Independance Day

Happy Independence Day everyone. Like many Americans, we will relax and enjoy with our families today, bar-b-que outdoors, and play a little acoustic guitar with some friends.

America is facing some tough times right now in regards to the economy and we certainly haven't seen the worst of it yet. We have our problems here, and by no means has America been perfect from 1776 until 2008. In fact, there has been some pretty weird decisions made on the part of Americans and their political leaders over the years.

But as tough as times can get, and as strange as some things can be, America evolves and seems to eventually overcome and realize it's mistakes. We grow stronger through adversity and conflict and no matter how you look at life in America, we are lucky to live here. If we lost everything we have earned tomorrow it wouldn't be a disaster because we live in a place where you can start over with nothing and rise to the top again and again. We are free to think, live, and be most anything we want.

Today, we honor the ideals of the American dream, we honor the soldiers that work hard and risk their lives for all of us, and we spend time with our loved ones to celebrate life in America. A place that we are proud and lucky to call home.

Movie Night In The Orchard

Special thanks to all our friends and clients who joined us for our first "Movie Night In The Orchard". We lucked out as the weather was perfect. We had over 50 people join us and it was great that all the kids came as well. We all work way too hard and have the best of intentions of getting together. But times certainly flies..

In an effort to bring people together and enjoy the summer nights, we thought this would be a fun idea to have an outdoor movie night. But, then we realized that many of us work so hard that we don't even get enough time to spend with our families either. So, we thought that a night that celebrated family and allowed everyone to be together made the most sense.

Last night we showed E.T. and many commented how it brought back so many youthful memories. Jennifer and I very much enjoyed everyones company and loved seeing all the kids enjoying the movie and the outdoors. We hope to continue this a few times throughout the summer and hope to see you all at the next movie!

New Maring Website

Well, it's official! Today we launched our new website. A lot of work and thought went into it's creation. Special thanks to several friends and fellow photographers who helped us to narrow our focus.

Our new website was inspired by our wedding couples. Your kind words helped us to realize that we needed a place that was more personal. Many have stated that to Jennifer and I that we are very approachable, down to earth, and humble. A few have mentioned that we have more of a California vibe as we are so relaxed and laid back and it's hard to believe we are New Yorkers and from the Northeast. Those are kind words, we appreciate it, and it has helped shape our new site.

There are some personal sections in the new site. Some of you will enjoy it, some will probably think it's sappy. But it is every bit us and who we are. We hope you enjoy our online presence we will be working hard behind the scenes to update and tweak it along our journey.

Wide Color Gamut

There is exciting news regarding our printing technology at Maring. Our Poliellotronica Laser Lab, which we imported from Italy, is one of the world's most awarded digital photographic printers. Poli has developed a new wide color gamut. We have put this new color to the test and the results were so superior that we have are sold and have made the upgrade.
As many of you know, we print all of our photographs in house in order to control quality to a higher standard. It also allows us to have better turn around times. I can remember years ago the challenges when we had to use a third party lab to print the majority of our work. We would send out prints over the internet only to be disappointed in the results. Then, we would send them back and wait for reprints. Then send the to the album company only to hear that a few got bent. Then have to relive it all again. Our decision to purchase the world's most state of the art printer was the best decision we ever made for our quality control and customer service.
The large majority of professional labs across the country used by other professional photographers actually rely on digital mini lab equipment for printing photographs. In contrast, all of our photographs are printed on a professional level of printer designed to reproduce color, sharpness, and contrast to a higher level. If you never put the prints side by side, you wouldn't ever know the difference. But when you do, the difference is astonishing.

Digital cameras can actually capture dramatically more shades of green, yellow, and magenta than printers could reproduce. Even the best color monitors used to view photographs can't show the depth of colors that can be captured. This new update allows our photographs to be printed in 16 bit or 8 bit, and opens up the door to millions of more shades of color and the ability to reproduce them. We see a dramatic improvement in color integrity and sharpness. Especially with sunset photographs, and photographs with a lot of yellows and greens. There is simply more detail than ever before.Cameras have two modes. sRGB and Adobe RGB. Up until now, it was useless to capture in Adobe RGB because photographic printers simply couldn't reproduce that much color. The update on our exclusive printer now allows us to reproduce color on a whole new level. The diagram above shows sRGB in white and Adobe RGB in black. You can clearly see the differnce in the amount of colors that can be reproduced with a wider color gamut in dark, medium and light shades. This new update is exciting as it builds further on our quest and commitment to be the best of the best.

Let Go and the Moment Appears

Can you ever be too technical of a photographer? Does focusing on perfection keep you from finding emotion in your photographs? Where and how is your time better spent? As photographers, these are questions we have to ask ourselves as we evolve our styles. 

I for one find that when I let go, defining moments appear. Yet when I try to control light and focus on the technical, no matter how real, there is something missing in the eyes. So, we have learned and trained ourselves to let moments flow through us onto the paper. We don't create moments. We capture them. Being fully in the moment and behind the lens is a rush that we can't explain. In many ways it is spiritual capturing real people breathing, thinking, loving, and living. 

As a bride you should be aware of the questions that haunt photographers. The truth is, photographers can't be all things. Simply put, there are only so many minutes in an hour and the human brain can only think of so much before it is in overload. The heart of the moment is missed when the artist's focus is too much on perfection. 

For those musicians out there, you know what I am talking about. The notes flow through you and not from you. You have to let go, and stop thinking about technique to be in the zone. 

If it seems like I am thinking out loud, then I am. It is just an observation and perspective I wanted to share.

This is why we take a minimalist approach to weddings and events. We carry very little in regards to lighting which allows us to work in a more freestyle and in the zone way.  A recent article stated that Maring's photographs make the ordinary... Extraordinary. That is such a kind statement. All I can say is that we feel that when an image has truth it has soul. It's not perfect or Godlike. It's human and that is in itself perfect enough.

Your Wedding Website

If you don't already have a personal wedding website, there is a whole new way to get one that is stunningly beautiful to look at. www.TogetherInStyle.com has teamed up with Wedding Window, the leader in personal wedding websites, and through that partnership, Maring has made some of our most beautiful personal photographs available exclusively to them. As many of you know, this is where Jennifer's blog is located, and where we share expert advice through the eyes of the world's experts via television shows about planning a wedding of distinction. Voted as the most visually stunning website on the web, we are proud to be sharing our photographs and our name with these wonderful companies.

You might wonder, "why should I have a wedding website?" There are a lot of reasons. Number one, it's personal. Beyond that, it allows you to have centralized place that you can inform guests about your wedding day with things like; where to park at the ceremony, dress code, the menu, directions, your registry etc... But it also makes sense because it give you a place to share tidbits about your relationship, share photos of adventures, and much more.

The best part is that Together In Style, and Wedding Window make it easy to pick custom color schemes, update information, and most of all have a gorgeous site filled with Maring's world class quality photography. Check it out, we are sure you will be impressed. Simply go to www.togetherinstyle.com and click on the tab that says "Your Wedding Website."

Recent Wedding... South Beach Ritz Carlton, Miami