Discounts on All Wedding and Portrait Packages !!!

I understand the budget concerns of the average couple these days.  And in response to several requests from my clients to lower my prices, I am announcing my permanent discounts on wedding and pre-wedding portraits in Prague!  You can now enjoy the same discounts offered in my off season--up to 20% off regular low prices--all year round!

Advance booking is required.  Please don't hesitate to contact me with any questions or to reserve your booking for a certain date.

Off Season Photography Discount Extended!

For couples who wish to get married in Prague or have their pre-wedding portraits taken in Prague, I have great news!! My Off-Season Discount has been extended until the end of May! Previously my low season discount ran from October 1 through April 30 of the following year. Now it will run permanently from October 1 through May 31 every year!

Several clients have expressed their budget concerns due to the higher costs of having their wedding or portraits taken in Prague. While the rest of the world seems to still be adversely effected by the global economic situation, Prague seems to live inside a bubble of prosperity: tourists flock to Prague in droves, investors throw the dice and keep winning, and the Czech currency is one of the strongest in Europe. But this doesn’t mean you have to cancel your dream wedding in Prague!

From now until the end of May, simply book my services for any of my wedding and wedding portrait packages in Prague and receive a discount of up to 20% off my regular low prices!

For details and prices of my wedding photography packages, please contact me today.

Choosing a Wedding Coordinator in Prague

I have worked with many wedding coordinators in Prague and I feel confident in recommending Thelma and Monika of Prague Wedding Planners. They are the most professional, courteous, friendly and fun wedding coordinators I have worked with over the past 10 years in Prague.  They have a genuine passion for what they do and they will go well beyond the call of duty to ensure you have a perfect wedding day.

When you are planning your wedding in Prague, many factors need to be considered.

Where to get married?

Do you have a dream of getting married in a lavish Gothic castle in the Czech countryside?  The famous Czech castle Karlstejn is the perfect fairy tale dream castle wedding, and as such, is very popular and quite difficult to arrange for weddings.  But Prague Wedding Planners can hook you up.  They organize many weddings in Karlstejn and other beautiful Czech castles and they know what they are doing.  They are also the best choice for the most popular Prague wedding sites like the Old Town Hall.

Karlstejn Castle

A Civil Service or a Church wedding?

As a foreigner getting married in Prague, there is often a lot of red tape and bureaucracy for you to work through.  Prague Wedding Planners take on all of this for you and they deal with the mundane details of forms and paperwork so you can concentrate on the most important part of your wedding day:  having fun!

Wedding Photography

Well, as a wedding photographer, obviously I'm a little biased on this point.  These days it is common to choose a wedding coordinator and a wedding photographer separately.  Most of my clients have told me that wedding photography is one of the most important parts of the wedding day.  And so they wanted to see a full website of photography from the best Prague photographers.  It is quite acceptable to hire a quality wedding coordinator to help you plan the most important day of your life and then choose your own photographer. I feel confident in recommending Thelma and Monika to plan your dream wedding in the Czech Republic. They are tops!

P.S. Tell them Craig Robinson sent you!

A Winter Wedding in Prague

In early February I had the pleasure of photographing Natalie and Levi’s Winter Wedding in Prague. Prague is amazingly beautiful year round, but when the fresh snow sits on the cobbled streets of Old Town Prague and dots the red rooftops of the Castle Quarter, you have the recipe for a picture perfect fairy tale wedding.

Prague can be very cold in winter and so whenever I photograph outdoors we always take precautions to keep us warm. This means wearing overcoats over the wedding clothes (which are taken off briefly for portraits and then quickly donned again) and frequent Cappuccino breaks. Fortunately for us there are cafes everywhere in Prague happy to pour steaming hot coffee and tea into us to keep our cheeks rosy and the smiles from cracking our faces.

Normally when I photograph winter weddings the couple doesn’t want to stray too far from the reception venue, but Natalie and Levi were real troopers and didn’t mind strolling for hours in the snow. Levi is in the military and Natalie is Canadian, so they weren’t afraid of a little snow. They wanted a full day of portraits between their ceremony in Old Town’s Tyn Church and their reception. And in true winter spirit, they BOTH wore all white wedding clothes! The sheer vivid brightness of the Prague snow and the happy couple’s white clothing may require you to wear shades while viewing!

We covered the Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, Prague Castle and Vyšehrad, Prague’s forgotten castle. Vyšehrad is one of my favorite locations in Prague because it is off the beaten path and has very few tourists. It also has fantastic sprawling gardens and statues, an old cathedral and a stunning view of Prague. I am happy to share my love of Vyšehrad with my more adventurous couples; and they love the photo results as well.

For more information on Prague winter wedding photography including my current winter wedding discounts, please visit my website.

A Little Fun

"PIMP MY BRIDE"

A parody on the MTV series 'Pimp My Ride' about radical car customization.

While I'm a serious wedding photographer who displays the utmost professionalism and respect while working, I still think the following video is funny (and you may as well):

Keep Uncle Bob Away from Your Wedding Photography!!!!!

I realize we are all under pressure from The Global Crisis, Inc. (hereafter referred to as ‘the Global Thingy’) and that we all must cut corners. I also recognize that a lot of my work falls under the category of ‘luxury services’, i.e. ‘not bread and butter necessities.’ However, people will continue to get married and they will continue to want photographs of their wedding.

But if I read one more email from a client who got cold feet and decided to have a family member take their wedding photos—I’m gonna give up my 15 year career as a photographer and become a florist or a baker. At least THOSE craftspeople are still doing a brisk trade at weddings—and people respect their work. Yes, Uncle Bob got a fancy shmancy new Canon digital recently. Yes, he took some photos of his trip to Thailand and most of them were in focus. But UNCLE BOB MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO TAKE THE MOST IMPORTANT PHOTOS OF THE MOST IMPORTANT EVEN OF YOUR LIFE.

‘Why not?’ Well, probably for the same reason that if I suddenly got a Baker’s Super Duper French Oven, I most certainly will not be able to give you a five-tiered wedding cake with all the flowers and icing and cute little skating bride-n-groom figurines. I’m pretty sure you’d get a soggy cupcake. The same goes if I were to get a stack of flowers and chop ‘em and mix ‘em and stick ‘em in a bucket for you. Et voila, le fleurs du wedding. Right.

This post is not a plea for your wedding photo dollars in a tough Global Thingy world. I get by alright. This is a plea for respect for the Arts. The first thing on the chopping block in every recession is the Arts. It is also an urgent request for you to respect your wedding day. The cake will be consumed in 4.5 – 20.5 minutes, depending on the size of the cake and the crowd. The flowers will wilt in 12 – 24 hours, depending on the amount of lacquer applied to the petals.

But the wedding photos are forever, baby. If you let a drunken Uncle with a new camera trample through your wedding, you may regret it for the rest of your life. Especially if you value the fine art of photography and the wonderful magic it can provide you. But if you are one of the growing number of victims of the Global Thingy who regard photography as something anyone with an expensive camera can do, then I am saddened. Of course, I should get used to the idea that those people may be right. If so, I’d better get myself a fancy shmancy French bakery oven and get some blueprints for the five-tiered wedding cake. I mean, how hard can it be? Flour, water, sugar and a hot oven, right?

Kibris / Kypros: A Photo Documentary in Progress

I am currently involved in taking portraits of the people of North and South Cyprus. The two territories have a shared history and a divided present. Since 1974, Turkey has occupied the North of Cyprus, while the South remains under Greek Cypriot control. According to Greek Cypriots I have spoken to, this division was against the will of both Greek and Turkish Cypriot alike.

My photography is not political, nor do I claim to have an opinion or answers to the Cyprus Situation. The first series of photos of Turkish Cypriots was taken in various cities and towns of Northern Cyprus in February and March. I am currently involved in photographing the second series of portraits of Greek Cypriots in Southern Cyprus. My photo documentary is not meant to draw racial or cultural boundaries. By separating the two parts of the whole photo series I intend to portray the unique qualities of each culture.

By bringing the two sets of images together in one space, I endeavor to show that despite our differences, we are all the same.

For my current photography projects and more about what I do, please visit my website.

Thanks for viewing my photographs.

Craig Robinson

Cyprus

March 19, 2008

Portraits in Paris

Recently I had the pleasure of flying to Paris to take wedding portraits of a nice couple from Singapore. They saw my website and thought that my style of photography suited them perfectly. Chong Wui and Peck Tze came to Paris from Singapore to have their wedding portraits taken. The following month they would be married in Singapore.

We started off our portraits in the Paris neighborhood of Montmartre. This is the quarter favored by famous Paris artists, writers and musicians over the centuries. The air was crisp and the sky was blue that day late in October and we ascended Montmartre to the famous Sacre-Coeur Basilica on the top of the hill. There was also a fantastic garden park behind the church which captured our attention for a spell. We did a tremendous amount of walking that day, which is the best way to take advantage of all Paris has to offer.

We had an amazing 8 hour whirlwind portrait tour of Paris (punctuated by occasional cafe stops), which included Pont Alexandre III Bridge, the Louvre, the Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Elysees, and last but not least, the Eiffel Tower. 

 
We finished our shooting day in Paris at sunset and dusk with the Eiffel Tower lighting up the background.

Prague Boat Ride

Ronen and Izabela came to Prague to be married. Like many couples before them, they needed a professional, English-speaking photographer to document their marriage vows and take portraits around Prague. The weather was beautiful that afternoon and we took portraits around Prague's most beautiful settings.

Spontaneously, Ronen and Izabela decided to take a Prazske Benatky (The Prague Venice) Boat Ride on the Kampa Certovka stream, which winds through Kampa and opens up to a gorgeous view of the Charles Bridge and Prague. The small boat was the perfect size for a non-touristy, romantic boat tour of Prague. With the exception of the boat Captain piloting the vessel and me taking photos, the couple had Prague all to themselves in a Venice style boat ride.

For more information about wedding and portrait photography in Prague, please visit my website.

All Hail The Mighty Goat!

THE DAY OF THE GOAT (DEN KOZLA):

BEER, SAUSAGE AND GOATS AT A CZECH BREWERY NEAR PRAGUE.

The first time I saw His Mighty Goatness, His image was plastered on a bottle of Velkepopovicky Kozel Czech Beer. I stared in awe and wonder at the image of this giant black shaggy goat with twisted horns rearing up on his hind legs, clutching a massive foamy beer in his hooves.

I immediately wondered if The Goat was EVIL. I mean, just LOOK at the thing: it reminds me of all the forbidden hard rock album covers of the 70s which would doom my soul to hell if I were to listen to them backwards. Album covers featuring devils, rock stars and goats. I never quite figured out the goat thing, but the Goat certainly scares the bejesus out of millions of fundamentalist Christians each year.

So I grabbed the camera and headed to the brewery in Velke Popovice, a small town where the beer kegs outnumber the residents a million to one.

These are some of the many pagan things I saw at Goatfest 2007:

My Homies, Goat Doggie Dogg and G Money

Goats, goats and more goats

Praise the Mighty Goat!

Beer relay races involving children, empty kegs on

handcarts and empty beer bottles. Hell, my

parents wouldn't even let me run with SCISSORS as a child....

And the mascot, the Great Goat Himself, and MAN does he look WICKED!

Dog Day Afternoon

I went to a dog show last weekend and took some photos. That's a phrase I never thought I would churn out on my keyboard. For one, I don't own a dog; secondly, I usually photograph weddings and portraits in Europe. Portraits of humans.

But there you have it: after the urging of my Czech girlfriend to come to photograph her walking her dog in front of some judges, I became a dographer (dog+photographer, not on wikipedia yet).

Well, photographing dogs turned out to be a pleasant surprise, mainly because I happened to meet famous Czech photographer Jan Saudek at the dog show. He was just strolling by with his lady and baby. No dog, no camera. Mr. Saudek is not a dographer.

I told him how I admired his work and that it was a pleasure to meet him. He even let me take his photo.

If you haven't heard of Czech photographer Jan Saudek, you have probably seen some of his more 'tame' images on postcards. His work is not for everybody, as it involves nude figures in various odd situations. He uses black and white film and colorizes the final print with subtle blues and tans.

So after tearing myself away from my photographic blubberings with the Famous Photographer, I resumed my dography in earnest.

First and foremost: I took no photos of dogs sniffing other dogs butts, fighting with each other, or all the other things we have all seen dogs do. I try to find the unique moments in every shot I take. However, getting a shot of dogs playing poker was the last thing I expected.

Nor did they hold Japanese tea ceremonies in the park. They were just being, well, dogs. And with a few hundred of them in the park, it was a real miracle that the place wasn't strewn with doggie doo. In fact, I didn't see one doggie land mine the whole time I was there.

Your Portrait Photographer in Prague

PRAGUE PORTRAIT POWER

by Craig Robinson

Prague portrait and wedding photographer




A growing trend in recent years is the increase in destination weddings and portraits in exotic locations. Many websites are springing up all over the world offering exotic destinations for weddings and portraits. Among the most popular of these destinations is Prague, Czech Republic. Prague is no stranger to visitors in the last decade; since the fall of communism in the Eastern Bloc countries in the late 1980s, many previously-forbidden cities are now flooded with eager visitors.


Millions of visitors have discovered the fantastic beauty of Prague; and the city's beauty almost seems to be in arrested development compared to the rest of Europe. In a single evening stroll in Prague you can time travel the architecture from the early Gothic period (12th century) through the Art Nouveau (circa 1900). Outer Prague is showing signs of Western modernization with its malls and megaplex cinemas, but the heart of Prague is virtually untouched by the ravages of time.



Many people are discovering that Prague makes a perfect destination for exotic portraits and romantic weddings. Some people get married in Prague while others get married elsewhere and opt to have their wedding portraits taken with beautiful Prague as a backdrop.

Prague Wedding Portraits

WAY-LIN and NICOLLE

Portraits by Prague photographer Craig Robinson.



Way-Lin and Nicolle came from Singapore to Prague to have their wedding portraits taken. They brought a variety of beautiful outfits (including wedding clothes and glamorous formal wear) with them to take out on the town. We did photos around the Charles Bridge, at Prague Castle and Gardens, in the Old Town Square and its surrounding areas.



The portraits shown here were taken in Mala Strana (Lesser Town), the Prague Castle side of the river.


I really love how Nicolle's red dress appeared in contrast to the blue Summer skies of Prague. The strong contrast between red and blue in photos gives stunning results. The fine sheen of the material of her dress also makes for great shots. I also have a penchant for primary colors used sparingly.


I like my backgrounds to be simple without too much busy detail. I like the subjects to appear in bright, solid colors to make them 'pop out' of the background. This is accomplished by carefully balancing the background exposure (sky and Charles Bridge) with the subject's fill flash setting.




We had a lot of fun making these portraits that day and they were very happy with the end results, as was I.