Payton and Samantha

A few weeks ago we were incredibly honored when fellow wedding photographers, Payton and Samantha of Ruddock Photography in The Woodlands asked us to take their branding photos.

We first met Payton and Sam this past fall at our friends Zach and Jody Gray's Houston stop of their In Camera Workshop. During the introductions part of the day, we all clicked when we found out we were all Aggies. They both have engineering degrees (read: smarty pants) so I do sometimes feel like a country bumpkin around them with our Animal Science degrees.

At the In-Camera workshop Z&J taught both natural light and off-camera light. We helped them out (read: carried the lights) with this stop of the tour and were their hosts for Houston. We met so many fun local photographers and it was a great experience.

Payton came to my rescue towards the end of Day 2. We were doing the shooting portion of the off-camera lighting workshop, and we were walking all around the Discovery Green area of downtown Houston. The lights weren't that heavy, but they were large and awkward. Luke had a light to carry and I had a light to carry. At each stop we made, I'd put the light down and the workshop attendees would shoot their pictures, then we'd pack up and head to the next stop. As we ventured further and further away from the hotel where the workshop was being held, I kept thinking it was going to be a loooooong walk back with the big light. Payton saved my LIFE when he said he would carry the light back. He now has a fan forever!

You can imagine how excited we were to hear that these two were going to rebrand their business and needed some images to use on their website. They wanted some images with their camera and without. We had an amazing time with these fellow photographers and are so glad to count them as friends!

Natural light is our favorite and we almost always shoot exclusively in natural light. Like most photographers, we have the equipment we would need to get us out of a jam if we needed to, and we do know what we're doing. However, we just love the warm and glowy feel of natural light so we stick to that.

That being said... Payton and Sam are off-camera light enthusiasts. They said that the wanted a couple of pictures with the off camera lighting to use in their branding as well. So they brought all their gear and all 4 of us put our heads together to get a few shots that made sure to reflect their off-camera lighting skills as well!

We'll always be natural light fans, but it sure was fun to get that dramatic sky that you get with the off-camera light!

Payton and Sam - THANK YOU for a super fun evening of geeky photographer stuff! Can't wait to hang out again! :)