to form. The faster your shutter speed, the more black you see. Fun, right? Luckily, most cameras will prevent you from exceeding your sync speed when you put the flash on the hotshoe and turn the flash on. Cameras are pretty smart.

So here’s my contest. The Canon 5D Mark II has a shutter life of 150,000. That’s an average number of actuations before your shutter will fail. A screen shot below indicates I am at 150,787 which means that my shutter should be going out pretty soon… supposedly. There has been a report of a Canon 1D Mark II (200,000 actuation shutter life) that has made it to 4 million shots before failing. Yes, 4 million. Now, I doubt that my shutter will last as long.

The contest is simple. Leave a facebook comment below with the number of actuations that my camera will make before it begins to fail (meaning I start seeing black lines from at the bottom of my pictures when I’m not using a flash) or just completely fails (shutter falls off or dies a gruesome death). The person that comes closest without going over will win a gift certificate for $50 to one (winner’s choice) of my three favorite places to buy camera gear from, B&H, Adorama, or Amazon. Contest entries can be placed between 6PM Eastern Standard Time Thursday April 12 to 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time Thursday April 19, 2012. If for some reason the shutter doesn’t give out by 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time on October 31, 2012, the person that guesses the number of actuations closest to the number of actuations on the camera on this date will win the prize. Oh, and you have to live in the US, can’t be related to me, and be over 18. In case you didn’t know, I, John Shim, am sponsoring this prize. By entering this contest, you agree to provide me with your legal name and address. The winner will be announced on my blog and facebook page (see below for facebook page) when my shutter dies or on November 1, 2012. I think that about covers most of the contest information. Good luck everyone!

Carson + Beth | A Knoxville Engagement

admin — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 22:00:57 +0000

Things I learned about Beth and Carson on their engagement shoot:

Carson knows how to have fun.
Beth knows how to have fun.
Carson laughs at himself.
Beth laughs at herself.
Carson makes picture making easy.
Beth makes picture making easy.
Carson is a gentleman.
Beth is a proper southern girl.

All that to say… they’re perfect for each other.

Big goof balls.

Beth doing her best to do a serious face.

I just take the pictures.

Hahaha. I have no idea.

Much better!

Okay let me explain this. She is totally not pregnant. Carson thought that since they had me, they could do pregnancy pictures for the future. Funny guy. Can you tell from Beth’s expression how amused she was?

Last frame of the day. Perfect!

Eric + Heidi | A Johnson City, Tennessee Wedding Sneak Peek

admin — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 21:35:12 +0000

Who says you need six months to put a wedding together? Better yet… who says you need two? Meet Eric and Heidi. They put their wedding together in one month. Eric got in touch with me on March 7th and they celebrated their wedding yesterday. And for the record, it was NOT a “shotgun” wedding. They had thought about eloping but their family and friends convinced them to put a wedding together and they put together a good one. I’ll have to say that this was probably one of my favorite weddings of all time. I can’t explain exactly why but there were so many tender moments and also lots of laughter… and dancing. Props to Eric for busting a move on the dance floor. It was quite impressive and probably some of the best moves I’ve seen in a while. And finally, I would like to apologize to all their guests that I distracted yesterday during the ceremony while I tried not to fall over. You know when you are falling and you flail your arms like a madman trying not to fall? I did that… in front of everyone. It was pretty awesome.

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Carson + Beth | A Knoxville Engagement Sneak Peek

admin — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:00:47 +0000

Sometimes you get lucky. Other times you get REALLY lucky.This is how I felt about getting connected with Carson and Beth and also being able to photograph them. Carson is the brother of a bride whose wedding I shot almost two years. It was a simple email from their mom that brought us all together. I just want to preface right now and say that these are just a small set of photos that I picked but are not a complete representation of who they are. There was more laughter while we shot than a lot of sessions I’ve shot previously. I can’t wait to share the rest of their pictures!

I felt like this came right out of a magazine.

Something about these trees made this moment seem magical.

They stood there and I took their picture. How great do they look?

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Ben + Caitlin | A Knoxville, TN Engagement

admin — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 21:02:13 +0000

You know you’re in for a treat when your client tells you, “I want it to be like you’re not even there.” When I hear that, I immediately think, “be a stalker… be a stalker….” I mean, after all, stalkers are good at not being there but being there, right? Okay, maybe stalker isn’t a good example. I’ll be a ninja… but not a “redneck ninja” (if you’ve never seen Diemon Dave, search for him on YouTube). I will hide and take pictures without being seen. Challenge accepted.

Ben and Caitlin are self proclaimed geeks that love science and video games… totally my type of people. I’m also a nerd at heart so when she told me how they play video games together I had visions of sitting on the couch with my wife playing Battlefield 3… then I came to reality. Nope. Not going to happen. But Ben… Ben is one lucky guy. It’s not too often you meet a girl that wants to play video games with their fiance. You definitely got a good one. When asked where they wanted to do their session, Zuma Fun Center was their first choice. Okay, I’m down for that. This should be good… and it was. We had a lot of fun laughing and being awkward and just having a good time throughout the entire session. Even to this day, when I go through their pictures, I can’t help but to smile seeing the way they look at each with loving eyes and warm embraces. Your wedding is totally going to rock.

Geniune and infectious smile.

Love this one!

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Ben + Caitlin | A Knoxville Engagement Sneak Peek

admin — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 21:08:17 +0000

What do you get when you put two unique people who love video games and other “nerdy things” together? You get the oh so adorable Caitlin and awesomely awesome Ben. I wish I could describe how happy I was during their session but I think these pictures should speak for themselves. It was hard not smiling while I went through all of them. I’m a little sad though that their wedding is so far away and that we won’t have a chance to hang out again until then.

They were pretty much like this the entire session.

Seriously, how cute is she?

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