• Welcome!

    Luster Studios is my personal portfolio where I share weddings, special events, engagement sessions and portraits. My origins stem from a fine arts degree in photography and computer graphics. My "style" is a perfect blend of creative ideas driven by a relaxed attitude and a fun yet thoughtful personality.

    Through a combination of posing and photojournalism I strive to capture planned and spontaneous moments that will later help you relive how you were feeling at that exact moment. I'm based in North Carolina and often travel to destination locations. I look forward to getting to know what inspires you both creatively and personally.

    - Craig Carpenter

The Carolina Theatre Wedding and Reception ( Tina + Mitch )

You may remember Tina and Mitch from their engagement session earlier this year. Their wedding finally arrived and it didn’t disappoint! They had a lot of personal touches with a “movie wedding theme.” including posters that promoted “the show.”

They had both their Jewish ceremony and reception at the Carolina Theatre in dowtown Durham. I really enjoyed shooting them in that space due to all of the detailed adornments. Tina’s wedding dress was a gorgeous vintage throwback with a modern twist. They actually had two areas dedicated to their reception and had hired a live 80′s cover band for the latter half of the evening.

I think I can say that one of everyone’s favorite moments was the “chairlifts” that are common at many Jewish events. Tina later told me that her mom had asked why her son was nowhere to be seen during such a joyous moment. She replied “You had him in a headlock the whole time! And we have the pictures to prove it!”

You can see for yourself that both mom and dad were a little preoccupied with the idea of crashing to the floor…


engagement pose
The left one reads… “Mozel Tov, Ya’ll! A Southern Fried Jewish Wedding.”
engagement pose
engagement pose
They chose to see eachother before the ceremony
engagement pose
Mitch was blown away by how Tina looked!
engagement pose
Signing the wedding Ketubah
engagement pose
engagement pose
engagement pose
engagement pose
The headlock!
engagement pose

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