Gorgeous ‘Trash the Dress’ Wedding Photos Captured on a Stunning Glacier in Alaska

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It takes work to stand out among today’s wedding photographers. After all, you’ve got shots like these from Iceland to compete with, so how do you create photos that will widen eyes and loosen jaws?

Well, if you’re photographer Josh Martinez from Chugach Peaks Photography, you helicopter the couple onto a glacier in Alaska and let nature do the talking while you take some pictures and ruin a wedding dress.

It’s like this glacier was trying to be even more beautiful, and it thought to itself, “I’ve got a fever, and the only prescription, is MORE BLUENESS.” Thankfully, much like Christopher Walken and his fever for cowbell, the glacier got what it wanted, and Martinez captured the viral image below:

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We spoke to Martinez about the picture, and he was kind enough to share a few details about the shoot and how these images came together:

This was a helicopter fly-out shoot at the Knik Glacier, 60 miles east of Anchorage, Alaska. The ice field is over 25 miles long and 5 miles wide, one of the largest in Southcentral Alaska.

The Bride & Groom gave me full creative freedom and in this case, that meant wading knee-deep into an icy glacial pool for Alaska’s ultimate trash-the-dress session! To access this incredible location, we explored the surface of the glacier by helicopter and located several pools of Windex-blue water that fit my vision perfectly. Our pilot landed on the glacier, and after fitting some safety gear we headed out to explore this epic world of ice, silt and water.

Of course, they didn’t limit themselves to the “Windex blue” pools of water; meadows with mountainous backdrops were also fair game:

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But the real eye-catchers in the series are still the strikingly-colorful, trash-the-dress images you just can’t help but gawk at:

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“The photo opportunities were endless, and I cannot wait to head back to the glacier for another shoot,” Martinez told us over email. “Alaska presents an incredible environment for adventure portraiture.”

And adventure portraiture is what he’s all about. A self-described “pilot, traveling photographer and adventure junkie,” this isn’t the first time Martinez has had one of his wedding photographs featured on PetaPixel. You might remember his Double Rainbow shot from this time last year.

“Photographing people in wild places is what I love,” he tells us, and it seems to be paying off with photo shoots like this one.

To see more from Martinez or follow along as he continues to create viral wedding photography magic, head over to his website or give him a follow on Facebook.


Image credits: Photographs by Josh Martinez/Chugach Peaks Photography and used with permission.

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