Tag Archive for: candid

Bozeman Montana Holy Rosary Church Wedding Day Photos of Cassie and Justin Preview

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This past weekend, I had the pleasure of photographing the Bozeman, Montana wedding day celebration of Cassie and Justin at Holy Rosary Church and Bridger Bowl Ski Resort.

After dating for the past eight years, these two wanted to say their vows surrounded by the most important people in their lives among the mountainous landscape of Southwest Montana they love so much.

Their wedding would be a chance for many of their family members (coming from Florida, Maine, New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Washington) to see the place they have called home over the last few years. Many of their wedding guests were traveling to Montana for the first time. The day was filled with Big Sky excitement and surprisingly for July, lots of precipitation.

It has been an unusually soggy Spring and Summer in Southwest Montana this year. The rain found us.

Luckily, it just so happened that their ceremony and reception were preemptively planned for a rainy day – indoor Catholic mass ceremony at the church and then lovely intimate reception at the Bridger Bowl mid-mountain lodge. The rain couldn’t keep us down. We celebrated without a hitch indoors at both locations dancing, eating crusted trout and elk tenderloin and playing in the Greener Visuals Photobooth.

I’m working hard to go through all the fun photos I made during their special day. For now, I wanted to share a preview of their wedding photographs.  Here are a few favorites so far. So many more to share.

I could not be more excited for these two. Congrats to the newlyweds and stay tuned for more! -M

 

 

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Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photography – First Birthday

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With all the couples and family portraits I’ve been making this Spring, I got a break in the action and took the opportunity to spend a week with my family up in Anchorage, Alaska.

Their official Anchorage Alaska Family Kids Portrait Photographer was back for more.

It is so much fun being an uncle!

We were celebrating the 1-year-old birthday of my nephew Paul and I wanted to see the look on his face as he bit into his first chocolate birthday cake.

Not having any kids of my own, it’s been such a fun experience for me to watch my younger brother Eric as a father and a caring partner to his wife Brandy. Household laughter sums up the experience every time I visit. He is so good at playing and engaging his children. It doesn’t take much for him and Brandy to get their kiddos to giggle.

There is a lot of love in this Alaska home.

I feel grateful that the flexibility of my work schedule allows me to travel up to see them a couple of times a year. I want to be a part of these kids lives and what better way than to be present and document them.

As a photographer uncle, I want them to be able to look back at their candid selves in pictures years from now and see all the love that was and is all around them.

Photographing my family has become a fun, personal project for me where I get to observe how these little lovable humans process their world and continue developing their different and unique personalities.

It means something to be there on that lazy morning to capture the pure joy in the face of Molly, my niece, as she cruises down the hallway on her scooter with “Jones”, the family Labrador in stride.

Laughing and watching smiling Paul, who is just months away from taking his first steps, currently opting to carry all sorts of items in his mouth and utilizing his new crawling habit.

The kid can move.

For me, the best gifts from these experiences are being present for the little things.

Watching them helps me receive the world in a whole new way. A glimpse into the perspective of all things a new.

Here are some favorite moments from my time with my Alaska tribe. I can’t wait to return. -M

 

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Kelly Canyon Bozeman Montana Wedding Day Photo Preview of Lisa and Noah

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Bozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker Wedding ceremony
Bozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker WeddingBozeman Wedding Photographer Kelly Canyon Quaker Wedding

Montana native newlyweds Lisa and Noah got married on his family’s property in Kelly Canyon just outside of Bozeman Montana last weekend. Perfect sunny weather blessed the day where these two celebrated their Quaker wedding with their close friends and family. I’m working hard to edit through all of the fun photos I made throughout their wedding day.

For now, check out a preview of some favorite photos I made for them. Stay tuned for more… -M

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Livingston Montana Wedding Day Photography of Erika and Josh

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Livingston Wedding Photographer Yellowstone River wedding portrait
  • Livingston Wedding Photographer Yellowstone River wedding portrait

A few weeks back, I had the absolute pleasure of providing the Livingston Montana Wedding Day Photography of Erika and Josh.

For these two, it was all about returning to the source of where they met.

Little did they know after a chance encounter over a foosball game table in Livingston, Montana, two years later they would be celebrating their wedding at the Livingston KOA in the beautiful Paradise Valley just south of town.

Both are well versed in the art of hospitality (Josh as a chef at Feast Raw Bar & Bistro and Erika as a former wedding planner now operations manager for the Shane Center for the Arts), they wanted to have their wedding day be “about letting their friends and family know how much they’ve impacted us in our lives.” by creating a personal wedding experience for their guests.

In a wonderfully intimate setting along the Yellowstone River, guests were met with great food, meticulous decorations of 1,000 paper cranes and rock cairns, homemade booze-infused cupcakes and the right tunes to keep the dance floor busy.

Their attention to the little details made their wedding day a true delight.

Not even the constant rainfall throughout the afternoon could dampen the spirits of those in attendance.

As the sounds of the consistent rain and the high waters of the nearby Yellowstone River serenaded the evening, the big pavilion transformed smoothly from the ceremony to the catered dinner and then into an energetic all night dance party.

Happiness, smiles and good times abound. What a day!

Here are some of my favorite highlights from my day photographing their wedding celebration. Congrats again to the bride and groom Erika and Josh! Wish you guys a lifetime of happiness! -M

See all of their wedding photos here.

 

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Virginia City Wedding Day Photo Booth of Marissa and Tyler

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Virginia City Montana wedding reception photo booth
  • Virginia City Montana wedding reception photo booth

As part of their historic Virginia City, Montana wedding day reception, Marissa, and Tyler added my Greener Visuals photo booth into the mix for entertaining their guests.

It was a huge hit.

Complete with old-fashioned furniture to match the old west theme of their wedding, it seemed like everyone had a chance to play in it. The cool thing is that their guests triggered the camera and studio flashes themselves remotely. The creativity of their tribe knew no boundaries.

Here are some of my favorite photos from their reception photo booth. To see all of the fun photo booth photographs, click here.

It was such a fun evening with some amazing people. Congrats again to the bride and groom!

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Ennis Montana El Western Resort Wedding Photography of Becky and Kyle Preview

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El Western Resort Wedding Photos Becky and Kyle
  • El Western Resort Wedding Photos Becky and Kyle

This past Saturday, I stepped in to create the Ennis Montana El Western Resort Wedding Photography Day of Becky and Kyle.

Sometimes in life, you can’t always plan for the unexpected.

I woke up to an early morning message from a photographer friend of mine. Overnight she had become quite ill and woke up the morning of her client’s wedding day unable to work it. That is a nightmare situation for any working creative. Thankfully, here in southwest Montana, there is a strong community of supportive, talented wedding photographers who when called upon, strive to help out one another.

Luckily, I was available and took over the reins for her agreeing to photograph her client’s El Western Resort wedding.

It makes me proud that I live amongst a community of wedding professionals that go the distance for their clients and help each other out to provide the best service possible for wedding couples having their celebrations in southwest Montana.

While it wasn’t ideal news for bride Becky and groom Kyle to find out the morning of their wedding day, they understood and were grateful for the help.

Not having any time to get to know them before their wedding day, I stepped up to make the best wedding photography experience I could for them. The result was a fun, country wedding celebration filled with good people in the heart of horse and fly fishing country.

A great time was had by all. I have a lot of great photos to edit through but I wanted to share a few favorites so far that have stood out to me. I’m excited to show them all the goods from their special day. Stay tuned for more wedding photos! -M

 

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2016 Best of Weddings Greener Visuals Photography

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2016 Best of Weddings Greener Visuals Photography

Winter has arrived and it’s snowing in Montana now. I’ve been reminiscing about the past year. It’s funny how time flies when you’ve been having so much fun. 2016 was another great year of documenting the fun memories of my client’s wedding day. I kept busy this year photographing over the Spring, Summer, and Fall. Southwest Montana offers up so many beautiful places to get married and I feel thankful that I was able to continue to explore the hidden pockets throughout. It was such an honor to be a part of my client’s wedding celebration.

I feel so grateful to be doing the candid wedding storytelling photography that I do.

My travels this year took me all over Montana. Traveling up to Whitefish down to Yellowstone National Park and as far away as downtown Chicago, Illinois. I even got to witness a wedding in northeast Mongolia.

In addition to having fun documenting the love, one of my favorite highlights of the year was when I moved into my new photography studio inside of Gallatin Event Rentals. It has been a wonderful place to house my wedding and portrait photography business. Having an inviting, comfortable space to host my clients and hear their wedding story has been such a pleasure. If you haven’t stopped by already, I’d be happy to give you the dime tour and geek out on photography with you.

Here are a few of my favorite wedding images that stood out to me from this past year.

I am now booking for the 2017 wedding season and I travel all across the country. I’m looking forward to the new smiles and faces I’ll meet and photograph in the new year.  Wishing you all a fantastic new year ahead! -M

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Best Wedding Photos 2015 – Greener Visuals Wedding Photography

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As the final hours of 2015 countdown, I find myself looking back on my wedding photos from this past year with a lot of gratitude. I feel fortunate to have been able to document my wedding clients on their special day. I have a lot of fun doing what I do and I am thankful for their support. This past year I traveled all over southwest Montana to photograph weddings. Each new venue set the stage for me to explore and get creative documenting candid moments that told the story of my client’s wedding day. This past wedding season kept me busy. I was on a quest for good light and color. The changing outdoor color schemes of the seasons were my muse at the moment. Here are a few of my favorite wedding images that I made in the past year. Now booking for the 2016 wedding season. I’m looking forward to the new smiles and faces I’ll meet and photograph in the new year.  Happy holidays everyone! -Mike Greener

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Big Brothers Big Sisters of Gallatin County 2015 Holiday Party Photos

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Big Brothers Big Sisters of Gallatin County 2015 Holiday Party Photos

As a young business owner, I believe it’s important to give back my time and skill sets to enrich and benefit my community. It was one of the many things I took pride in over the last decade photographing for community newspapers across the company. Telling the stories of others in my community. It is one of my passions. Now as a full-time self-employed wedding, editorial, and commercial photographer, opportunities to interact with the public, like my time working as a journalist, don’t come around as much. Supporting and donating my photography skill set to benefit local non-for-profits is a service I am grateful to provide.

About week before the Big Brothers Big Sisters of Gallatin County‘s 2015 holiday party for the kids, their families and the mentors of the program, I was contacted by Valerie Erwin, Marketing and Outreach Coordinator of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Gallatin County. She was in a bind, short on time and needed a photographer to document the fun in photos at their annual holiday party. I was happy to help. I headed over to the Gallatin County Fairgrounds and set up my portable photo studio, setting the stage for the party attendees to have some fun. This crowd was a hoot. I love documenting humans at play. We all had a great time and I came away with some fun photos from the event. Here are some favorites. Happy to support such a great local organization. Merry Christmas everyone! -M

  • Big Brothers Big Sisters of Gallatin County 2015 Holiday Party Photos

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Julia & Peter’s Wedding Day at Chico Hot Springs – Pray, Montana

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I had the pleasure of documenting the wedding day of Julia & Peter out at Chico Hot Springs outside of Pray, Montana a few weeks back. These two were so much fun. The historic venue is located in the heart of Paradise Valley in a beautiful setting backed up towards Emigrant Peak. It’s a perfect place to tie-the-knot in Montana. These two lovebirds along with their friends and family took over the historic venue for a night of celebration, laughter and get down dancing. It was a wedding of mixed cultures and influences. I like how the bride and groom melded her family’s Jewish traditions together with their own style to make a wedding celebration all their own. After the walk down the aisle and the family toasts to the newlyweds, the whole wedding party took to the dance floor in force. Such great energy from the lot. I had a great time documenting their special day. My congrats to the newlyweds! -M

To see more photos and purchase prints from their wedding day, click here.

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Davis California Wedding Photography Booth of Emily & Matt – Odd Fellows Hall

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In addition to photographing Emily and Matt’s wedding celebration, they also hired me to set up my photo booth at their reception at the Odd Fellows Hall in Davis, California. Photobooths are a great way to add some fun to the wedding reception. It’s amazing the positive energy it can bring to a wedding celebration.  Their wedding guests were able to trigger the booth remotely themselves which meant I could continue to photograph the festivities elsewhere. The results are often a surprising and hilarious discovery and random creativity. I’ve made it a rule now never to have beverages around my computer while editing photobooth images. Too funny. You never quite know what you will get. This crowd did not disappoint. What a fun evening! -Mike Greener

To see all of the photo booth images, follow this link.

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Charleston South Carolina Wedding Day Photos at the Creek Club at I’On of Josh and Elizabeth

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A couple weeks ago, I saddled up from my home here in Bozeman, Montana and hopped a flight bound for Charleston, South Carolina to photograph Josh and Elizabeth’s beautiful wedding day festivities. I love traveling for weddings! Photographing in new places all over the country is like an artist working with a brand new canvas and I couldn’t wait to start. It was my first time exploring the charming city and my first time being completely submerged in the throws of southern charm, cuisine and lifestyle that the folks in the deep south continue to proudly cultivate. It was pretty surreal walking along the historic streets and adorable old buildings that date back to the Civil War. For Josh and Liz, who hail from the suburbs of Chicago, it was that southern soul that they wanted to incorporate into their wedding celebration. The couple decided to have their wedding at the Creek Club at I’On in the small town of Mt. Pleasant just outside of Charleston, South Carolina. The place offered a perfect setting along the banks of picturesque Hobcaw Creek for both the couple’s wedding ceremony and reception. A huge convenience not to be under estimated if you are ever planning your own wedding day. Despite ninety degree temperatures and full-on humidity, the day was packed with all the right ingredients of a gorgeous southern wedding day and the couple’s small gathering of friends and family celebrated their union well into the night hours. It was an incredible weekend with these two and I wish them all the very best! -M

To see Josh and Elizabeth entire wedding day photographs click here.

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Best of 2011 Wedding Photos from Greener Visuals Photography

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What a year! I had the fortunate opportunity to photograph numerous weddings over the course of 2011. During the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going through all of my wedding shoots from this past year. It was so great to go back and relive those celebrations that I was lucky enough to photograph. So many fun times and way too many photos to choose from. I feel very fortunate. A big thank you to all of my wedding clients from the 2011 wedding season. Wish you guys all the best and thank you for letting Greener Visuals Wedding Photography be apart of your wedding day. Here are some of my favorite wedding images from the past year. I’m looking forward to making the 2012 wedding season even better. Happy New Year everyone! -M

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Chico California Wedding Day Photos of Krysta and Nathan

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A couple weeks ago I had the pleasure of photographing the wedding of new found friends Krysta and Nathan in Chico, California. The two are making a life together down in Irvine, California – Krysta works in the insurance industry and Nathan works as a software company programmer that services the broadcasting industry. After two years of dating, they got engaged and decided to marry at Nathan’s parent’s home in Chico. It always amazes me hearing the different stories of how my clients find each other. The two are southern California natives and I was surprised to learn that these two had both gone to the same high school down in Orange County near Los Angeles but never knew each other. It was only after finding each other on the online dating site match.com years later that they finally connected. Funny how two lives can run so close and parallel to each other but not cross paths until much later in life. When it came time to plan out their wedding, they opted for the homemade, do-it-yourself approach which was assisted by the whole family. They bought organic flowers from California Organic Flowers and made their own cute bouquets, boutonnières and table settings set in old mason jars. Her sisters Rachel & Alyssa along with close friends Robyn, Macy, Mike, Trevor and Mansur scattered the yard and swimming pool with mini electric candles and rubber duckies for the ambiance and helped set up the tables, chairs, linens and plates that were rented from A & J Party Center for the reception. Aunt Arlene made their wedding cake which was decorated with the leftover flowers, Nathan’s father cooked the dinner and the rest of their family and friends helped with the finishing touches like bubbles blowing vials for their married walk back down the isle. Their wedding ceremony and reception took place in the backyard of Nathan’s parents home. In all, everything came together and they pulled off a small, yet lovely wedding day that had the stamp of Krysta and Nathan’s own unique personalities throughout. It turned out great.

Certain things for their wedding day they did leave up to wedding professionals. The girls had their hair spruced up by the talented Costa Mesa hair stylist Ona Zimmerman, of Gods & Heros Hair Stylists, and their makeup done by Sacramento wedding and bridal makeup artist Jill Briggs, of BeautyBox Makeup Artists. We all spent the morning laughing and chatting as Ona and Jill did their styling magic on the girls while they sipped pink cosmopolitans and did the last minute prepping for the wedding ceremony. The other professional task concerned their wedding photography. For this task they reached out to Greener Visuals Wedding Photography to capture and document their big day celebration. The two located me through the power of Google and found a previous wedding I had photographed in Bidwell Park near downtown Chico. I can’t think of a better excuse to visit Chico than to photograph a wedding. I have always had so much fun visiting Chico and their wedding didn’t disappoint. The weather was picture perfect. After the wedding party was all dressed, we headed to the beautiful wooded scenery of Bidwell Park to make some family and bridal party portraits before returning for the ceremony. I had such a great time getting to know their friends and family. With everyone helping out to make this wedding special, it was apparent just how much love Krysta and Nathan have surrounding them. I wish them all the very best. Congratulations you guys! -M

To see all of the wedding images of Krysta and Nathan’s wedding day please click here.

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Greener Visuals Wedding Photography now on WPJA.com website

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Happy Holidays everybody! I opened my email yesterday to find out that I have been accepted as a member of the Wedding Photojournalist Association. It’s a pretty big deal for me. They are the elite, industry standard of wedding photojournalism. To quote their website, ” Leading the way in Wedding Photojournalism, WPJA represents the most discriminating talent around the world technically, creatively and visually. Qualified members hold industry-leading standards, skills and business integrity.”

It’s great to be associated with such a top notch organization aimed at maintaining quality wedding photojournalism. I’m proud to be apart of it and I wanted to share with all of you. For brides-to-be, now is a great time to book your wedding photographer. I still have plenty of dates open but they are starting to fill up fast. Always a good thing. I’m really looking forward to the new wedding season but for now I’ll enjoy the winter holidays. Happy New Year everyone!

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Teller Wildlife Refuge Slack House and Barn Wedding Day of Abby and Johnny’s outside Missoula, Montana

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You know you’ve done something right when one of your past wedding couples refer you to their friends. I consider those gestures one of the highest complements a photographer can receive. It lets me know that I am doing my job well. Back in 2006, Abby and Johnny asked me to photograph their wedding in western Montana after hearing about my photojournalistic style through their friends and my former clients. It was the ultimate picturesque Montana cowboy wedding. Their outdoor wedding was held at this cute little ranch where the men were decked out in their cowboy boots and hats twirled the women in their summer dresses as they danced to the upbeat rhythms of bluegrass music. Summer was ending and with it the days grew longer. Because of it we were blessed with beautiful afternoon sunlight that made the dried wheat fields glow with a golden hue as the sun set over the Bitterroot Mountains. What more could a photographer ask for.

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