Thursday, May 16, 2013

Featured Cinematographer on Maharini Weddings

We are so exhited to be featured today on  Maharani Weddings.com as the cinematographer for this amazingly beautiful wedding designed by Angela Mazanti and photographed by Brian K Crain Photography Here is the beautiful wedding film we shot for a beautiful Indian wedding. We've worked with Brian and Angela many times over the years and love the amazing weddings Angela creates. Brian and I travel together for destination weddings, and always love our travels together capturing some of the most beautiful weddings in the world. Congratulations to Grishma and Sandeep on their amazing wedding, and special thanks to all of the wedding specialists that worked together on this wedding, from beautiful decor, an amazing cake, and days of special events featuring some real Indian cuisine, this was simply and event of a lifetime. To see more of our beautiful wedding films, visit Michael Allen Photography.com

 

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Destination Wedding in Memphis Tennessee

Our studio gets calls from all around the world. Memphis has become a popular wedding destination for many couples for lots of reasons. Some have family here, others need a central location in the US for their wedding, others are attracted to our reputation for music, blue suede shoes, good food and the view from our downtown rooftops overlooking the mighty Mississippi River. We've photographed weddings for couples from Paris, London, New York, San Francisco, Boston, Milwaukee, New Orleans and more. Some are large weddings with all the details, others are simple affairs with just famly and friends. Here's a sneak peak from Tanya and Jason's Destination Memphis wedding at the Madison Hotel. A small, simple wedding, probably one of the smallest weddings we've shot, but every wedding is awesome, and this is possibly one of our favorites! Congratulations to Tanya and Jason!

 

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Jill's Portfolio Session - Memphis - New York City

One of the best things about my job as a photographer is helping people in their careers. I get dozens of calls every month for simple headshot sessions. I like to pick a hand full of my favorites from the session and create a few art images along with my B&W's, and I can't tell you how many booking agents love this. It helps them see the images in a unique way, and helps them in casting calls. For Jill's images, she's on her way to developing her career with a masters degree in art, then heading to NYC to begin her career. I can't wait to see what she accomplishes one day, she's definitely got big dreams and going places. Anyway, I thought I'd PASS a few along for you to enjoy!








Saturday, February 16, 2013

Actor Headshot Sessions - Memphis - Nashville - New Orleans

Here's a few images from our recent session with Lillie. She came in for headshots for her acting & film portfolio, but I took a few images and added some of my secret ingredients, color & texture to give some of the images a contemporary fine art style. Ok, here's one of my secret ingredients - I'm a big fan of Brooke Shaden, and she was kind enough to share some of her textures from a recent trip to India. {The thing that struck me the most about Lillie is her resemblance to "Harry Potter" film actress Emma Watson. Others think she better resembles actress Natalie Portman}. When I get to work photographing actors, my job is really kind of easy, I just tell them to act out different emotions, serious, happy, sad, mad, then the trick is to capture that tiny millisecond when they nail it. Our studio does a lot of headshot sessions each week for high end celebrities, musicians, business people, and up and coming actresses like Lillie.


















Friday, February 1, 2013

Actor Headshots - Nashville - Memphis - Atlanta - New Orleans

I get a chance to do lots of actor headshots in the studio. There are some subtle differences in shooting headshots for portfolios and photos for editorial spreads.  Sometimes I like to break the rules from the typical plain background for headshots and capture some lifestyle images. For my client Nancy, she came in last year and got some great portfolio casting images. She gave me a call recently and needed to add a series of images to her portfolio that gave her variety for the casting agency, here are a few casual styles we shot for her, and a more serious, corporate lawyer style. Nancy's worked on quite a few films, and supported actresses such as Ashley Judd in films, so she knows what directors are looking for in casting calls.





Friday, January 11, 2013

Featured on the Southern Magazine blog today!

I'm so excited to be on the Southern Bride Magazine blog today featuring one of the images from our recent shoot with the magazine. For this bridal fashion shoot, we worked with the Southern Bride Magazine team on location here in Memphis. We are always excited to work with the Southern Bride team to help brides all across the South in planning their beautiful weddings!

Here's the live link to Southern Bride Magazine!

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Tracy & Matt's Tuscany Style Wedding

One of my favorite couples is Tracy & Matt. We met a few years ago when Tracy was interviewing with me to work as a photographer. Tracy has an amazing eye for photography, and her style fit in with mine very well. Since then she has shot on many projects with me, shot dozens of weddings, helped me with seminars and helped shoot some film projects. When she started talking about her wedding, she had a vision for a true Tuscany style wedding, complete with vineyards, wine, and celebration. We had dreams of going to Italy, but scheduling and family needs brought them to scouting locations a bit closer to home. Tracy found this quaint little destination vineyard within a days drive of the city, Crown Winery. We both knew that this location had the feel and charm of her Tuscan wedding dream. She enlisted the help of Angela Mazanti Events and Club Windward Catering to help set the theme. Here is the wedding album from her beautiful wedding. To view the album, just mouse over the page and scroll through the pages. You can also click on the page to view it in full screen mode. Enjoy! Here's a link to an ipad friendly version  You can see the photos here


Memphis Most Notable Weddings 2012 - Say Yes - Memphis Commercial Appeal Newspaper

We are so excited to be selected to be included in Say Yes - The 2012 Year In Review - A look at the years most notable Mid South Weddings! We were selected with a short list of the years best photographers in Memphis. We have been featured by the paper many times in the past years, it's always an honor be selected again in this elite group of esteemed photographers.

Congratulations to our bride and groom, Amanda & Chris, from Boston Massachusetts. Amanda & Chris's modern and chic wedding was held in the Tower Room Suite high above east Memphis, with catering by Wade & Company. The beautiful flowers were by Posh Design Group, and the wedding design was by Social Butterflies, with live music by The Soul Shockers. What a posh & beautiful wedding with lots of creative details, and of course photography by Michael Allen. (And more congratulations to our friend and fellow photographer Kim Miller at Ramblin Rose Photography for her beautiful cover image!) Here are some of the page spreads from this very special magazine issue!









And here's Amanda & Chris's Wedding film trailer that we created at their wedding. Our creative team creates some amazing wedding films with our modern indie film making approach. 

Saturday, December 15, 2012

George Coleman Jazz Legend

I love music. Every time I get a chance to work with musicians I jump up and run. If you don't recognize the name, George Coleman has been around the block a few times, he's in his 70's now, and still plays around the world. His music has complimented such greats as Miles Davis, and a notable list of famous artists that goes on forever. Jazz enthusiasts would stand in line around the block to meet him. He's been in movies, he's been photographed in magazines such as Vogue with Madonna, and recently inducted into the Memphis Rock & Soul Hall of Fame. I recently got a call from film maker Ray Foley, who is an award winning director from New York, to shoot segments for his new documentary featuring George Coleman and his family of amazing musicians. In between shooting the film footage, I took a few minutes to shoot a portrait session of George. Here are a couple of my favorites from the session.




Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Best in Wedding Photography

I recently wrote a book for professional photographers and new photographers that want to specialize in wedding photography. Being a wedding photographer is perhaps one of the most challenging types of photography in the industry. A leading photography book publisher, Dan Fieldman, found & reviewed my book and and I have teamed up with Dan to show you more about photography techniques and tips on photography. Here is a recent article from Dan's photography blog that I'd love for you to read.

 

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Posh Indian Wedding Style - Memphis Wedding Films



From the first phone call I had with Grishma about her wedding, I knew that she would love a wedding film created from her beautiful event. Most Indian weddings involve a series of special events that last an entire weekend, where family, friends and guests celebrate the marriage of couples with love, ritual, and happiness. Grishma and Sandeep's wedding was held in Memphis at several locations, including an ornate, lavish Temple located in rolling hills of east Tennessee. This is one of those films that I can't wait to edit, its full of intricate detail, amazing ceremonial blessings, and incredible colors. Here is their wedding trailer, congratulations Grishma and Sandeep!

Friday, November 2, 2012

Avarice Film - A Magical Secret is Discovered - Memphis Indie Films

Two years ago I was approached by a young indie film maker and an indie production team to shoot a film. I get lots of calls to read scripts, and pitches to shoot films, most of them flame out before they ever get off the ground. I was excited about this particular film, I had worked with their team on a couple of small productions, and we had developed a relationship over the past few years. Some how I knew that this project would be a good one to join. Their team had done several very good indie films in the past, and had won several awards, so I eagerly signed on. The team wanted to get access to the new Canon 5D camera, back then had just come out of the gate, impressing some of the big production studios. I had already used my relatively new camera for lots of my companies productions, and knew how impressive it was to use. Dan Baker was the producer, and Rachel Taylor had written the film and was set to direct along with Paul Skidmore, another well know indie film maker on their team.

I won't get into the script, other than to say it is a fantasy, mystery film set with a full cast, an amazing makeup and art department, and good solid story, and a chance to do things with my camera that were way out of the box for typical productions. You can see in this first still how the film has an epic art style. I also quickly bonded with the main character, Haley Parker. As a very young girl, I've had the honor of working with her and seeing her grow up over the past few years. This girl has talent, drive and is a sweet as any young woman could ever be. If half the kids on the planet were as real and down to earth as Haley, we'd be surrounded by one of be best generations ever found in America in decades. I can't wait to work with her again!

The film premiers next week at an unusual, but fun place, along side the maker and voice of Sponge Bob Square Pants at the Memphis Comic & Fantasy Convention. The production company delayed entering several other indie festivals due to their compulsive need to make this film a unique rendering of art, mystery, and beauty. I've had the opportunity to shoot the film, and watch the company edit, hear the score, see the re-edit and see the team tweak this into a little work of art that I believe will get some great press over the next year ahead as it gets into the festival circuit.

Here are a few stills captured from the video for you to get a glimpse into the film story. Be sure to view the trailer at www.macedoniafilms.com/avaricefilm

For all the photographers and film makers that see this post, I hope you are inspired to take some risks, step out of the box and find a project like this, It takes a lot of hard work, working on sets all day long and night sometimes for weeks, shooting on remote locations, and enduring extreme heat & weather conditions, but the reward is to work on a great project that hopefully inspires those around you! Congratulations to Rachel on her successful film endeavor, it was an honor to work with her on this project.






















Sunday, September 16, 2012

International Wedding Style

Here's a sneak peak of just a few images from Grishma and Sandeep's wedding. We're creating a wedding film from their amazing 3 day wedding that will be a beautiful short film. We shot on 3 Canon 5d cameras along with Brian's team who used 4 more Canon 5d cameras and captured some amazing footage of the culture and tradition of a beautiful Indian wedding. We worked along side our friend and fellow photographer Brian K Crain and the visionary design of Angela Mazanti Events. I was totally awed by the warmth and friendliness of the couples families, we were given total access to shoot all of the details and special moments of the ceremonies and offered some amazing hospitality by some of the nicest people I've ever met in all my years of shooting weddings. Check back soon to see the film.






Saturday, August 4, 2012

Night & Day in Memphis - Southern Fashion

As a commercial & editorial photographer I get a chance to shoot some pretty amazing projects. Being based in Memphis Tennessee, I get to shoot in Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Atlanta, Dallas, and all over Florida. For this shoot for Southern Bride Magazine, we were tasked with shooting in some very different locations than the normal, pretty day time spots that you would normally think about for a wedding are more scenic, but for this shoot we hit the streets to find a bit more urban style. We ended up on rooftops of tall buildings, on street cars, and in the basement of an old bank. For this shoot we were on location in the Downtown Arts District in Memphis Tennessee, home to Elvis, rock n roll, Beale Street and great southern cuisine. We tagged this shoot Night & Day because of the major differences in the scenes the editors chose. I can't complain, we have some pretty amazing shots in the collection, we pulled out just about every piece of studio gear we had to set up each scene for this fast paced 2 day shoot. Here are a few of my favorites, if you want to see more of the images from the shoot visit our website at Michael Allen Photography - Editorial or pick up a copy of the Magazine at Barnes & Noble or other newsstands across the Southern US. You can also see the behind the scenes video in the post below. I hope you enjoy a little Memphis soul in this post!