December 2016

Dec 24 2016

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Best Engagement Photography // 2016

By Joeldanto | Engagements, Features | No Comments

What a year. What a year for engagements. What a year for Danto Photography! This year marks my 3rd straight year of winning best of The Knot, which is no small feat. Only the top 2% of vendors on The Knot get this acclaimed award so I’m extra humbled about the win. To kick off celebrations, I’ve put together this blog post of my favorite engagement photos from the past year. This years crop of favorites have some of best work as of yet.

Every year I learn a trick or two that help elevate my work and this year I think my post-production editing has been the largest improvement in my set of skills. I’ve learned how to better fine tune my editing in such a way that the photos are really jumping of the screen. For example, the first picture below had a ton of adjustments – exposure painting, photoshop body retouching, highlight/shadow adjustments, boosts in clarity and vibrance… the list goes on. Anyway, I won’t bore you with the details, lets just get to the results! Scroll on down and enjoy! Thank you to all my awesome couples this year for letting me join in your journeys, it has been an honor!

Oh and as a bonus, I threw in three non-engagement photos that I took while on engagement shoots. Just some fun city/scenery shots, enjoy 🙂 Read More

Dec 23 2016

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Top Ten Wedding Ring Shots // 2016

By Joeldanto | Features, Weddings | No Comments

My goal as a wedding photographer is to get my clients the very best photos I can while being as creative as possible. It’s a difficult balance to achieve because often enough, being creative is a race against time in the face of shot priority. I am only at a wedding for my contracted hours, and sometimes that leaves just enough time to get the safe shots and not much more. Yet despite my constant race against time, there is always one aspect of the day that I make a point to focus my creative juices on — the ring shot.

To me, the wedding rings are the perfect symbols of the bride and groom and I relish the opportunity to color that with my own creative flair. Yes, you could be extra creative with almost any image you take at a wedding but most of the time the CONTROL isn’t there. Weddings are fickle beasts and you’re at the whim of what is happening at that very moment, which can sometimes limit creativity. But one thing I know for sure, rings are rings and will do whatever I tell them to do. My wildest dreams can come to life in their tiny world as long as I have the patience and inspiration.

It is my love of the ring shot that has inspired this post into creation and as long as I’m a wedding photographer I’m going to do one of these every year. So without further ado, here are my top ten ring shots of 2016. Read More

Dec 22 2016

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Stephanie + Jason // The Ren Cen + Garden Theater // Detroit, MI

By Joeldanto | Weddings | No Comments

As much as I like to do weddings in Southern California, it’s always refreshing to fly somewhere else. New location, new vibe. It really helps inspire me to do great work. It also helps when you have such an awesome couple and wedding party to boot! I connected with Stephanie and Jason through her brother, also named Jason. I’ve known his family for years and it was such an honor for them to entrust their daughter’s wedding to me.

I will tell you this much, Detroiters know how to throw a party as good as any. So much laughter, joy, good food, silliness, and emotion. It’s one of those weddings you’ll never forget. I know I sure won’t. It was pretty hard to cull down my favorites to this blog post as there were so many magical moments throughout the day. I did my darndest, so enjoy!
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