Amber Marlow

Amber Marlow was the photographer at me and my wife’s wedding just this past September. From the very start she was so helpful, kind, and excited! Her energy was amazing. She was excellent and coordinating with us (even though we live in Dallas and she was in ny) and also great with follow up! She answered any questions we had very quickly! On the wedding day she was beyond fantastic. She helped us stay calm while we were getting ready, reassured is that we were beautiful, and was ready to take charge in the event that emotions clouded our minds. Honestly, I doubt we would have been ready in time without her! In terms of the actual photography she was absolutely FANTASTIC!!! Our shots were so beautiful and really captured our feelings. Every picture just radiates love and happiness. It was great also that she’s from New York, so we didn’t have to worry about knowing where to go to get the best views/​backgrounds. My wife and I are beyond pleased with the results. We cannot wait to order our prints!!! Amber we love you!!!

My (now) husband (!) and I are so thrilled to have had the opportunity and honor of working with Amber for our wedding. For us, the most important element was actually the photographer’s personality. Posing for the camera is not really something we’re good at, and there was no way we’d have good wedding pictures if we didn’t enjoy the company of the person taking the shots. So we wanted someone fun and lighthearted, with minimal intervention. And yet, we were also looking to have some of those classic wedding shots, as well as photos of our (huge) families. An insane number of hours of searching allows me say with great confidence that this combination is extremely hard to find in a single photographer – understandably, as it takes a person of many talents – but at last we found Amber, and she was the perfect fit. She is, to steal a word of her own invention, «amaze-​balls.»
From our very first conversation, when I explained these things with some degree of exasperation to Amber via Skype, we clicked. She got what we wanted, and even articulated it better than I could. We talked about things like authenticity, simplicity, and honesty in the photography. I loved that she had a fun and laid back vibe, and simultaneously not only understands but embraces the magnitude of the task that a wedding photographer is charged with. My husband enjoyed talking with her too, and we felt that we she was a person with whom we could spend some of the most intimate moments of our wedding day.
Our predictions proved true and then some. Not only were we comfortable with Amber, but what was amazing was how much she shared the emotional experience of the moments she was capturing right alongside me, my husband, and our families. She was a part of the incredibly special moments of our wedding day. And this is important to a degree I hadn’t anticipated, because as she shared our emotions, it made it so much easier to connect with her, as she became more than just the person on the other side of the lens.
All of this shows in the photos themselves, which my husband and I, and our friends and family, adore. She caught moments of pure joy, and it is palpable in the photos. They make us relive the moments, evidenced by the number of people who called to say they teared up looking at them. In addition to the slew of diverse ‘requirements’ that I listed in the first paragraph, I should add that the aesthetic was important to me too. I wasn’t looking for anything too edgy, but rather specifically for fresh and crisp light, beautiful color, and the occasional fun and quirky composition. We talked about this a lot too, and she delivered on all of the above.
All of this may sound a bit overbearing – I wanted a lot, and yet Amber, as promised, offered unlimited support in all things (including helping us through what seemed at the time like a crisis over what color tie the groom should wear), and never made me feel that I was asking too much or being too picky. There is nothing «run-​of-​the-​mill» about Amber’s operation; she knows that no two couples are the same, and therefore no two weddings are the same. As a result we were never treated like clients, or like a cookie-​cutter «bride and groom;» instead she connected with us as real people, and that is exactly what we wanted. All of this is to say that ultimately, Amber deeply loves her work, and it shows in every way.

Amber shot our wedding in October 2014 in Manhattan and was delightful to work with. She spent time getting to know us before the ceremony, scouted locations for us near the hotel where we got ready, and helped us to relax and have fun in front of the camera. We chose Amber because we wanted both formal portraits and candid shots, and she delivered. Also, she was great with the young children in my family, which I appreciated. When my little nephew was cranky during the family portrait, she got down and talked directly to him and made him feel special, and he let her take his photo. He still wasn’t smiling, but at least he stood still, which is a lot to ask of a jet-​lagged two-​year-​old! We are very happy with our photos. –Catherine and Chen-​Yong

Amber was a pleasure to work with! I hired her for some headshots. Having such a fun person to talk to felt like I wasn’t awkwardly getting photographed around Brooklyn. (And I’m a super awkward person!) I had a great time, and it showed on my face in the photos. The follow-​up selection process and minor edits was easy, and the work was done timely. (It wasn’t «quick,» but you either get quick or quality in life, not both.) I’d definitely work with her again!

Amber was recommended to us by our officiant for our August wedding on Brooklyn Bridge in NY. We secured her services on line and paid our deposit by paypal and correspended by email-​all of which made life easier as we live in the UK. Amber was very flexible with her timing and gave us an hourly rate. She was also willing to be our witness.
As a person she is really bubbly and friendly and we were thrilled that she was able to participate in our special day.
Amber gave more of her time to us than we had paid for and had lots of ideas for places that we could have photographs taken.
She followed the brief that she had been given exactly and produced some great natural photos in both black & white and colour.
We were impressed with her security consciousness and she has provided an excellent service with value for money.
We would recommend her to our friends without hesitation.

Amber shot our Central Park elopement last weekend (May 11, 2014). She did a great job of capturing the excitement and emotion of our wedding. Very few of the pictures were formally posed which we both liked — more of the photojournalism style to keep it real. She was fun to work with, prompt in sending us our photos, and reasonably priced for her skill.

I hired secretly hired Amber to shoot a Central Park engagement. It was difficult because I didn’t want my fiancé (then girlfriend) to find out. My plan: A surprise proposal in central park while on a run. Amber helped me narrow down the location and work on the details with me. When the day finally came she was waiting in belvedere castle in her red-​knit cap, pretending to be a tourist. She quietly signaled to me where to stand, I guided my girlfriend in that direction, bent down to «tie my shoe» then *Pop!* out comes the engagement ring from my sleeve. Amber caught the whole thing, then took us for a walk around the park while snapping pictures. Needless to say — She said YES. Thank you Amber!

We hired Amber to shoot our NYC Elopement in Central Park on a recommendation from our officiant, Judie Guild. We selected her very affordable elopement package and Meghan and I couldn’t be happier with the results. Five months later I find myself looking through the photo album thinking that things couldn’t have gone any better. Amber is very friendly, funny, and extremely professional and knowledgeable. She made us feel at home in front of the camera and it shows in our photographs. She doesn’t rush or make you feel as though you’re just another shoot for her. Amber also had a very quick turnaround to get our edited photos back to us. We would definitely use her again should we find ourselves back in NYC for a visit!

My wife and I decided to elope in New york just the two of us. We decided to get hitched in the city where we got engaged. Not knowing New York well or having anyone else there with us, it was important to have those moments to keep, and to have them to share with our friends and family so they too, could feel as if they were. Googling/​Yelping lead us to decide on City Hall and Amber, who not only has an abundance of information on the process of getting married at City Hall, but she was extremely fun to work with.

Amber Marlowe Blatt is a nice person who needs to find a new line of work.
I’ll post a full review of my experiences with her, but here is the quick summary:
— We hired her twice. The first time, she did great work. We were happy.
— We hired her again a year later, to take family photos. She did the shoot. She showed me some of the work through the viewfinder and said it was wonderful.
And then she called me a week later and told me that she had LOST *ALL* OF THE IMAGES!
Gone. Zero.
I do marketing for a living and have hired perhaps twenty photographers in my life for over a hundred photo shoots. This is the first time I had ever heard of someone losing the work for a day’s session. It just doesn’t happen, because it is the ultimate badge of disgrace for a photographer.
So what happened? She said she was sharing her studio with some folks doing a different project, they had taken a memory card from her desk, thought it was blank, etc. There are some serious issues here — why is someone who bills as a professional letting other people grab memory cards from her desk? Why is she selling her time for hundreds of dollars and then pulling the memory card out — representing not just her efforts but the time and energy a family takes to coordinate schedules and dress the kids — and then not bothering to push the write protect tab?
Why is she shooting on digital media and not bothering to make a copy of the work before charging in on other projects? Or, if she is running to an emergency, can’t make a copy, you might at least write on the card with a Sharpie and say «do not use» or write the date of the session or write anything? Anything at all?
We could debate this over and over. But someone who can’t secure their digital work should not be shooting events for a living. You cannot «redo» a wedding. You cannot «redo» a birthday or bar mitzvah or other major life event.
If you care about getting quality work, you should not be hiring this person.
So that was the worst phone call ever — «Hi, it’s Amber, whoops, sorry, nothing left.» And then, to add insult to injury, she apologized and offered «to do the shoot again without charging us.» Are you f’ing serious? That was basically offering nothing. Of course she can’t charge us for a second shoot. We had paid for the first shoot, spent our time and energy, and gotten zip out of it. Through her clear and pure incompetence.
And then she did the second shoot and the images were poor. We couldn’t and didn’t use any of them. There were even instances in the second shoot when I said things to her like «are you sure we are centered under the sign» and Amber said yes, yet we were not. Bad image. Same thing with the sunlight — «are you sure there won’t be too much shadow at this time of day?» Amber said we were okay. We were not.
She clearly didn’t want to do the shoot a second time, or take the time to make it right, when she knew we weren’t going to use her again.
So – sorry Amber. Nice person. Needs a new job.
Ben

Amber was great she took her time and captured our wedding at the Bronx clerk office. Although cameras were not allowed in the building, Amber took exceptional photos outside, we couldn’t thank her enough.

Amber is a friend and a colleague whose work I really admire. She’s so warm and inviting that she makes sitting for photos easy and comfortable — even for someone used to being on the other side of the camera.

We hired Amber for our small beach wedding after reading rave reviews on Unilocal.She arrived bubbly and full of energy, despite awful GSP traffic! We hadn’t met prior, which I thought odd, but having communicated regularly via email (and stalking her blog), there was a feeling of familiarity upon the first face-​to-​face. She took beautiful photos of everything from the giddy getting readies to the post-​ceremony playing in the waves. We are thrilled with our photos, and love how Amber managed to capture us looking so cool even though we were freaking out so hard! Digital photos arrived 3 weeks later in high res and social media formats.
Highly recommend!

My husband and I were recently married in Central Park. We chose Amber because her photos were beautiful and natural. Many wedding photographers are a little too «pose-​y» and editorial for our taste. Amber was really responsive the week before as I was sending her different shot ideas.
On the morning of the wedding she showed up to our hotel ready to go. She made us feel extremely comfortable and was very «go with the flow». At the wedding site, she made a fantastic suggestion for where we should stand for the ceremony and we ended up with some pretty fantastic shots.
After the ceremony, we ran around Central Park, having the best time. I thanked her and her assistant at the end for making picture taking painless! We had our photos within a week, and I can’t stop looking at them. I don’t know what I expected, but she far exceeded it. We had a very small ceremony (us and two witnesses) but everyone who sees the pictures says they feel like they were there with us. It means the world to us to have that day captured so beautifully.

We had a great experience working with Amber to capture our wedding at the Clerk’s office in NYC. We live in North Carolina, so we had to hire a photographer for our wedding without meeting him/​her first. We decided on Amber after extensively researching elopement photographers in New York. She was always prompt, professional and easy to work with. We signed a contract online and the contracting process was a breeze.
We met at the Clerk’s Office and she was ready to take pictures right away. Amber was warm, fun, and easy to interact with. Most of the shots were candid pictures of our family waiting for our ceremony, embraces, kisses, funny moments and family pictures. She was able to capture very deep moments right after the ceremony, particularly of our parent’s emotional embraces and our kids’ emotions.
After the ceremony, we walked across the street to a small park/​gardens area where we finished up with magnificent pictures of all attendees.
Finally, we received ~150 pictures about a week after our ceremony. My wife and I are happy we chose Amber to be our photographer, and would recommend her to anyone.

My wife and I traveled to New York to be legally married as same sex marriage is not yet allowed in our home state. We wanted a photographer to capture our special day and wanted one that was supportive of two women getting married. Thanks to Pinterest and Google, we found Amber! In reading about her we found that her views matched ours in so many ways. Beyond the standard contract, she recommended a place to have dinner after the ceremony and took us on a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. She was very accommodating in taking pictures of our family and friends in addition to typical wedding photos. She even joined us for pizza. Thank you Amber for beautiful pictures as well as priceless memories!

Amber took such great photos of my family over the Christmas holiday in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Museum was the perfect ‘venue’ for our photos. The turn around time was spot-​on and we all love the photos… it a Christmas to remember!

I cut off my hair and needed new portraits, Facebook photos, and all that. Because this is a pretty practical need, I wanted photos that were staged well but still looked «normal» rather than arty. They had to look good without retouching. I found many people on Unilocal,but Amber was the one whose portfolio was full of typical New Yorkers rather than models and actors. Of course models look good in photos under studio lighting!
Everything went smoothly. I showed up at her place in Park Slope, had some quick portraits taken, then we walked around and got some standard «me in Brooklyn» shots. She knew exactly where to stage shots so it looked better than standard Brooklyn, though, and she was very relaxed and fun about the whole thing so there wasn’t any stress.
I just received a disc of photos, and they’re good! I mean, I made a funny face in a few of them, but there were quite a few really good photos even though we didn’t go all that many places and I wanted «normal» photos rather than crazy angles and crazy lighting. She applied a few effects to some of them for variety, but nothing too arty. I’m quite pleased, and turnaround time was good too. Five years from now, when I’m posting a picture to make myself look five years younger, it’ll probably be one of these.

My partner and I came from out of state to New York City to elope and Amber took the most amazing photos of our special day. She instantly made us feel at ease, she knew the whole process at the city clerk’s office and guided us through everything. She captured moments that were very natural and will let us relive the day over and over.

Amber was referred to me by a friend and I asked her to do a shoot for my surprise proposal to my girlfriend (now fiancé) of 2 years. She was very patient and flexible as I communicated to her exactly what I needed to be done on the big day. I planned it at the scenic uptown Cloisters museum and Amber was punctual, arriving on time and well ahead of my fiancé’s arrival, and was not only professional with her photography, but complimented that with a very friendly demeanor. She was there to shoot pics of the nervous moments leading up to the big question and was a part of the surprise by planting the prop that I used for the proposal. She told me that this was her first professional shoot of a proposal and she was very supportive and even almost got emotional (thankfully there was no excessive crying from anyone that day, only smiles!).
She got many great angles and shots of the special moment and then took pictures for us that took in the amazing view from the museum grounds. She is passionate about her work and the pictures we expected to arrive in a week or two, came in a few days! That’s how excited she was! I have already referred her since that day in March and would do so again!