Banff

On this particular entry I want to write everything that happened for three reasons. First for the benefit of my clients, second for my own need to remember exactly what happened, and third for the enjoyment of my readers.

It all started early December of last year. Christy and Nathan came into the studio for a meet and greet. At the end of the meeting I was submitting a quote for photographing a wedding on the top of a mountain just outside the city of Banff in Canada, and for shooting additional images in the hotel that we were staying in. You couldn’t really call it a hotel though, as it turns out The Fairmont at Banff Springs is a castle! The bid was accepted and the plane tickets were purchased, and the room was booked.

Normally when I travel for a client I stay for four days. The first is for travel and scouting good shooting locations, the next two days are for shooting, and the last day is to travel home. This trip was no exception.

So last Thursday I’m sitting at my gate waiting to board and an announcement comes over the PA that boarding will be delayed due to a medical emergency on the previous flight. Just then an ambulance pulls up to the plane and a woman is wheeled off on a stretcher. The plane is an hour late in boarding, which means I am an hour late landing, which means I missed my shuttle to Banff. I arrive in Banff at 5:45, and the Hertz car rental has already closed for the evening making it next to impossible to scout for locations. I had planned on having the car to spend the next four hours scouting locations, but that’s life I guess. In a bit of a panic, I had to improvise.

I check in and decide at the very least I can scout through the castle to find places to shoot. Every corner I turned held the perfect photograph just calling my name. It turns out that I stumbled onto a photography studio in the castle. From what I can tell it was really more of a store front and the photographer did all of his sessions on location in and out of the castle. The castle was his studio.

At any rate, I went in to ask for information. Information like….. where should I take my clients to photograph them? I completely expected to be shot down and told to leave, but he was very generous and provided me with some great locations. I offered to take him to dinner as way of saying thanks, but he didn’t have the time, so I was off to hunt for the dinning room myself.

It turns out that there were many options for places to eat in the resort, one of which was rated a five star facility. I didn’t even think of that one, as I wanted to stay inside the estimate I hade given my clients. All of the remaining options were booked up for the night with the exception of a sushi bar. A sushi bar inside of a castle… I couldn’t believe it, nor could I pass it up as I was famished.

Friday morning comes, and I am eagerly waiting outside of the Hertz car rental 15 minutes before it opens at 8. I had called Christy and Nathan the night before to let them know that I wanted to meet them in the lobby at 8:30 to start the shoot. They had expected to be meeting with me much earlier, but as it turns out the mountains that surround the castle are so tall that they do not let enough light into the valley until about 8:30.

I get out of the Hertz dealership by 8:05 and decide to drive to the first location, as it’s not far. I find it, drive back to the castle and head into the lobby. There I meet Brandon, the Videographer, and his partner Cameron. Right off the bat we all got along. Christy and Nathan make it down to the lobby and we all pile into the rental and we are off to the first location.

Parking was easy, but we had to walk over a bridge, down a road, trek through a thickly wooded area, cross over a golf course, and then we would find ourselves on the banks of a river with the castle as the backdrop.

The shoot on the river bank was nothing less than spectacular, and we were all very happy to be there. My clients were happy because a dream was unfolding, and I was happy to have been given the opportunity to create the images for them. This was truly a once in a lifetime shoot and I was already thinking about this blog entry.

It was cold, and everyone was getting a bit hungry, so it was time to head back to the castle to wrap up Friday’s shoot. Once back, I brought my clients to the different locations that I have found indoors.

Now I want to add something here before we get to these images. Christy’s profession is in the fashion industry, and the dress she chose shows this. The plunging neck line and the fur were way over the top, not to mention her jewelry, and I wanted to make sure that the images I created for her accentuated this. If you have ever had a photo session with me, then you know that the first few images I take are always safe and easy, but as the shoot progresses I try to take the images to a different level. For the parents and family you can see that we started off indoors with a classic traditional look using a stairwell for a sense of grandure. After that, I gave it everything I had.

From 8:30 to 1pm we shot. The session ended and we all went our separate ways for lunch. I knew the building a bit better now, and found a nice spot with a view to have lunch. The waitress sits me down right next to Christy and Nathan! They were already eating as they knew the facility much better than I did. This was their second trip there. I wasn’t sure if they wanted privacy, and I offered to move, but they had insisted I stay and eat with them. Great food, good company, spectacular service, and a view that stopped you in your tracks. We stayed long enough to have two rounds of adult beverages each, and it was most definitely time for a nap. We were to meet up again at 4 so I could photograph them at a wine tasting in order to captures something much more casual, but it was never to be as the altitude and the drinks caused Christy and Nathan's nap to linger way past 4.

I ate at my third restaurant that night. After dinner I was alone with a bottle of wine, my laptop, and my memory cards, feverishly downloading images and burning them to DVD for security. It took hours and at about midnight I was done.

Saturday morning started at 10:30 with a two hour limo ride which would take us to the helicopter pad. During the ride there, Nathan had asked me if I had any ideas on what we could do to make the best they could be. Anything was possible, what would you do? I thought for a few moments and I had an idea. After the ceremony was done on top of the mountain, I wanted to restage the event while I went back into the helicopter which would then begin orbiting around them so I could get additional images from the sky. Nathan looked at me, and then at Christy, and then said, “no problem”. I was blown away! Needless to say I was even more excited than before. The hard part was trying to remain professional at that point. This was turning out to be the shoot of a lifetime!

It would take two trips of one helicopter to get us all to the top of the mountain. I had decided that I wanted to go in the first trip so I could show Christy and Nathan landing on top of the mountain and getting out of the helicopter, and then when everything was said and done, Christy and Nathan would leave first so I could show them flying away from their ceremony.

It turns out that things out of our control drastically changed our plans. A snowstorm blew in and made it impossible to fly to the top of the mountain, and even if we did get there, it was too windy and cold. Hypothermia was an issue. So the decision was made to fly to a location that offered a waterfall instead! This meant no orbiting helicopter ride, but so what. We were in heaven, and a ceremony on the side of the road would have been immaculate at this point.

Once I landed with Brandon and Cameron I began to look around the area. Of course I had to take some pictures of the landscape.

Twelve minutes later, Christy and Nathan arrive.

After a quick explanation from our guide that grizzlies and mountain lions are in the area and what to do if we see one, we begin a short hike into the mountains to the waterfall.

Once we had arrived at the falls, it was up to Brandon and I to decide how the ceremony was to take place. Where would everyone stand? Where would I be and where would Bandon be? We had to make sure to stay out of each others way. It was decided that Christy would walk down a path and emerge out of the woods where Nathan and the minster would be waiting with the waterfalls in the background.

With that, the wedding began.....

Once the ceremony was complete, I wanted to photograph my couple on the top of the falls, but the guide quickly put a stop to that as he said it would be too dangerous. None of us liked it, but we conceded. So, I photographed Christy and Nathan at the bottom of the falls instead.

The guide soon informed us that we had to leave immediately as a storm was headed our way. We didn’t like it, and we were a bit perturbed at this point.. It was hard to be mad, because we were all so high on life. We had all traveled so far, and waited so long, and dreamed about this moment, and here was this guide putting a damper on things. I know he was looking out for our safety, but still.

So we hiked out....

Once back at the landing site, Brandon came up with an idea of how he wanted to film Nathan and Christy getting into the helicopter. It sounded great, and I could see what he was trying to do as he walked through it with them. We all got into our places, and then just as the helicopter was arriving, the guide jumps in front of us and once again calls the scene/shoot off as he feels it would have been to dangerous with the helicopter landing.

“And that’s when I killed the guide your honor.” Truly though, our guide was looking out for our safety, and I am sure that Brandon and I were asking things of him that made him very uncomfortable. The service and professionalism made us feel very safe and taken care of, especially as we were in the air in their helicopters.

Christy and Nathan landed back at the helicopter pad and then it was our turn to leave.

Once back, we jumped back into the limo and it was back to the castle. On the way back, I asked the driver to stop at a location we has seen on our way to the wedding.

One more request to the driver ended the day with a postcard view and photo shoot with The Fairmont in the background. These were the last shots of Christy and Nathan on the day of their wedding, Saturday April 28th, 2007.