Zack and Candice: Theater, Vinyl, and the Road to October

There are some photo sessions where the location is just a backdrop. Then there are sessions where the location is an active part of the story. For Zack and Candice, we were lucky enough to have both…twice.

Zack is a good friend of mine from Duquesne University’s Mary Pappert School of Music. We were both sound recording majors, though not at the same time. Like me, he worked as an employee of the music school, but he eventually moved on to larger-scale audio operations. These days, he runs sound for events at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh. He is also the sound engineer for Uptown Rhythm & Brass, which means we have spent a lot of time in the same rooms, on the same gigs—me playing the trumpet and singing loudly, and him working diligently to make me even louder. He’s also a fantastic guitar player who has performed with a number of bands I’ve had the pleasure of seeing live.

So, when Zack asked Melanie and me to photograph his wedding, I was pumped. Even though I didn’t yet know Candice that well, I was beyond happy to know that we would be able to help create their wedding memories. By this point, Uptown was already slated to be the band for their reception, too, which means this is going to be one of the very best intersections of friendship, music, performance, and photography, all ending up in the same place at the same time, creating a shared story. I’m no stranger to being at the crossroads of seemingly unrelated parts of my life. I’ve even written about a time when these various aspects all collided in a very unique as I photographed a rock show at a barbershop.

Their wedding isn’t scheduled until October, but I recently had the opportunity to photograph Zack and Candice in two separate venues, each with their own sort of personal significance and meaning.

I got to know Candice a little better at the first shoot in the PNC Recital Hall at the Mary Pappert School of Music. Originally from Louisiana, she is now an Associate Art Director for American Eagle, so you know she’s got to have a real grasp of visual style. (No pressure on me, the photographer!) She also has a long history with color guard, so performance is a big part of her artistic arsenal, too.

Zack and Candice both have personal interests in theater, so the recital hall gave us the aesthetic they wanted and also held a significant bit of history for Zack. In addition, it gave us a setting that reflected part of who they are—artists, performers, and people who feel very comfortable on and around a stage.

They also came to that first session with a specific visual direction in mind. Zack and Candice expressed interest in a “high flash” style of photography, which is generally characterized by a single flash with directional, harder light. This is not something I typically gravitate toward in my own work, as I tend to lean more toward softer, more natural lighting. But when someone hires me for their photos, the goal is not to make their story look like mine. The goal is to make photographs that feel like them.

So, I went to work. I studied the look they were drawn to, figured out what made it feel the way it did, and worked through how to create that energy in our session. We photographed a good portion of the PNC Recital Hall images that way, using that flash-forward look while still making sure the photos felt natural, personal, and connected to who they are.

The second session took us to The Government Center on the North Side, a vinyl record store that connects to another shared piece of their relationship. They told me a story about how they recently had an old family record player restored and were building their own vinyl collection to play on it. I love the symbolism here: taking a piece of meaningful family history, making it their own, and using it to build something new together, all while building the beginning of their lives as a married couple.

That session had a completely different feel than the first one. Unlike the controlled lighting of the recital hall, there was a lot of natural light coming through the windows, and the morning sun shining through gave us a very different vibe. Zack and Candice were completely willing to let that space be what it was, and while I still worked with a one-flash setup, I found myself leaning into instinct and more of my usual style there. The important part is that they were totally open to it and were very pleased with the photos we got at both venues. That is where the give and take matters.

A good photo session is not just a photographer showing up with a camera and imposing a look. It’s a collaboration. Clients bring their ideas, preferences, favorite images, and the parts of themselves they want to see reflected. The photographer brings experience, technical choices, direction, timing, and the ability to adapt when the room, the light, or the moment demands something different.

Candice came prepared with mood boards and examples of photos she liked. That’s incredibly helpful to me, not because the goal is to copy someone else’s image, but because it creates a shared visual language. It tells me what kind of atmosphere, framing, emotion, and energy someone is drawn to. From there, my job is to translate that into photos that are true to who they are and that they can look back on decades from now and still feel the emotion of those moments.

With Zack, there were already years of trust built in. He knows me. He knows how I work. He knows that if he and Candice bring me an idea, a place, or a feeling they want to capture, I am going to take it seriously and figure out how to make it work. That trust matters.

Now, let me make something very clear. I will absolutely be the first person to tell you that being photographed can feel very awkward. I joke with my clients that there is a very real reason that I am on my side of the camera and not theirs. A big part of my job is making that experience feel less forced and more human. I rely heavily on giving people space, using longer lenses, letting them “do their thing,” and capturing the candid moments they don’t know I’m seeing. I want people to recognize themselves in the final images and not feel like they are looking at some overly polished doppelganger.

And honestly, a lot of whether people love their photos starts before they ever see the final gallery. It starts with how comfortable they felt during the session. Did they feel heard? Did the process feel like something they were part of? Did they feel like they had room to be themselves? Were we forcing a pose, or were we building a moment? The final image matters, of course. But the experience of making the image is part of what people remember when they look at it later.

For Zack and Candice, the goal was never just “engagement photos.” In fact, I don’t think that phrase was ever mentioned in any of our planning discussions. These two sessions were small visual preludes to their wedding story. Theater, music, records, and shared interests played a huge part in creating these images, but more importantly, so did friendship and trust. We did two sessions at two locations using two different photographic approaches, but it was still just one couple with one story of their own to tell. THAT is the kind of image I love to make.

Zack and Candice made that easy by bringing themselves fully into the process. They trusted the ideas, the locations, the camera, and most importantly, they trusted me. That trust is exactly what lets a session become more than a checklist of poses. It’s exactly what helps build the foundation of a truly awesome story.

In October, Melanie and I get to pick that story back up again on their wedding day. There will be music, friends, family, a full dance floor, and if I know Zack, probably at least one moment where he notices something about the sound that no one else in the room would ever catch. After the wedding is over, I’ll be sure to follow up with another blog post to tell the final chapter of this particular photo story.

Of course, for Zack and Candice, that chapter is just the beginning of their story.