Author Archives: Aaron Watson

Aaron Watson’s fervor for photography was ignited at a young age. Having spectacular vision Aaron was able to capture stunning moments with his childhood camera. “When I was young my dad was a professional photographer, so I was naturally interested in photography. On family trips I would go through many disposable cameras, so when my father retired he lent me his film equipment to document my experiences. Then in high school I took photography classes and really caught the photography fever when I purchased my first digital camera, a Canon 1D SLR.” By the end of high school, Aaron parlayed his passion into a professional career.

Aaron’s high school photography teacher, locally well-known photographer Rob Garland, quickly realized the talent Aaron possessed and hired him as an assistant photographer with his small wedding photography business; Rob Garland Photographers. By the end of the year Aaron’s enthusiasm and passion for wedding photography helped him establish his own clientele creating the first Associate photographer position within the growing company. Within the first few months as an associate Aaron earned recognition for his talent by placing second in the Wedding Photojournalist Association (WPJA) international photo competition. Then in 2005 Aaron was honored to be ranked among the top 50 wedding photojournalists worldwide by the WPJA.

After three prestigious years as an associate with Garland, Aaron founded Aaron Watson Photography. While still specializing in wedding photography, Aaron has expanded to include Sports, Fashion, Commerical and Event Photojournalism. Aaron’s vision has afforded him the opportunity to shoot incredible subjects and events around the globe. His remarkable work enables him to share his gift with everybody he meets. “I love doing what I do. I meet new people every day and often develop great friendships. I feel very fortunate and thankful for being able to indulge in new experiences, travel to incredible places and photograph unbelievable events. What more could I ask for!”

Anne & Nick’s Wedding

June 8, 2008 – 8:44 pm

These past few weeks have been a fun filled and crazy time. Wedding season is in high gear and this promises to be one of the best years ever! Over the past few weeks I have been happy to add a few new faces to the team and they already are kicking butt with amazing images and lending a hand with all of the miscellaneous details. Unfortunately, it hasn’t left me much time to update my blog, so I hope to reconcile that over the next few days with some pictures from a few great weddings and shoots I’ve had over the last few weeks!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure to document Anne and Nick’s wedding at Ft. Meade in Maryland. The chapel at Ft. Meade was not only a very special place for Anne and Nick, but also Anne’s parents as that is where they got married! It was a truly amazing day as it had been raining all afternoon and then 10 minutes before I arrived the clouds parted and some of the most beautiful light filled the church!

I loved Anne’s little umbrella!

When I took this picture it reminded me of a painting, so I decided to have a little fun and make it into one. This is actually a very new service that we are offering and has become very popular for bridal portraits and looks especially stunning when printed out on a 16×20 canvas!

Anne had the most amazing smile all day and this moment has become one of my favorite pictures ever! The lighting was very surreal and I love how you can almost see Nick smiling in the silhouette

Posted in Weddings | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

Ingrid & Aaron’s Engagement Session

May 25, 2008 – 1:19 am

To continue from my previous post, the following day in New York City was something that I had been looking forward to for awhile!  After a morning spent walking all over the city (probably over a 100 blocks in all), I met up with Ingrid and Aaron in Grand Central Station.  I’ve wanted to shoot an engagement session in New York City for awhile as there are so many cool/artsy/unique settings and I finally found the perfect couple to do this with!  One of the first things Ingrid told me about Aaron was that he loves photography and has a unique interest for camera bags (and latter I found out he loves to collect picture frames as well).  So I knew right off the back this would be a perfect fit as they are both great looking, appreciate photography as I do, can be spontaneous and show their fun loving side! So to start off I had an idea in my head for quite awhile, and when Ingrid suggested meeting in Grand Central Station I new this would be the perfect place …

I love the concept that when your in love it sometimes feels like time stands still and everyone else becomes a blur around you.  For just a moment your completely focused on one person with many feelings that you can’t explain and for that one moment it seems like nothing else matters.  If you were to picture that moment I feel it would look something like this:

Then I thought about what the moment after would be and Ingrid & Aaron seemed to answer that question for me as they started to dance in the middle of Grand Central Station. 

Of course it couldn’t last forever, so we headed to Central Park and had a little fun in the Subway on the way.

It definitely was not hard for them to show the love!

I’m definitely looking forward to seeing some fun dancing at their wedding in a few weeks!

When I saw this bridge I knew I was in for a treat! All of a sudden it felt like we were in Spain.

The art was amazing and I felt I would be amiss not keeping with the artsy theme. As you can see Aaron and Ingrid are not afraid of a little dipping action!

We then headed up to Ingrid’s friend’s rooftop for the most amazing view overlooking Central Park and the New York City skyline!

A little homage to Rose from the Titanic.

A little dramatic lighting for a dramatic sunset!

Then afterwards we met up with some of their friends for a little Chinese food!

… and later Aaron and I stayed up until almost 3:30 chatting about photography! I was truly a great day and I’m really looking forward to their wedding in a few weeks!

 

Posted in Weddings | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

East Coast Trip

May 23, 2008 – 2:00 pm

I’m back! As some of you may know I recently went on a 8 day road trip up and down the east coast to visit friends, family and clients.  I had a blast and have a few pictures to share from the latter half of the trip.  The first 4 days were spent in Baltimore and Boston, enjoying a few games and seeing family and friends I hadn’t seen in awhile.  Then on Sunday the 18th I had the pleasure to attend my cousin Jake’s graduation from Connecticut College. Conn’s campus is truly beautiful and (for ACC fans) it felt like they mixed Duke’s Architecture with UVA’s famous Lawn to create the perfect collegiate atmosphere.  After helping Jake move out of his dorm I drove down to NY City and found a great hotel located near Times Square where I walked around for a few hours doing the tourist thing … you know shooting a bunch of pictures and constantly looking up at the billboards while not watching where I was going.  It was a ton of fun and thankfully I didn’t get run over by any taxis!

It was amazing that we found Jake in the hundreds of graduates, but even more amazing is that he saw us in the massive crowd of families.

This is one of my favorite moments from the whole day! Sam was looking on, proud of his brother graduating (maybe thinking that he will be doing the same in another year), and Amy gave him a big hug with a rush of emotions and feelings that only a mother could know.

Uncle Adam in all his jokester glory very proud that his son is finally finished accruing student loans.

From left to right: My grandfather Papa Lee, Uncle Adam, Cousin Jake, Grandma Nancy, Cousin Sam, Cousin Lauren

Sam sporting his retro look. I have a picture with my father in a very similar outfit at his own college graduation!

After a long day I was told I had to get a “slice” from Famous Ray’s Pizza by my good friend and a former New Yorker, Dennis Fryer. After checking in and relaxing for a second I found one directly across the street from my hotel. Let me just say it was amazing, thank you Dennis!

So a bit embarrassing, but I ended up walking the wrong way to what I thought was Times Square and instead ended up in Columbus Circle just outside Central Park. It turned out to be a nice area to sit while listening to the fountain and watch people passing. I also had some fun playing around with my fisheye lens on the Canon 5D…

I ended up finally finding Time Square thanks to my trusty iPhone, and grabbed some more fun pictures with my fisheye.

I loved this wall at the Hard Rock. You could view other Hard Rocks around the world on each TV (I think it was a live feed - anybody know?). You could also see some of the pins from each location too.

 

 

Posted in Personal | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (1)

Eli Cook at Fridays After Five

May 9, 2008 – 11:41 am

Last Friday I had the chance to relax a little and go see my good friend Eli Cook play at the Charlottesville Pavilion for Fridays After Five.  I thought it would be fun to bring along my camera and get some cool shots of him and his band rocking it out!  When I first got into professional photography back in high school he was one of the first people I ever shot, so I thought it would be fun to see the then and now.  It’s funny, but I don’t see as much of a drastic change as I was expecting.  Except maybe he looks more like a rock star now. :)  If you haven’t heard him play definitely check him out, especially if you are a fan of blues guitar and hard rock!  He is quickly becoming a renown guitarist and garnering much attention from many guitar magazines!

I took the first picture back when I started shooting digital (which I had a little fun “hand coloring” for a photography class assignment).   Eli played solo for the Monticello High School talent show and easily ran away with first place!  The rest of the pictures are from his show at Fridays After Five.  I wanted each picture to take on a little more of that rock star persona, so with the little bit of free time I had this week I decided to give them a more artistic look (also why it took me a week to post).  Feel free to leave a comment and let me know how you like them!

Posted in Entertainment | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)