Brady Whealon Photography

Dancescape 2008 – Remixed Slideshow – DVD –

Brady Whealon — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 22:52:30 +0000

I was asked to remix the photos I took for the dancers at Winona State University’s Dancescape show in 2008. I think the slideshow speaks for itself :)

Winona State University students perform to original works created in the Winona Community.

Patrick & Chini Zeman 6.19.2010

Brady Whealon — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 22:12:12 +0000

I had an unbelievable good time photographing this wedding last Saturday. Huge fan of early morning weddings. There were so many goofy candid moments I had a hard time narrowing down the slideshow selection to a reasonable length :) . I am upgrading all of my web-slideshows to this new format in the next few weeks. Be sure to check out HD if you can because it looks amazing. Congrats again Patrick and Chini!

Free Backgrounds / Wallpapers : 2

Brady Whealon — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 00:19:54 +0000

I dug up a few more backgrounds for everyone to enjoy! More to come in the future. Click any image below and a file that is 1920px on its longest edge will open for you to save.

Jef Clements – Lifestyle Portrait Session

Brady Whealon — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 21:16:22 +0000

A good friend of mine needed some updated portraits for his business website. We had an awesome time just shooting down by the river for a while. Look forward to a big update to my wedding portfolio very soon.

Free Desktop Backgrounds

Brady Whealon — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 00:25:15 +0000

It seems like my desktop background has been changing a lot more lately. Posting here to share some of my favorites. Click any image below and a file that is 1920px on its longest edge will open for you to save.

Been Away.

Brady Whealon — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:10:54 +0000

I have been away for a while but things are picking up again this wedding season and there are a lot of good things to come in 2010. We have a newly streamlined website and some new hires to introduce to you as well. :)

Horton Wedding 4-17-09

Brady Whealon — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:40:48 +0000

Hey Everyone! I had a pretty amazing double wedding weekend and I wanted to share some more of the photos from my Friday Wedding with my fans and of course the lovely bride and groom. Remember Comments and sharing are very much encouraged.

Engagement Photos in St. Paul : Minnesota

Brady Whealon — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:57:00 +0000

This engagement session was another first for Brady Whealon Photography. Tyler contacted me a few weeks prior to their engagement to see if I was available to take some photos the day after he popped the question. We managed to work out the details and we could not have picked a better day! They had stayed the weekend in the St. Paul Hotel and I met them in the lobby to explore the city and the local architecture. I hope you enjoy the latest engagement session and please feel free to comment.

Latest Wedding Photos 3-5-09

Brady Whealon — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 07:28:48 +0000

There is something refreshing about a wedding with only 15 people there including the Photographer and his assistant… These are some photos from my very first Thursday wedding ever. It was very laid back and “go with the flow”. As a photographer we are sometimes asked to do some things that are not exactly in our job description. That is why I almost always have a needle and thread and lots of wedding related knowledge to apply liberally during the day. It was fun having to tie-ties for the Groom and only groomsman :) . I also have a new portfolio website in the works for everyone to enjoy. It will include a gallery of my favorite images and also complete galleries from individual weddings as well. I hope you enjoy these photos.

Eagles in Alma

Brady Whealon — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:47:30 +0000

I went for a quick photo adventure with my friends Paul and Mike on 1-7-09 to Alma MN. Our goal was to find and photograph some of the most beautiful creatures in our country, The Bald Eagle. These extremely intelligent birds are a little bit skiddish unless you have a longer telephoto lens and a ninja like stealthness to sneak up on them. Even though they kept their distance the open waters of the Mississippi left them coming back for some of the best fishing in the area. I managed to capture a number of frames I am very proud of and Plan on turning them into desktop backgrounds if anyone is interested. Above is my favorite shot from the day.

10-18-08 Jason and Natalie

Brady Whealon — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:14:27 +0000

This last weekend was one of my favorite weddings to date! They were a fantastic couple to work with not only because their affection and love for each other was so clear but their willingness to try just about anything I asked. They really gave me some creative freedom that helped produce some stunning images that I am proud to share. I hope you enjoy these photos as much as I enjoyed creating them. I wish Natalie and Jason all the best in the world. By popular request I will be including many more photos in my blog posts to give people a better idea of what I do. I am now finishing up the finishing touches on a few albums and will post examples when available.

Engagement Photos : Ann and Mark

Brady Whealon — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:53:32 +0000

My business has been going through a lot of changes lately, not in the services we provide, changes to our creative vision have helped shape our identity in the photographic community. Years ago most of the photographs I took were poses I had seen used in wedding photos before and ultimately were more traditional and possibly less creative photographs. Or as my friends would call it “Cookie Cutter”. While these clients were still happy with their photos I always strive to provide a better service. As I have progressed as a photographer I found that I really have a passion for capturing more candid and spontaneous portraits and this fact has inspired me to incorporate it in all aspects of my photography. Because of the heightened emotions of a wedding day it was easy to take meaningful and natural candid photos but engagement sessions have proven difficult for me because without direction generally clients would feel uncomfortable creating a much less natural product. I found that by placing clients in a somewhat posed position and then allowing them to interact naturally by sharing a favorite story from their time dating or something funny that happened recently turns out much much more passionate pictures showing a connection between the people involved. That is exactly what engagement photos should be right? Photos that show the dynamic connection between two individuals and their lives.

Ann and Mark were absolutely great to work with. They were open to new ideas and had faith in my direction even though some of the photos were hard to visualize. Here are some more photos and expect more from their wedding next weekend.

Winona Health : Birthday Ball 2008

Brady Whealon — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 16:47:34 +0000

I am proud to announce that the candid photos from the Winona Health Birthday Ball are now live online and available for purchase. Please click on the purchase tab at the top of this web page and navigate to the gallery Titled “Birthday Ball 2008″. I am really happy that I had the chance to work with Winona health and people in the community to make this event a success. I have to admit it was certainly the largest most complex event I have ever photographed and it was a great experience for me. We had a total of 5 Photographers working mostly as assistants and I could not have done it without them. All of the candid photos available for purchase were taken by Jordan Ogren. By far the best part of the night was seeing the Photobooth up and running with little or no problems. Hopefully I will be able to work with Winona health again and I plan on using the Photobooth at weddings and Parties in the future.

Senior Portraits in Winona MN

Brady Whealon — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 20:25:01 +0000

Sorry it has been so long since an update but my time has been well spent. I decided to invest in some new gear and most of my summer I have been working on honing my skills and mastering what I already know. There are going to be a number of huge updates to this website in the next few weeks. This year I have been working with more and more Seniors in High School to create memorable portraits to capture the spirit of youth in transition. I have to say out of all of the things to photograph it is really interesting to work with other creative individuals who are willing to do just about anything to make a cool photo. Here are some of my favorites from yesterday.

Rugby “Fools Fest” 2008 Winona MN

Brady Whealon — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 03:26:26 +0000

I spent a total of 8+ hours at the local rugby tournament on 3-29-08 of this year. The blistering cold wind masked the suns rays and I ended up with a spectacular cocktail of windburn and sunburn. All in all it was worth it because the photos turned out great! The Winona State University Rugby team initially contacted me to come take photos for their team but during the down time I decided to shoot the other teams just because I enjoyed the game so much. In the past I had never really followed Rugby at all but as it turns out I love the game and the non stop action. A fellow photographer came to the game but wanted to watch the National Championship Basketball game as well so he brought a power inverter and parked his car right next to the field. I like to think that he drew a bigger crowd around his trunk than some of the fields at times. All in all it was an amazing day!

Architecture Photography : Dream Homes

Brady Whealon — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 12:46:36 +0000

Lately I have been looking through my archives a lot for inspiration to try and get back to my roots. I have always enjoyed the challenges that working for Winona State provides but some of the projects I have to complete are not as fulfilling as my own personal projects. As often as possible I like to step outside of what I am comfortable with and try new things to challenge the way I think creatively.

In this case a real estate agent sent a photographer to one of my friends houses to take photos for the listing online and the brochures. While the photographs were probably adequate to some they certainly were not going to get people to come look at the home. In general the photos were washed out by the mid day sun and taken from odd angles that could have been chosen more carefully. In the end my friend asked me to come in and try and take some photos that showed the house literally in a better light. One of the keys to online listings is having wonderful photos that will catch someones eye and get them to consider making a visit to an open house; This is especially true with high end homes in todays housing market.

Cathedral Of The Sacred Heart : Winona, MN

Brady Whealon — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 15:39:08 +0000

This photograph is not your normal run of the mill picture of the inside of a Church. Following in Shutter Scripts footsteps I decided to broaden my horizons and challenge myself again. This image is a series of 6 HDR images that have been stitched together to form a 2×3 Panoramic photo of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart here in Winona MN. The Cathedral recently remodeled the entire inside of the church and I have to say the modern amenities and accessibility is a welcome change.. Not to mention is it simply gorgeous. For those of you that dont know HDR is a special photographic technique to capture as much detail as possible in an image. In this case the end result is an amazingly sharp 28 megapixel image. The file on my hard drive while I was editing it was over 4 Gigabytes in size but now saved it is a little over 337 megabytes in size. I posted the image a little bit larger so that you can see just how much detail there is in the highlights and in the image itself.

HDR imaging is accomplished by taking three pictures at different exposures and blending them together in a program like photoshop. This gives you the maximum dynamic range possible. This technique is not always applicable because of the need of a tripod and a still subject. Newer video cameras employ a similar technology where the lens actually splits the light and sends it to three sensors one for red, blue, and green. These 3ccd cameras have a much better image quality than most with just one.

Racquetball : Crazy Intense Scary Sport… For Photographers that is….

Brady Whealon — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:03:55 +0000

One recent assignment from Winona State put me and my new assistant in harms way as we attempted to photograph students playing on the racquetball courts during class time. Initially the instructor had us above in an observatory style overlook where the instructor could give feedback and watch from a safe distance. Photographically speaking it was very very uninteresting. Both Chelsey and I decided to hit the floor and see what we could come up with. The students were thrilled to have us there and some even put on a show for us. I had a few close calls with serves and spikes but we both managed to come out unscathed. A photographer on a forum I posted these images on gave me a little insight when he said ” It’s not the ball you need to worry about… It’s the racquet…”. After the fact I realize that it would be awfully hard to explain to the doctors at the hospital how I got the gash in my head… I hope you enjoy the image and please take the time to leave feedback if you care to! Thanks again!

Erica and Joshua Guyse Wedding Gallery.

Brady Whealon — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 19:20:09 +0000

As promised here is another wedding gallery to share with friends and family. I had a lovely time with Erica and Josh and want to thank them again for their hospitality. Best wishes in the future!

Thankfully spring break has been a blessing in the sense that it has provided me with much needed time for rest and recuperation. Part of that process has been hanging out with friends but the biggest weight off of my shoulders is getting to work ahead on some of these projects that have been nibbling at my toes for the last few months. I will continue to update my website with more pictures and galleries as I can but there is only so much I can do at one time. Next on my list is compiling a gallery for all of the sports photos I have taken in the last 6 months. And for those of you who don’t know it would amount to almost 25,000 still frames. Of course I wont post them all but there are plenty that fit into my favorites category. I am very excited for this summer and the opportunities a head and I cant wait to work with you all more. Thanks for your support!

Fragments: Apple Insomnia Film Festival 2007

Brady Whealon — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 19:02:12 +0000

I am proud to present our video submission to the Apple Insomnia Film Festival 2007. My friends Timmy Johnson, Steven Frank, and Jef Clements roped me into participating in this ridiculous challenge. For those of you that don’t know what it is all about; The challenge is to pick from the criteria that they release the morning of the competition and write, cast, shoot, edit, and master a three minute movie that meets all of their criteria in less than 24 hours. Sounds easy right? Without the help of our crew we would have never made it.. and even then it was a close call.

Most of the shooting was done by me, Steve is our master editor, Timmy was the main character and audio guy and Jef was our villain and general supporting mastermind. All in all it was the craziest 24 hours I have had in a long time. Any feedback is welcome :)