Archive for the ‘Photography’ Category

And Now For Something Completely Different

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Let The Wookiee Win

So this is a bit of a hard left turn from my usual work. No flowers… no white dress…

My friend Bryan runs a very successful podcast about comics called Comic Geek Speak. Their reach is wide-spread enough where they, for the second time now, hosted their own convention (SuperShow 2010) up in Reading, PA a little over a week ago. I was tagged to show up and shoot some photos of the con again this year. Lots of fun! Had a great time walking around and taking pictures of the many artists there doing their thing.

One of the groups that was there was the 501st. If you don’t know what/who they are… they do Star Wars costumes. Really really well. If you’re into Star Wars, check them out! They were out and about, walking around in full costume to the great entertainment of all! I got a couple of pictures of kids just staring at Chewbacca (who stood well over 7 feet tall by my eye-balled measurement). Darth Vader was also an imposing figure, as always. They also did a panel discussion on how these costumes are made, which was really very cool.

One of the other things that they had going at the show was an area where there were tables set up, and lots of different board games. Kevin from Sieze Your Turn was there, lending out board games and teaching people how to play them. As I was making my rounds, he stopped me. He said he really wanted a shot of some Storm Troopers playing a board game, and could I make that happen? So we did it up! I ran out to my car, grabbed a few bits of additional gear… we pulled the guys in costume in… and there it is! We actually got lucky because we originally planned on just the troopers, but Chewey and Starkiller were walking by and decided to jump in on the action!

If you’re scratching your head and wondering how this was done; Two lights. One behind (Vivitar 285hv triggered with PocketWizard), and very slightly camera left with a make-shift snoot pointed at the game board/tiles, and one (580exII) on camera, bounced upwards with bounce card out for fill. The snooted light, because it was not an overly long snoot, provided the rim on Chewbacca and Starkiller. I took a bunch of different exposures, and settled on a relatively neutral one. Since this was shot in a conference room while stuff was going on and not in a studio, there were a few challenges… and some things left to be fixed in Photoshop. (And yes, there was extensive photoshop work done to the image.) I wound up manually merging three different exposure settings of the same shot in Photoshop, did a bunch of clean up work which included removing the light stand and the flash behind the table, did some dodging and burning to accent certain things, lots of curves… and the like.

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Here We Go Again! - 2010

Saturday, February 13th, 2010

It’s February in Philadelphia. There is what’s left of the close-to-three feet of snow that got dumped on us in the space of a week still on the ground. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day… and Rob and I shot our first wedding of the season yesterday evening! It seems this year started early! After last year, I was looking forward to the downtime of the off-season to catch up on things, re-evaluate certain things, and just relax! I did get the chance to catch up, did a bunch of thinking and reworking… and even managed to get a bit of R&R in, though I could still probably use more sleep. But off-season is officially over and it’s time to get back into it!

So what does this year have in store for Something Blue? A bunch of new venues to work at, as well as returns to some of my favorites from years before. We’ll be at Normandy Farms in Blue Bell, PA three times this year, and we get back to The Atrium at the Curtis Center in Philadelphia in April. I’m looking forward to shooting in the city again! We also get to return to the Meredith Manor in May, which is a cool venue out in Pottstown, PA. We also get to do a bit of traveling! Assateague in September, and Pittsburgh for New Year’s Eve! They may not be tropical, but it’s the start of destination weddings for us!

I’ve started working much more extensively with GraphiStudio for albums late last year. Every book I’ve had come in from them has blown my mind! Their prints look incredible, and the books themselves are things of beauty! I just got a sample album printed by them in late last week and I absolutely love it! Miller’s will continue to be my go-to standard book, but GraphiStudio wedding books are now officially my premium albums of choice! More expensive, and they take longer to get in, but they are so worth it!

One of the other things in the works for this year is bridal shows. This is something that we haven’t done in the past, but I’m thinking it’s time to start. If you happen to be a bride (past or present) who has attended these kinds of events… I want to talk to YOU. Basically, what I want to know is… if you had to imagine the ideal booth/table setup for a photographer, what would it be like? Do you want to see lots of albums? Framed prints? A slide show going? I have some definite ideas of what I want to do, but additional input, especially from you who is on the other side of the table from us would be really helpful!

And last but not least… the packages have changed some. Again. That, though… merits its own post. Stay tuned!

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Cross-Discipline Post Processing

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

If you’ve looked at a magazine recently, I’m sure you’ve seen it. There is a trend that has emerged in commercial photography that has become almost expected in higher end advertisements. It’s been called by many names, but the one that I’ve heard more often is “hyper-realism”. Those images that kind of toe the line between photo and illustration, where the subject and their surroundings look so incredibly real, and yet they look like they were drawn? That’s what I’m talking about. It’s a technique that was brought into the main stream by photographers like Dave Hill and Jill Greenberg. Their images are lit a certain way, shot a certain way, and then heavily post-processed in a way that transforms the photo into something else… This technique is usually not something you see with wedding photography, because it is pretty intensive on the post processing work (read: can take a long time to work on each individual image), and only works for certain pictures that have the right characteristics. However, this is not to say that it can’t work outside the commercial photography domain, and here’s the proof!

art_museum_steps_002

Like I said, in order for the technique to work, the image has to meet certain criteria; there have to be distinct highlights and shadows. Durring Rachel & Kevin’s engagement session, which we shot at the Fairmount Park Water Works, and near the Philadelphia Art Museum, I managed to get some images that fit that bill. Images with flatter lighting don’t seem to work nearly so well with this technique (although they have their own charm to them, as I will show below), and the truth is that most photos taken at a wedding have much subtler highlight and shadow areas. I always strive to put as much depth into my images as I can, but the drastic contrast that makes this technique shine is not something that’s always possible, nor is it always desirable! As any technique goes, this one should not be overused. On the other hand, a couple of images done this way can really add spice to a set. And the more I think about it, the more I feel that the technique lends itself better to the engagement session.

water_works_002

To get the images like the ones above, the way the photo is initially shot, and the way it is processed after the fact have to work in tandem. The photo right out of the camera gets you a huge part of the way there, but what happens after gives it that magic that transforms the photo into something more than a photo. But what happens if you try and do the same post processing on a photo that does not quite meet all of the criteria above? You still get a neat look! Once again, not one to be overdone… but very neat in its own right.

surreal_001

It’s pretty clear that these images lack the sheer drama of the images shot with this technique in mind… but they still have that illustrated cross-discipline feel to them!

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Engagement Sessions

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Imagine this scenario; the ceremony starts at 2:30PM in the afternoon and it’s now just a little after 1PM. The assembled team of makeup artist and hair dresser are involved in an intricate dance, touching up eye liner and spraying curls in an effort to make perfection last at least through the afternoon heat and sun, if not until the end of the night. Things are moving fast and furious, and then there’s a knock on the door. It’s the photographer. You’ve met him before as you discussed the timeline of your day over coffee, but as he makes his introductions to everyone in the room and quickly assembles his camera gear, you realize that this is going to be the first time that you’ve been photographed. All of a sudden, you find yourself on the business end of a large lens for the very first time. No matter how much conversation he makes, you’re under stress, and the simple instructions of “just act naturally, like I’m just here talking to you, and not like I’m pointing this camera at you” are really not working for you. Lets face it; you’ve been waiting for this day for a very long time, but with a makeup artist, a hair dresser, and a flurry of bridesmaids all moving around you, there is nothing natural about it.

katy_michael_portrait

What does this have to do with engagement sessions? Surprisingly enough, quite a bit. The hair dresser and makeup artist will finish their tasks and send you on your way to your nuptials. The officiant will pronounce you husband and wife and send you on to post-marital bliss. The caterer will serve the food at the reception and the DJ will make it a night of dancing to remember. But the photographer will be with you the whole day, from start to finish, every step of the way. You hired a photographer because you want to remember your day through the images that he is going to create for you, and because of that, you and your photographer are going to be spending a lot of time together on your wedding day. The more comfortable you are working with the photographer, the more fun this time will be, and it shows in the pictures. That alone is the biggest reason why engagement sessions are important.

The reality is that most people do not spend a lot of time being photographed by strangers. Unless your day job is modeling, you may be able to count on one hand the number of times you’ve been photographed by someone who is not a friend or family member. In these situations, people’s natural instinct is to clam up and become very stiff, and until you get comfortable and loosen up, it will show in your pictures. People can and do look nervous or uncomfortable in front of a camera. An engagement session helps prevent this because you spend time, as a couple, with your photographer, and get comfortable working with them. By the time the scenario above is your reality, you will already be comfortable.

katy_michael_comp

The more time you’ve spent with someone, the more you know about them, and the more comfortable you are around them. The engagement session is designed with that goal in mind, all while getting some great images of the two of you having some fun in a much more casual setting. We spend somewhere between an hour and two hours shooting, though I often tell brides that I do not limit these sessions to these times. A two hour engagement session can take close to four hours if we move between several locations and take breaks to chat it up. And we do take breaks to chat it up, because that’s largely the point. It’s an excuse for the two of you to play, and an opportunity for me to capture the fun, learn more about you, and let you get comfortable around me and the camera.

katy_michael_dip

So how would that above story play out after an engagement session? The ceremony starts at 2:30 and it’s now a little past 1PM. The hair dresser and makeup artist are making you look your absolute best, and things are moving fast and furious when there’s a knock on the door. It’s the photographer. “Hey! It’s great to see you again! So… this is it, are you ready?” You’re already comfortable. You’ve done this before. Looking natural in this unnatural setting is much easier because you’ve seen that lens. You’ve already had fun in front of that lens, and both you, and your photographer have common ground to stand on. You’ll be seeing a lot of each other today, but this isn’t the first time.

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Old of 2007 and New for 2008

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008

The last year flew by, and the holidays were upon me long before I was ready for them. That’s not to say that I wasn’t ready for a break! (Believe me… I was ready for a bit of time off with family and friends.) It’s just that I wasn’t quite ready for 2007 to be over just yet, as I had planned to get a few more things done before I rang in the new year. I had been working on setting up some new relationships with vendors so that I can start offering their products, and also taking a bit of a step sideways into doing some non-wedding photography work, which was an incredible experience, and taught me a few things that I will definitely be applying in future wedding work. And once the holidays got here, I had to do what I promised myself I would do at the end of the year; archive 2007’s photos to make room for this year! Naturally… in the process of archiving, I had a chance to go through the 2007 pictures, and do some thinking and planning for the future.

amy_roses

This image jumped out at me as I was going through the pictures from Amy & Steve’s wedding at the Crossed Keys Inn. I remember the day, and I remember taking that shot. I remember thinking how cool it was that the sun was creating highlights on the bouquet of roses, and also shining through the petals in the back of the bouquet causing them to glow . And there it is!

One of the things that I have been thinking about, starting over the holidays, and the couple of weeks since then, is that the packages I offer need to be re-evaluated and redone. The current packages are pretty heavy in loose prints. There was a reason for this when I came up with them, but the more I think about it, the more it doesn’t make sense in practice. Most couples don’t want a whole big set of loose prints. Parents and guests may want a loose print or two, and the couple may want a few enlargements… but the main output that people want is albums, and in some cases slide shows. So I am at a crossroads here; I can offer packages with albums already included… or I can offer packages that just include shooting time, and leave the final output to be added on after the fact. And there are pros and cons to both approaches. Bear with me hear as I think aloud for a bit. (I’ve found that this blog is a great way for me to organize my ideas and see things a little bit clearer, as much as it lets you look behind the scenes of what goes into that bottom line price.)

On the one hand, since albums are items that most couples want, it would make a whole lot of sense to include albums in the packages that I offer, and let people add prints to the order if they want them. It looks great on paper… but there is a flaw here that is not readily apparent to most folks that have not ordered an album before. There are many album manufacturers, and each manufacturer sells several styles of albums, and each style has several options that can be used to customize the final product that the couple receives. Sounds great, right? Which album would you want to see in the package? In 2007, I had a great relationship set up with Miller’s Lab. When someone orders prints from me, this is where they come from. Miller’s is an outstanding professional lab, with incredible quality, and an insanely fast turnaround time. I couldn’t be happier with them! They also offer albums in several styles and price ranges. Some of these albums are made specifically for Miller’s, by Miller’s… and some are albums that they re-sell with the prints that they make. (In other words, I send them print-ready images, they print them, mount them into the album at their facility, and send me the finished album.) To give my clients more to choose from for their albums, I’ve also set up relationships with two other companies; Renaissance Albums and Zookbinders. Renaissance creates beautiful albums, and there is no one that I know that can tell you otherwise. Everyone I have spoken to that has dealt with them, or owns one of their albums, has raved about the quality and craftsmanship of these books. Same with Zookbinders. I have more personal experience with their books, since my own wedding album is a Zookbinders album. Each of these companies has different cover materials, different styles of albums… from the traditional album that contains essentially matted prints, to flushmount albums that offer two-page panoramas and an infinite number of design possibilities, and everything in between. Each album can have different numbers of pages… I think you see where I’m going with this. Which one do I include in the packages?

On the other hand, since albums have so many variables that can change their price drastically, I could offer up packages that contain only the time spent shooting. This sounds great! If albums are such a huge pricing variable, eliminate them, and just stick to what is constant! Ah… that would make it so easy. But then, I put myself in the shoes of my client. A couple is about to be married, they are planning their wedding, and trying to get all of the pieces to fall into place. As a photographer, I know what is involved on my end, how much time I will need to spend doing that work, and how much all of that is worth. But as a human being that also got married, I happen to ALSO know that budgets are a very real thing when you are planning a wedding. We were lucky. We had a lot of help. In fact, it was more than just a lot of help. But my best friend is in the final stages of planning his wedding, and he is footing the bill himself, so I don’t need to look far for examples. What does this have to do with anything? It’s simple. A couple looks at my packages, and says “Hey! This is well within our budget! Great!” but what they don’t see in the list of things is any sort of output. There are no prints… there are no albums… So they get in touch with me, and we sit down to talk. Then I pull out the list of album options and prices. Suddenly, the cost of the wedding package has gone up. WAY up. Albums are expensive. To put things in perspective; the lowest cost for an album is some $300. This makes things look like it is a hidden fee. They didn’t know how much it was going to be until they got in touch with me. That situation is not something that I relish. When I am a customer, I do not like hidden fees. I do not like walking in thinking that something was going to be one price, and then finding out that on top of what I thought I would be paying, there are a bunch of add-on costs that I pretty much HAVE to pay to get something of value to me. It’s not the way I would prefer to do business. In some cases, the addition of these costs of the output to the package price is not an issue, but in some cases… it is. I would have rather them seen the price from the outset, know that when all was said and done, it was not going to be in their budget, and moved on, than for them to get their hopes up and set themselves up for disappointment. Maybe I’m a rotten businessman. I don’t know.

So. Bottom line. The packages are going to get redone very soon. I’m just still debating what I am going to redo them TO. I think I am leaning more towards the first option… but then, I have some ideas about making the second option work as well by making notes of the starting prices of output and clearly pointing out that the packages do NOT include output. Decisions decisions.

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The Big Ego Boost

Friday, November 2nd, 2007

One of the most flattering things that can happen to an artist is to get the recognition of their peers. It is really something special when a photographer that you work with and for asks you to take their personal shots. And so it meant a whole lot to have been asked to handle such things for both of the photographers I’ve worked with this year.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I have been working with Rob Nicholson of Humbled Eyes Photography. Well… this summer was his turn to get married. I was thrilled when he asked me if I would shoot certain parts of the day for him. He had already hired a photographer to shoot his wedding, but the photographer was not going to be able to cover their rehearsal and certain parts of the day because he was working alone, and was not going to be arriving until the morning of the wedding itself. The rehearsal ended with a bonfire on the beach at sunset, which was both a lot of fun, and a technical challenge to photograph. The next day, I photographed the guys getting ready and the pre-ceremony festivities that took place.

A month or so after, Stephanie Sherwood of Voch Image asked if I would take some portrait shots of her and her husband. I had been working with her for a bit, and she liked my work, which was quite flattering, since she has a great eye and is an outstanding photographer. They both loved the beach, and she had a couple of spots in mind, so we arranged the date and time to meet for the shoot. As luck would have it, there were some heavy storms coming through, and when we met, we were not sure if we would be able to pull it off. We wound up shooting anyway during the breaks in the rain, and it was OH so worth it! I was glad we decided to shoot anyway. The dark clouds and stormy ocean provided a very dramatic backdrop to the pictures, like the one above.

We had been emailing back and forth about the shoot a few days before, and she had mentioned that she wanted to try and go for a look similar to the David Beckham shoot that was done for W Magazine in August 2007, only not quite as… risqué? The idea was, she like the style, but the extent of it was a bit much for what she wanted. The compromise? Looks rather like this. I was happy with it; so was she. And that… is the best of both worlds.

So did these things do wonders for my ego? You bet. I was honored and flattered to have been asked. It honestly gave me the warm and fuzzies to be able to do these sorts of things at all; to be chosen to photograph a wedding, or to take the portraits that will be sent to family and friends. Even more so when it’s someone that you know and work with in the capacity of a photographer, because they have seen not only the glory shots, but also the not-so-glorious ones as well and like your work enough to ask. Am I bragging a little here? Yeah… I am. A little.

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It’s In The Details

Friday, August 17th, 2007

One of the benefits of having a photography blog is that it forces you to go through all of your pictures and look through the whole lot to find the images that will illustrate the point. I have set a self-imposed rule for myself that each post will have at least one photo that has something to do with what I am writing about. It’s this particular rule that forced me to stumble onto something that I inherently knew but never really consciously thought about.

If you think of a wedding, and all of the planning that goes into it, you notice that there are A LOT of tiny little details that go into the making of one couple’s day.

As I went through the photos from Emily & Geoff’s wedding for the previous post, I stumbled on several images that jumped out at me that were not of the moments that happened throughout the day. This got me wondering why I thought these pictures were important, and it turned out that they were all shots of the smaller details that may otherwise go unnoticed. For example, the flowers that were used to decorate Emily’s hair… there was a lot of thought that went into designing and creating that little arrangement, and it blended very well into her overall appearance, but I really began to appreciate how artfully it was implemented when I saw the picture of it that did not include the rest of the outfit. It was a beautiful piece, that I am sure she had selected or had made for her by her florist, and it would have otherwise been lost in the sea of everything else that was going on, both visually and just through the course of the day.

There are so many little accessories that the couples bring to their wedding day; objects that they either painstakingly select or design, or personal items that are meaningful to them. Yet these are often glossed over and never really shown prominently in the pictures. Mind you, this is not always the case, but it often happens. I’ve been around lots of brides; many of which were not ones that I had photographed, but just people that are around me in my daily life. I’ve seen weddings being planned (and not only mine), and I’ve seen the agonizing over the seemingly little things that are just expected to be there; like… wedding favors, or table centerpieces… All of these things took effort and planning on the part of the bride and it would be a real shame to not have a photograph of them. And this is not limited to just accessories and flower arrangements. Food is an important part of every reception, and while most any photographer will have photos of the cake cutting, the other things served at a wedding reception are often picture-worthy.

I can not count how many times I have been to a wedding and have seen the trays of food that are so meticulously and beautifully arranged that they are works of art in their own right. Especially dessert… because who can resist the sweet stuff? Not to mention, strictly photographically-speaking… a chilled dessert on a hot humid day can provide for some great shots; for example, the chocolate covered strawberries. The little beads of condensation really add to the overall appearance of the picture. You can almost feel their chilled chocolate-covered goodness.

Every wedding I have photographed, I have paid special attention to the detail shots because I remember how much effort my wife and I went through to get our small items to be as we wanted them on our day, but that was an unconscious sort of thing. And now it’s something I am consciously aware of, because of this little exercise. Just about every photographer I have ever worked with has always done detail shots, but the extent to which small details are captured varies from one to the others. Personally, I think I am going to spend more time searching out these little details and capturing them on their own because what seems trivial to a guest or a photographer may be important to the bride, who will look back at the image and remember the preparation and the thought it took to accomplish them. Not to mention all of those cool little bits that get lost in the mix but can really shine on their own.

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