The last thing we did was the bride got into the lake wearing her dress. This was a group shoot rather than just individuals.
This one was nice, but you can’t tell she’s actually in the water. In the one below, she is obviously in the water.
Melanie served as our “Bride. I tried to get on of those really popular shots with the train/veil being blown out by the wind. It did not work all that well, but the shot isn’t that bad.
Again, the lighting was working against me, but I did manage to get a few nice bridal portraits.
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Last night, I had the pleasure of being a guest at the Heart of Texas Professional Photographers Guild open shoot out. The event was held at Airport Park. The HOTPPG is a group of professionals in the area. In this meeting, they allowed local photographers who were not so professional to tag along. I had a great time.
They had a variety of models representing different types of photography, and, there were so many I did not get to photograph them all. They had a family, a bride, a teen age girl, a ballerina, a “tween” girl, an infant and a bride and groom. We each took 10 minute turns with the models.
I had a great time, but it was hectic. Ten minutes does not give you much time to find a location, build a report with the model, and get some shots. Additionally, the circumstances made it difficult, if not impossible to use any kind of lighting. The even was in the evening. So, there was a pretty good sunset, but it didn’t really play into the even that well.
Anyway, it was a great experience. I will be posting images as I get them processed. This is a group I would like to continue to be associated with. However, I may not quite be in the same league, professionally, as they.
A post in a Facebook group asked for a photographer for a wedding. It was from another photographer who was in the wedding party and was going to do the miscellaneous shots before the ceremony and at the reception, but just needed someone to photograph the ceremony. We settled on a price and met and discussed it. The bride was her sister. The wedding was to be outside at Whitehall Park in Woodway. Their family was mainly biker types, and the wedding was to have that atmosphere. The night before, it rained fairly heavily. I got to the location early to scout things out, and the ground wasn’t too bad. Given the logistics, I decided on three lenses – 10 – 20 f/3.5, 24-70 f/2.8, and 70 – 200 f/2.8.
I just came back upon Don Giannatti’s “Project 52” web site. I had seen the site several months ago, but it slipped from my memory. I have been a member of the flickr group for a long time, but, I can’t remember the last time I actually visited the group page. On this site, there is a weekly photography assignment. The assignments for this year start on February 1. So, I looked at the 2012 assignments.
The first assignment is to create a Vision Statement. This is basically a statement describing why it is that I take pictures. As described on the web site, “Tell us with a single paragraph what you want to be able to do with your images. Tell us what you do without telling us you are a photographer. Accompany that message with a single image taken around your home.”
To me, the reason I enjoy photography is it differs from other modes of expression, and there is something that is transcendently stimulating when I see a really great image I have taken. In 2012, my Aperture Library has over 7700 images. Every once in a while, as the image would come up on the screen, there was a moment of awe. Kind of, “Oh boy. That is good!”
It is becoming easier to take technically perfect images – those with proper exposure, composition, lighting, whatever. I can look at those and think, “That’s a good image.” But there is the added, intangible element that is included in an image that is really great. I take photographs because I enjoy that feeling of producing a picture that is really great.
Now, what kind of image around the house can I make that illustrates that?
I have gone through the over 7000 images from this year and chosen five that I think are the best. I am not going to rank them. Rather, I will present them chronologically.
The first one is from Galveston. Earlier this Spring, Debbie was walking on the beach and saw that someone had started to pile rocks on each other. As other people came along, they created their own piles of rocks to the point where eventually, there were hundreds of piles of rocks. I took this picture of one of the piles. I used a strobe and softbox to help me make the sky a little darker and to help define the surfaces of the rocks.
Earlier this Summer, Pat Jones asked me to serve as a second shooter at a wedding. I enjoyed the process. The wedding was at an interesting outdoor area in Roundrock. As the sun was going down, we got the couple to walk with us. There was a place in the woods where the setting sun was coming through a break in the leaves of a tree. I positioned them in the spot where the sun hit their faces and got this picture.
For the Waco Wild West 100 Bike Ride, last year, I stood at the end of the Washington St, Bridge and tried to get pictures of the cyclists with the suspension bridge and the Hilton in the background. I got some similar shots this year, but noticed that the river was absolutely still. So, I went down along the river and shot up at the cyclists on the bridge, with the reflection in the still water.
Ashley Henager wanted to get some pics at an old house in Speegleville. A couple days before, she contacted me and asked it we could change and shoot with her husband and son. I loved the idea. We shot at Midway Park. Noah was as cute as could be, but he really wanted to get in the water. He kept trying to get away and get in the water, and at one point, the tug between them resulted in this picture.
Finally, the last shoot with a model I did was with Heather Lynn Johnson. I have already discussed the lighting issues, but this shot was really great.
After the ceremony, all the guests were made to go out into the foyer while the formal portraits were taken and the chairs removed. There were refreshments and a calypso band. Once the ballroom was ready, everyone was ushered back in. The first event on the agenda was the toasts. I don’t remember what the best man said, but it got a reaction from the others.
The bride did not want pictures of the guests at their tables for dinner, and that was fine with us. There were too many guests, the lighting was terrible, and we got to rest just a little. After dinner, they started the dances. The bride and groom danced, then the groom and his mother. The bride’s father was deceased. So, she decided to do four dances, one with each of her brothers. Her brothers came from Puerto Rico. So, it was a special occasion for them. Cindy said that this meant a lot to the bride. So, we concentrated on getting really good pictures of these dances. Again, the lights were down really low. So, focusing was a serious problem. Even at that, this is a picture of the bride dancing with one of her brothers.
The rest of the evening was spent dancing and visiting, and we got some nice pictures of the rest of the reception.
The wedding was in the ballroom of the convention center. It was obviously not the easiest place to decorate. The wedding planner did an outstanding job with what she had to work with. The ceremony was held in the center area, and tables and chairs for dinner and the reception were set off to the sides. After the ceremony, the chairs in the center were quickly removed to form a dance floor for the reception.
Sometimes you capture a moment. This was in the middle of the ceremony. I am not sure of the precise context as it happened so fast. But, the preacher looked up to the heavens, and I snapped the picture. This made for a unique image for their wedding folio.
These pictures look pretty good because they could not find anyone who could turn the lights down. Although it was far from bright sunlight, there was really good, diffuse inside light and that helped us a great deal.
Cindy finished her editing of the over 5000 pictures we took at the wedding three weeks ago, and the bride and groom have seen them. So, now I can post some of mine.
This was a pretty standard shot of the groom anticipating the day’s events. My assignment was to get the groom pics. The groom and his groomsmen were in a room in the Hilton hotel. Unfortunately, by the time I got there, he was already dressed. So, I only got a couple pics of him dressing. There was pretty good light from this window. So, I closed the drapes to restrain it and good this shot.
I took some more of the groom, his parents, and the groomsmen around the Hilton. One of the shots they wanted was of the groom’s party coming from the Hilton to the Convention Center. There is an open walkway, but the light was terrible. The walkway is covered and kind of dark, but the surrounding area was very light. With bright sunlight, there was really contrasty light that made a good exposure difficult. Much of this shot was saved in processing. The background was blown out in order to get good exposure of the faces.
While we were doing this, the groom commented that it was kind of a “rat pack” thing – a bunch of guys in tuxedos. Someone else commented that it was kind of an “Ocean’s 11” thing. I had a little different slant. I told them it looked more like a “Reservoir Dogs” to me. To each his own, I guess.
I posted the rest of the preparation pics in the Wedding Gallery and will post more tomorrow.
I haven’t posted in a few days. Cindy is finishing the edits for the wedding I shot with her three weeks ago. Once she is done, I can post my images here.
We have been discussing an album for the couple. I have used Aperture for other books. The problem was there is no way of exporting the compiled pages except as pdf files. So, you are limited to using Apple’s vendors to produce the book. Their prices are reasonable, but there is not a whole lot of selection. Now, I see Apple has allowed a few high end vendors to produce plug ins that allow for the ordering of really high end books.
In spite of that, it appears there is much better flexibility by producing a book outside of Aperture. I have been trying to learn a program called PhotoJunction that interacts with a variety of vendors to allow for the design and production of books. So, I have spent some time the last couple of days trying to learn this program. For the most part, it is intuitive and utilizes lots of drag and drop procedures.
Additionally, I am looking at a web site called albumexposure that allows users to upload compiled albums and then allows the customer to look at them and proof them. After all changes have been made, then the album can be ordered from a variety of vendors directly from this web site.
I have found out that there are essentially two different categories of such albums. The “press” books are produced by using one image per page. (The images can be multiple pictures like the one above.) These are then printed on book/magazine quality paper. The resulting book is like a standard coffee table book. The process is relatively cheap, and the price of the books that are produced depends on covers and linings, but is relatively inexpensive.
The “matted” books print the images on photographic paper. Although the templates allow for multiple images on the same page, apparently the production process will not allow for any overlap of the images. So, in my page above, the four pictures would be printed on the page, but not the background image. The resulting photographic print is then adhered to a mat, making the pages very much thicker. This is kind of like an old style scrapbook, but one of extremely high quality. In looking at various vendors for these, it would be easy to spend $500 on a book. In one case, the cost of the book was $6500!