Justin Acuff Photography » UT Gardens

Engaged: Stephanie and Wade

Justin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 18:09:40 +0000

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I’ve been shooting sports almost exclusively this year, so it was a nice change of pace to do some engagement photos for Stephanie and Wade. I will be shooting their wedding here in Knoxville in June. Stephanie was referred to me through another photographer friend who will becoming a dad right around the time of their wedding. This was the first chance I had to meet Wade. We started out at the UT Gardens and then proceeded to World’s Fair Park and Downtown Knoxville. I had one very special request for a photo. Both of Stephanie’s grandparents have recently passed away. After 55 years of marriage, it only took 20 days for them to be reunited. I still have a bit of editing to do, but here’s a few that I wanted to get up as a sneak peek.

An Evening with the Watson’s

Justin — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:03:08 +0000

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A few weeks ago, I did a session with David and April Watson and their children. We started out at the UT Gardens and then afterwards they invited me to their home and we finished out the session there. While at the gardens, the children just wanted to run around the gardens. I did manage to get them to stop for some very brief seconds to pose for some pictures. I had a tough time choosing only 10 photos to post to this blog, so I can only imagine the kind of troubles David and April had in getting their order together.

There were lots of really great shots.

April and May 09 Summed Up

Justin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:25:13 +0000

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I want to get around to posting some other things, but want to finish these summaries up as well. That is why this post will be about April and May.

During the last few days I was in Brazil, I spent in Recife. There is a really old area near Recife called Olinda that I was interested in seeing. This is the Church of Saint Benedict in Olinda. One of the things I really loved about my stay in Brazil was how well the sky polarized when using a circular polarizer. The sun is really high in the sky most of the day, so it is also easier to get a polarized sky.

One of the subjects that is more challenging for me is flowers. It’s mainly because I get the feeling that it has all been done before. So when I do shoot flowers, there are some very specific criteria it has to meet. How are the colors? Is there another interesting subject? Can this make for an interesting composition? Actually, I’ll consider those with most every shot, but it’s more strict with flowers. For this, I headed to the UT Gardens while the tulips where in bloom. I saw the red tulip in a flowerbed of yellow tulips so I had color and an interesting composition.

For the water fountain shot, I knew that I wanted to do some night shoots of it at World’s Fair Park during what is commonly called the blue hour. The blue hour a time after sunset (and before sunrise) where the sky turns into a deep blue. Another interesting thing that I did not know about this fountain, was that at 30 minutes before they turn the fountain off, it runs through a program complete with music.

This shot at Norris Dam was really neat to get. I had heard that TVA was opening the spillways on several of their dams in the system. Having previously photographed sunrises and sunsets at Norris Dam, I knew the sunrise would make for a good shot. The spillway running makes it even better. I used a graduated neutral density filter to hold back the sky allowing it to go into that deep orange and red but not darken the dam.

This photo was taken while I was waiting for the sunrise on the riverwalk. It provided an interesting composition with the placement of the great blue heron and the arches in the bridge. I got some really good sunrise shots, but being a photo-a-day, I knew I could go back and get a sunrise shot another day, this shot I may not be able to get again.

Holiday Express at the UT Gardens

Justin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 04:23:49 +0000

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The UT Gardens put on a wonderful train exhibit called the Holiday Express. You can access my full gallery at http://store.justinacuff.com/g/holiday_express_at_the_ut_gardens. Here are just a few samples of what you will find.

Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_10 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_17 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_23 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_24 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_31 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_40 Holiday_Express_UT_Gardens_41

January 3, 2009

Justin — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:07:39 +0000

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Holiday Express Train Exhibit at the U.T. Gardens. I patiently waited for just the right timing when the trains would pass each other near the center of the bridge. OK not really... they were cool and actually stopped the trains for me, so I could get the shot I wanted.