June 11th started pretty early at 5:30am... getting up, getting ready to go!  Kris Jacobs and I had packed up all of our gear the night before, batteries charged, lenses and sensors cleaned, CF cards formatted.  We packed up the car and took off by 6:45 for the hour drive up to Rochester to pick up Terri Parthum.  We loaded Terri's gear up and then hopped onto 104 for the hour and a half drive to Hannibal, near Oswego, to meet up with Amanda at her parents house.

We arrived at Amanda's parents to see the huge 40' x 100' white tent set up in the side yard all ready for the big day!  Amanda was in a bit of a tizzy trying to get everyone ready so we headed off to the church to get ready there.  

And what a church!  Absolutely gorgeous!  Amanda arrived a little while later and we shot some images of her and her mom and the rest of the girls getting ready.  The light streaming in through the small, high windows on the wall was just perfect!  Made for some great portraits!

The ceremony went quickly with all of Amanda and Abe's families watching on.  Lots of smiles.  One of my favorite things about weddings - everyone is so happy!

After the ceremony we shot through as many formal portraits as we could before we were kicked out of the church for the next ceremony!  Then off to the lakeshore for some more informal portraits of the wedding party and our newly married couple.  The weather was beautiful and welcome after an iffy forecast from the weatherman!

Then back to the tent and the reception for the reception!  Abe is Ethiopian so there were some very interesting dishes in the buffet that I had to try.  Different tastes but very good!

The DJ, Casey, from Whirling Disc DJ's, was absolutely awesome and played a great mix of country, pop, rock, hip hop, and even some Ethiopian tunes!  He turned out to be a pretty good dancer, too!  Really kept the crowd hopping!  And there were some pretty awesome dancers in the crowd too!

A little after 8 we said our goodbyes and packed up for the drive home.  Dropped off Terri in Rochester and finally got back home a little after 11.  A long 17 and a half hour day - typical, huh?  The life of a photographer...

Thanks so much to Kris and Terri for all the help, all the great images to come, and all the company on the road!  

And, of course, thanks to Amanda and Abe for allowing the three of us to help celebrate the start of their new life together!  It's always a pleasure to spend time with great people!

Scott

There are times when things seem to come together in a whirlwind of circumstance that makes everything seem right.  The right place at the right time with the right attitude, desire, and skill.  Setting the alarm clock for "0 dark 30" notwithstanding, these are the times that bring the most pleasure.  And seeing the images that I can create makes it even that much more important.

A good friend introduced me to a place years ago that I often return to.  It's a place of open water and dock and wildlife that is just plain cool.  I went back there a few times in the past couple of weeks wanting to capture sunrise over the water.  The first time I was pleasantly surprised with a flock of swans hanging out as additional subjects!  Here's how it goes...

Rolling out of bed at 4:30, packing equipment into the car, and driving away with the hope of coming back with some great photographs.  Stop in at the local Tim Horton's for coffee and a breakfast sandwich.  Arrive at the spot I want to start at just before the light of the sun starts to brighten the morning sky.  It's dark but there are some lights outside of the buildings close by, enough to see where I'm going and what I'm doing.  Listen to the water and the birds making small stirring noises in the anticipation of a new day.  Just a very cool feeling.

I set up my camera on the tripod at the end of a narrow dock.  I keep the neck strap around my neck.  Don't want to drop anything into the water!  I can't extend the tripod legs out as far as i would like for stability due to the width of the dock.  I also can't move much because the dock moves with me.  

Looking out over the water I can see the first glow of the sun beginning and it's soft reflection on the surface of the water.  As I'm looking I see a bunch of rocks or logs or something floating around, not knowing yet that these are the swans, still sleeping.  I compose and snap a few shots, adjusting my settings so that I get the look that I want.  The key to getting some of the very saturated colors is to actually underexpose your images.  Just like using gels on studio lights - if you want more saturated color from your lights you have to turn the power down, not up!

As the sun creeps higher around the horizon the swans start moving around, yawning and stretching.  Now that I realize that they are there I use them in my composition, waiting for the right stretch or turn of the head.  It's very hard not to get so caught up with the images that you miss opportunities for even better shots.  So I keep my eye to the viewfinder with both eyes open so that I can see more than just what the camera sees.  In this way I can be ready to recompose if I see something happening.  Sometimes you're too late and you miss it.  Sometimes you catch something you weren't expecting.  Sometimes things just work out.

The second time I came back here the swans were missing, choosing somewhere else to hang out.  Disappointing... but a great sunrise made up for it!  Just focus on other things.  Change lens choices to give a totally different composition and look.  Keep and eye out for the swans, maybe there are a few still here... 

After the sun was up I moved on to other places.  Water scenes are fun because you can look for those angles where reflections can happen - sometimes big vistas, sometimes small graphics.  Whatever they are, I like them a lot!  Not much wild life here except for the odd person walking their dog.  

By this time the sun has risen high in the sky and the light and shadows aren't as interesting to me.  Time to make my way home and download what I've been working on, bring them into Lightroom and play some.  This is sometimes as fun as shooting the images in the first place!  The camera doesn't see with the same eyes as we do.  Images lack the depth, dimension, contrast, and color saturation that I remember seeing with my naked eye.  Using Lightroom, Photoshop, and Photomatix to bring that back can be very rewarding!

Anyway, here are a smattering of my favorite images from these two outings.  I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do!  Have a great day!

Scott

Yesterday I was lucky enough to be able to attend a seminar given by two of my favorite photographers, Joe McNally and David Hobby, along with 300 other photographers!

David Hobby, aka "The Strobist", shot for the Baltimore Sun for years and has since branched out into traveling the world shooting assignments and teaching the art of small flash photography.  I read his blog religiously and I have learned so much there!  David is a big proponent for DIY equipment and learning how to use the equipment you have to it's best advantage.

David is all about using small flash in a logical manner and totally manually.  No iTTL (intelligent through the lens) control here!  

For those of you I just lost, here's a little sidebar to explain.  Nikon and Canon (and other manufacturer's flashes) can be used in two main modes, manual and TTL.

In manual mode you physically set each flashes power output, from 1/128th power to 1/1 or 100% power.  If you have three zones of lighting control then each of these three or more flashes get set manually to the power level that you want to use to achieve the look that you want in your image.  Take a test shot.  Tweak the lighting (power, direction, light modifiers, etc).  Shoot again.  Etc, etc, etc.  The flashes are normally triggered directly via hot shoe or sync cord, or wirelessly via Pocket Wizard or some other radio trigger system.  (There are lots of ways to trigger flashes but it doesn't matter how you trigger them as long as the flash goes pop when you want it to!)

In TTL, or Through The Lens mode, you let the camera sense the light output from your individual flashes and let it control the power output of them.  Flashes communicate with the camera via a preflash that allows the camera to measure the distance to the subject, the ambient light, your camera settings, etc, and then wirelessly (optically or electronically) tells the flash what it's power output should be.

David's approach is to first assess the ambient light and determine how to use it.  you control the ambient light by changing your shutter speed - the slower the shutter speed, the more light hits the sensor and the brighter your ambient light will appear.  Make your shutter speed faster and you can quickly make a bright scene look totally dark!  Then choose the aperature that you want to work at to make the image have the depth of field (sharp focus throughout the image or only sharp in a small area where you want it sharp) that you want.

The next step is to add a Key or Main light on your subject.  Determine the quantity (power) and quality (hard or soft) of light that you want to make your image.  Adjust the power of the flash or flashes to achieve a good exposure for the shutter speed and aperature that you chose already.  Be willing to make changes here as photography is all about having to make compromises between the light you have, the light you can make, ISO, aperature, and shutter speed!

Now, add a Fill light, if needed, to bring out the level of detail that you want in the shadow areas of the image.  This light will be at a different, lower, power output setting from the Key light.  Add accent lights and background lights as you want to, as David says, "Season the image.  Salt to taste."  

Seems kind of daunting doesn't it?  It's not that hard to do mechanically but artistically the way you use your lights either makes or breaks an image.  And there are a gazillion different ways to do it and even more light modifiers - reflectors, soft boxes, umbrellas, snoots, flags, gobos, scrims, beauty dishes, grids, etc, etc, etc.  Choosing what to use and how to use it is the art in the photography!

David does a wonderful job of showing how he approaches a situation and navigates and previsualizes and creates an image in a very logical manner which totally resonates with me and my math and physics background!

 Joe McNally I have talked about before.  I attended one of his one day seminars in Dobbs Ferry, NY last year.  He's made his living shooting for newspapers, Life, National Geographic, and other magazines for a long time.  There's alot more too him than just that though.  He's a great guy and a wonderful teacher and, of course, a Nikon guy like me!

Joe uses TTL almost exclusively.  I say almost because sometimes things just don't work right.  But for the most part that is how he works.  Joe starts the same way that David does, assess the ambient light and determine what to do with it.  The difference comes in with technique.  Joe is much more about what feels good to him, what might look cool, what do I have in my bag of tricks that I can use...  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that he has a method there but it's much more nebulous to me!  

Both of these guys make stunning images that anyone would be proud of making!  I try to pick and choose from what they teach and apply these things to how I approach my photography.  Along with everyone else that I can learn from, of course!  I find that one of the most important things to me is to continue to learn and continue to evolve.  What can I do different next time to make that image just a little bit better?  What can I change to make the mood of an image different?  What if I did this?  Or that?  Or... well, you get the idea.  Photography is a target that continuously moves and flips and turns as you do.  I guess that's why I love it so much!

There are two things that I picked out of hours of instruction that I want to pass on to you, two quotes, one from Joe and one from David.  Take them to heart...

"You don't want legibility at the expense of three dimensionality." - David Hobby

In other words, flat light makes for a flat picture.  Sculpt the light and the shadows to give life to your subject!

"Your camera is a dumb piece of metal and plastic until you infuse it with your head and your heart." - Joe McNally

This should be a photographers creed.  It's a photographers head and heart that makes the difference and makes it possible to create images that are more than just pictures.

Thanks to Joe and David for a great show, class, and experience!  And thanks also to their crew, many of whom I have met before and have the utmost respect for!  Karen Lenz, Drew Gurian, Mike Cali, Jeff Snyder (from Adorama) and Mike Grippi!

Have a great day everyone!

Victoria posted:

"I've done 1 wedding. Most nerve-wracking experience ever. I'd rather deliver another baby - much easier!

Which do you find more important - Lightroom or PS? Or, do they really work best together?"

Well, Victoria, I have had Lightroom as a big part of my workflow since it first came out with Beta 1 and I use it for every shoot, wedding, portrait session, or sports team.  Don't get me wrong, Lightroom is not a replacement for Photoshop.  However, many of the things that I used to do in PS I know do in Lightroom much quicker!

My wedding workflow includes downloading all of my images to my Drobo and creating a new catalog in LR.  When I import the images into LR I add keywords and, when I remember, rename all the files.  If I forget then I rename them all later!

I then go through and edit the images in LR, throwing out obvious problem images - blinks, over flashes, backs of heads, etc.  I mark each image with a one star and set up a Smart Collection for all images > one star.  From that point on I work with only those images.  I then go through a second edit, picking out images that I want to work on more like black and white conversions and such.  I create another Smart Collection and add the red color tag to them.  

Also, during the second edit I choose the best images out of sets of images.  Many times, especially with a second photographer, there are multiple images of a single situation from different angles with different lighting, etc.  There is always a best image or set of images that are better in my opinion than others.  I mark these with a two star and, yes, create another Smart Collection.  These are normally the final cut.

I then go through the images again doing minor color correction, white balance, exposure, etc.  I also keep looking for special images that I want to play with more and add them to the Red collection.

After I have gone through everything I go back to that Red collection and play!  I make Virtual Copies of the images and do conversions to black and white, sepia, or a host of other treatments that can be found for free online or that you can make yourself!

Here's where PS comes in - there are going to be images that need some masking done.  Whether to create a special effect or get rid of the exit sign above the bride and groom.  LR is very limited when it comes to doing this but it is the strength of PS!  Normally, this accounts for just a handful of images for me, but what a difference!  Many times an image isn't useable until you get it through PS.

So, to my mind, LR is the more important of the two programs in my workflow.  But I wouldn't go without PS, too!  They make a great pair!

Thanks for the question Victoria!

Hi All!  Just thought that I would show a little of what I do after a wedding shoot!  Many people look at the cost of a wedding photographer and say, "Wow!  And just for taking pictures?!?  I could do that!"  And they're right, they could do that!  However, if you have ever taken an hour of your time to look through a friends snapshots from their vacation to Disneyland, you know that there must be something more than that to it!

The things that make a professional photographer different are the intangible things that most people don't think about - composition, focus, depth of field, color, pose, emotion, and a myriad of other things.  All of this is going through my mind when I'm shooting a wedding.  Sometimes though you see a shot that you love but the conditions are just not prime and you only have a few minutes to make the shot before everyone moves on to the next destination.

That was the case with this shot.  Laura was just hanging out with her friends waiting for the previous wedding at Chapel Hill to finish up and move out of the church.  We were making a few portraits and I noticed the colors on the porch and the railings and the columns.  However, the light was very harsh and direct from the sun above.  I knew that we would be going into the church in just a few more minutes but I really wanted to get this image!  So, rather than fight the conditions, I asked Laura to move to the shade side of the column to block the sun from her face and made my exposure consistent with getting her face exposed properly.

Of course, this made for many compromises - the direct sun on the white column and railing meant that the highlights would be blown out and over exposed.  Moreover, the background now had a sign that I really did not want in the image!  Laura's dress was just a little bit over exposed too, resulting in a loss of detail.

All these things might have made this image unusable without some help from Lightroom and Photoshop.  I used lightroom to increase contrast, warm the white point, adjust exposure, recover the highlights in Laura's dress, and straighten the image a touch.  Then I used Photoshop to remove the sign from behind Laura, smooth Laura's skin a little, and tweak the colors a bit.  I like the new image much better!

Of course, this doesn't get done to every image that I take during a wedding but at least a small part of it does get done to every image.  It takes many hours to download, edit, color correct, exposure correct, back up, and upload the final images from each wedding!  

So, the next time you hear someone talking about how "taking pictures" at a wedding can be done by anyone, think about this post and ask yourself this question, "Should I trust the most important images of my life to Uncle Bob and his newly purchased pro-sumer camera?"  And then come visit my website or the website of my comrade professionals to appreciate the differences that we can make for you!

Well, it's 4 degrees outside but the pellet stove is roaring quietly and keeping us all nice and toasty warm.  The hills surrounding Hornell and Dansville are thoroughly coated with snow and I haven't been out to shoot!  

Why, you ask?!?  Well, I've been finishing up Laura and Michael's wedding books!  They are all complete and on order now and the next project is already underway!  Some PS work on Yulia and Nicholas' Russian Orthodox wedding before getting them their DVD.  I'm hoping to get permission to post a few images from their wedding... we'll see!  There are some great shots in there - one adorns the back of my phone right now!  It's a vinyl skin that I created on Uniqueskins.com!  Great product and pretty cheap so I can change the image when I want to!

I spent an afternoon with Ann, Julia, and Jordan last week in Mount Morris making some great portraits!  I have been shooting Julia since she was three months old and it's been such a pleasure to watch her grow and change!  Missed seeing Charlie this time though - he was working!  Jordan made up for it though!  Such a cutie pie!

Here's a few shots to warm your morning - I need to get some coffee...

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Scott