Featured Photographers - Jos and Tree Woodsmith

Tree and Jos’ adventurous documentary wedding photography style has taken them all over the world. Fueled with a passion to learn and grow, they are constantly taking photography to the next level. Tree and Jos are conference speakers, contest judges, and have won numerous awards across the industry. They also facilitate their EVOLVE workshop.

Sporting hats, goblets and one of a kind style everywhere they go, their yin/yang relationship make for an exciting and comical dynamic duo team.

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HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY?

Jos began capturing high-speed downhill ski racing in college. After studying, he dove deep into travel photography before he met his wedding photography mentor in Hawaii in 2004. Jos has been photographing weddings full time since then.

For the past 10 years, Tree has been taking all she has learned and gathered to bolster her photography as a medium to connect with people and businesses to tell their stories all over the world.

In 2008, Tree and Jos met and they've been photographing weddings as a team full time since. They’ve photographed over 350 wedding celebrations all over the world. Today Tree and Jos are photographing select wedding celebrations and facilitating their EVOLVE workshop to professional wedding photographers.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR STYLE?

Emotional storytelling compositions with compelling light

WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR IN AN IMAGE?

To us a great photograph involves 7 key elements: placement, light, expression, exposure, sharpness, definition, and depth. We made an acronym to help us quickly assess the quality of an image called PLEESDD. Are we PLEESDD with the photo? We have a lot to say about this, but it’s basics are:

• P stands for Placement: how natural and attractive does the pose, position of the subjects look?
• L stands for Light: is the lighting coming from a direction that complements or dramatizes the subject and does it look natural?
• E stands for Expression: strong expressions reveal a visual display of emotion happening which immediately stands out in an image. It's the soul of the story.
• E stands for Exposure: the human eye sees in mid-tones but we feel in highlights. Great exposure complements everything.
• S reminds us to check the Sharpness of the image.
• D stands for Definition: does your eye go right to the subject in the scene without conflicting chaos? Is it a fast read?
• D And finally, the last D which stands for Depth: are our eyes engaged? We love to layer our subjects over one another so it adds a 2nd or 3rd dimension to the story.

When we find ourselves in the whirlwind of performing under pressure or evaluating our portfolio, we ask ourselves, “Are we PLEESDD?"

WHAT INSPIRES OR MOTIVATES YOU?

Real moments. Stories that go beyond our lifetime.

WHAT CHALLENGES YOU?

Constantly taking photography to the next level.

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE MOMENT OF A WEDDING?

Any moment where people become vulnerable enough to show their true selves. Or so ecstatic that they break all the rules for all the right reasons.

OF ALL YOUR IMAGES, DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE ONE?

Jos: The lightning photo when all the guests piled up behind us witnessing the magic; when lightning struck everyone tackled us in a storm of warm rain laughing hysterically in tears.

Tree: The photo of a bride and groom reaching out to one another just before walking into their ceremony with their guests' faces in the background. The bride had lost her parents at an early age in a car accident. Consequently, she had no one to walk her down the aisle. So when her husband reached out his hand and she reciprocated, it was extraordinarily profound.

ANYTHING ELSE WE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT JOS AND TREE?

We love people and thrive on friendships. The deeper we get to know people the more they bring out the best in us. Great relationships are what life is all about.

TELL US ABOUT DVLOP

DVLOP has saved us infinite hours of editing. Before we use to have to dive into smart layers with Adobe RAW to maximize the full range potential of an image. Working with DVLOP presets is the ultimate shortcut to working in RAW. Where other presets have fallen short, DVLOP presets actually work! The precision of every DVLOP tool gives us more mental bandwidth to bring out the best version of an image and tell that story more efficiently and effectively. By having more time it gives us more energy to tell a full story and have a life!