Bride and Groom: Falling Off a Chairlift, originally uploaded by tomkellyphoto.

Historically, I’ve been very selective in photographing weddings. While I’m known now more for my landscape and travel photography, my original career was news and sports. So when I do photograph a wedding, I do it in true reportage style.

I was excited to photograph Scott and Becky’s wedding. It was an ideal time of year – autumn in the mountains. My interest in document their wedding day news style was perfect for them.

After crunching through bride and groom shots up in Empire Pass a couple hours before the service, Becky had one more shot in mind – a chairlift. Fortunately we have a lot of them. And, even more fortunately, I was carrying a stepladder to help boost bride and groom up onto the Ruby lift at Deer Valley.

It made for a perfect scene. We went through a range of shots. Then it was time for a little fun!

While I haven’t made a career of shooting weddings, one thing I have learned is to get away from the solemn nature of traditionally serious, emotion shots and have some fun. In every setup I did that day, I closed it by having the participants whoop it up a little bit. And I’ll be that in almost every case, it will be those photographs chosen.

I love this photograph – it was the first select I pulled in the same-night look at over 1,200 images. It captures the fun and frivolity of their relationship. And a little Photoshop work brought out the super cool cowboy boots Becky wore that day.

And it will be a memory each of them – and I – will share whenever we load onto Ruby after a hard day skiing powder in Empire Canyon at Deer Valley Resort.