This Husband and wife duo have a love of wedding photography. Heres more on JXC Photo:
Tell us about yourself and your company?
We are a husband and wife team of wedding photographers based out of the Denver area. JXC Photo is the evolution of a combined five years of wedding photography experience between the two of us. Josh has passions for mountain biking and project cars as well as photography, and Christie writes freelance editorial for magazines and works on several books in her free time.
Why did you get into the wedding business?
Christie: I met Collin Richie (www.collinrichiephoto.com) while writing editorial for a magazine in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where I'm from. He was the staff photographer for the magazine, and shot weddings for his company on weekends. When Josh (who had been a photography hobbyist for many years by then) moved to town, Collin asked Josh to be his assistant at a wedding when he found himself in a pinch. Josh became Collin's full-time assistant, and eventually, I helped Collin with his company's administrative end, and picked up shooting weddings for a local studio in the meantime. By the time we left Louisiana for Colorado, both Josh and I were experienced wedding photographers, and hooked to the point where we wanted to photograph weddings long-term... and then, we built our business in Denver. Tah-dah!
How would you describe your wedding photography?
At our core, we are photojournalists. Christie's educational background is in storytelling, and Josh began his photography journey by documenting his international travels. We also place attention on the traditional "posed" shots that a majority of couples need at their wedding, such as family photos and couples' shots -- and anything else our clients might request -- when necessary. Our favorite photos reflect a focus on the context of the story we're observing -- emotional and physical -- along with knowledge of lighting, color, composition, and art. Our photography packages automatically come with both of us so we can give each wedding full attention to all of these factors. It also helps to be in two places at the same time. ;)
Who are some of your biggest influences?
Josh: Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Christie: Photographically, Annie Leibovitz. Literature and everything else, Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain.
What is your favorite venue? Colorado and elsewhere?
Honestly, we've loved just about every venue we've photographed in Colorado. One that stands out is the Overlook open-air ceremony site at YMCA of the Rockies, but to be honest, anywhere in the mountains during the Fall season is breathtaking. On the New Orleans side of things, we thought Preservation Hall was a really neat place to get married, in a city with so, so many neat places to get married.
What is your most memorable wedding to date?
Two of our friends got married in North Carolina, and they had a water slide at their reception. That was pretty memorable. So many of them are memorable -- Christie witnessed a US Marine groomsman straight up faint during a ceremony. We photographed a rehearsal dinner for a Jewish wedding earlier this year that involved a few very moving rituals that we won't forget anytime soon. Fairly often we see wedding rituals that send goosebumps running down our spines (in the good way, of course), and just thinking about some of those really makes us thankful that we get to do this for a living.
Tell us one thing we might not otherwise know about you!
One fall, Josh rode a bicycle from Colorado Springs to South Louisiana so he could "see the leaves change colors." He also spent about six months in Japan working on farms in the countryside.
Christine was once an entertainment editor for a magazine and got to interview people like Ice Cube, John Waters, and Brian Posehn
One editorial gig sent Christine and Josh careening down the Mississippi River in a canoe and camping on a river island infested with boars.
Josh Hall & Christie Matherne Hall
JXC Photo
Wedding Photographers
Denver, CO
What is your favorite moment during a wedding?
Josh: The first dances. You can see them really react to each other, and you can see all the people around them, and the decorations in the room. There's a lot of context to capture during those minutes.
Christie: Lately, I've been enjoying watching the couple as they stand listening to the officiant. The guests are more or less just waiting for the vows to start, whereas to the couple, this is the longest few minutes of their lives so far. I love to find new ways to capture that intensity.
What advice would you give to a future bride?
Hire a professional wedding photographer who has experience. Weddings come in all shapes and sizes, and the more your photographer is caught off-guard by unforeseen circumstances, the more likely it is that they will miss something. Combined, we have photographed over 300 weddings from North Carolina to New Orleans to Denver, and every one of them had a new situation for us to learn from. We've shot alongside many different photographers and observed/researched many different ways to do what we do, we've fine-tuned it over the years, and all of that shows up in our work.
This is an example of our creativity at work. We're always looking for an unconventional angle to help tell the story of a wedding day, and this is a great example of it.
We love this moment between a bride and her father, and here, we use bokeh (the blurriness) to separate the two of them from the rest of the photo in-camera, because this moment belongs to the two of them.
So many of our clients tell us how much they love our candid reception photos. We use off-camera flashes on light stands for evening receptions like this one, and they often become client favorites.
This is one of our favorite shots from our time shooting weddings in New Orleans. The classic elevator shot is romantic, and depending on the elevator, it can be a difficult one to get.
These two lovebirds had such chemistry in their engagement shoot. We love getting in close to create images like these.
We find that much of the wedding photography industry is focused on brides, likely because it's mostly brides who are shopping for photographers these days, but of course we put as much emphasis on the groom when we're photographing a wedding. We like this shot because the white space surrounding him, combined with his reflection in the mirror behind him, allow the viewer to focus on his intense facial expression. Personally, when we look at this photo, we think about the myriad of thoughts racing through his mind as he's fastening his watch, minutes before he faces his bride for the first time. And when he looks back on this photo, he's able to see exactly what time it was, which is another thing we love to throw in our compositions: context.
