Formal wedding pictures can be pretty boring. Brides want pictures of her bff, the dress, cake, etc… parents want traditional family shots…. and there’s the groomsmen. I have found that before the ceremony, the groom and his men are awkwardly camera shy which can make for super awkward pictures. What’s cool though is that pictures with the Groomsmen are a rare opportunity where neither the bride nor the parents are involved… So let’s have some fun!

One solution is… to come up with an absurd theme and props that will fit the scenery-something that the groom and his men will value. If you have put in the time to learn the groom and the sense of humor he shares with his best friends, this will lighten the mood, turn the nervous energy into laughter, create lasting memories, and be a really unique selling point for you the photographer. Make sure you still get those formal pictures too but have some fun also :) Another example would be something as simple as leather bound books from your house and a box of gas station stogies…

Cold to Hot

With the temperatures rising, most people starting cranking the AC in their homes, cars, workplaces, etc. Although this is wonderful for us, it is dangerous for our cameras. Think about it. What happens to your cold drink glass as soon as you step outside when it’s hot? It develops condensation. The same thing can happen to your camera. If your camera is stored in a cold place and then you take it directly outside into a hot and/or humid climate, without giving the surface temperature of your camera time to acclimate, you can develop condensation. Now, depending on the hot/cold temperature extremes, the condensation build up could be anything from a minor fog developing on your lens to serious moisture build-up inside your camera body. This is not a good thing. If you can, keep your camera in a waterproof camera bag at all times. When you move to a location where the temperature has changed, unzip your bag a bit and let it sit. Stick your hand in the bag every few minutes until you think the interior temperature is the same at the exterior. If it is, feel free to start shooting to your hearts content.

Hot to Cold

The same goes for moving from hot to cold temperatures. Don’t jump in your car after a hot day at the beach, crank your AC, and leave your camera sitting un-protected on the seat next to you. Put your camera back in it’s protective bag, leave it unzipped just a bit, and give it time to acclimate.

*In winter months this is even more important. Condensation can freeze in or on your camera and create serious issues. Always give you camera a safe, waterproof place to adjust.

I’m talking about loss of memory card storage capacity. For some stupid reason, memory cards today slowly begin to loose more and more storage space over time. Most people chuck this up to cards simply wearing out and just replace them. Forget that! This economy stinks and I don’t have money to just be chucking out the door like that. When I buy a memory card, I expect it to last me for years with no problems. End of story.

So I did some serious research and some tests of my own and here is what I found…

Memory cards that are constantly having images deleted while still in your camera will loose storage space more rapidly than cards that are simply reformatted at the end of each use.

Besides, not deleting pictures in camera will make you a better photographer. You’ll spend more time focusing on the next shot, and less time worrying about if you nailed the last one. You’ll never miss the perfect shot with your head up looking for it, rather than buried in your camera’s LCD.

Really that just means…

Don’t ever delete pictures while the card is still in your camera.

Format instead.

When you delete pictures in camera, you slowly loose storage capacity.  To avoid this…

#1. Carry extra cards on you at all times to avoid the need to delete in camera.

#2. When you get home, download all of your images to your computer using a data transfer cable or an external card reader

#3. Put the card back in your camera

#4. Format the card to erase all content

Too much dead space- everyone has seen these pictures before. A cute picture of the kids that gets lost in an entire forest of trees or a silly dog being swallowed up by the entire living room. If you’ve ever done some scrapbooking or even written a persuasive paper you have, hopefully, developed a sense of “less is more”. Only capture what you need to tell the story. With the example below… you do not need miles of field to make the point that the kids are playing soccer. Forgo the awkward kid standing in the background for a truly interesting, story-telling picture.

Go for a test shoot and test yourself. Take a shot how you normally would… then think to yourself, “What do I really need to make this picture make sense.” Then try taking less of the same shot again. You’ll be surprised how quickly the impact of your images will strengthen just by ditching some of the extra dead space.

Now, for some of you more advanced photographers… Yes, dead space can be an artistic tool. Take this shot below for example. This is a good use of dead space that creates a natural frame to your subjects and gives a sense of place. If you choose to leave some dead space around your subjects, other than for enlargement purposes (explained in a later post), just make sure that it is necessary.

Happy Shooting!

Glasses! In all of his pictures, his subjects were sitting at dinner tables with lots of glassware. The flash he was using, even though he was bouncing off  the ceiling, created glassware reflections on EVERYONE’s face. Pretty crazy, huh? It took us about 1/2 an hour to figure that out but, boy, I will never make that mistake after seeing these.

Free Photoshop brushes! You can download millions of free photoshop brushes right from the internet. All you have to do is google “free photoshop brush” and start browsing. Usually they come in packs of a few different brushes. Just download the zip file, save it to your computer, open it, then click on the brush tool in photoshop to starting playing with them. This is a really great tool to ad just a bit of fantasy to your images. Be careful though! Don’t get too sucked in or your images could like they belong on an early 90′s album cover. Keep it simple.

Here is an example of how to use and how not to use the brushes:

Tasteful                                           Corny 90′s album cover

I get my brushes from http://myphotoshopbrushes.com

Enjoy!

frankwindolf@gmail.com = SCAM ARTIST!!!! Found him on Oodle Classifieds and he kept referring to a camera as an “item”, could not tell me where he got it or why he was selling it. He had pictures so it seemed legit (ANYONE can take images off of another ebay or flikr listing and sell them as their own) and was going to undercut the retail value by almost $1,000. I was super excited UNTIL I started asking questions about banding, etc.. to which he said, “I am not very familiar with this item”. I was trying to purchase a Leica camera… How in the world could he own one and not be familiar with it? No one just buys a Leica because they like taking pictures- its a super niche camera.

If ANYONE asks you to pay with “eBay Direct Payment”… DON’T! Ebay does not offer such a thing.Only use PayPal or a legit Ebay Buy It Now auction.

Make sure sellers can answer SPECIFIC questions.

For camera bodies purchases, knowledgable sellers should be able to send you 2 images:

1. High ISO and low shutter speed with the lens cap ON- this will show you if the sensor has any hot pixels- some is ok…but not a ton. Software like Lightroom will correct them.

2. Low ISO, high Aperture against the whitest, flattest, plainest surface possible- This will show you if there is dust on the sensor- again, some is ok but but huge smudges. Those are going to be a pain to remove from every picture later.

Stay Safe Everybody!

The Canon 24-70mm 2.8! It is absolutely my go to lens for everything! Portraits, Weddings, ! I borrowed one from a very dear friend to shoot a wedding in the spring and I NEVER took it off. I love the range, it’s fast enough for any conditions, and I love the picture quality. I’ve used it for weddings outside in direct sunlight that went straight into a dark reception hall and continued outside for late night dancing and I never had to switch lenses. For the convenience and quality- it’s worth every penny!

I get my gear on Amazon, Ebay, B&Hphoto, & Adorama.

In our eBook coming out Spring 2011, we will go into greater detail about how to build a camera kit that fits your needs.

Too many newbie photographers, myself included, UNDERESTIMATE…

how much TIME is involved after the wedding. We think the hard part is over, go home, plop on the couch, and take a nap with no idea about the monster that awaits us in those memory cards. Take our first wedding. We took roughly 3,500 shots out of which we kept 409. Just to make that preliminary cut…not even editing them yet, took 3 weekends. Now granted, it was our first one and we didn’t really have a system but, still, it took forever! So now 4 out of our 8 weeks were gone (we took the first week off because of how achy our bodies were). We weren’t panicking yet. In actuality, we thought we had plenty of time! Hindsight is twenty-twenty. Things came up, weekends went out the window and before we knew it…we had 3 weeks left. Once I realized that I needed at least one of those weeks for all the prints to get back to me- I knew we were in trouble. 2 weeks to edit was all we had left. Long story short, we used every waking moment we had and finished on time… so much for thinking, “The hard part is over”. Don’t under estimate. Plan ahead. Start importing as soon as you get home and then make a plan for how many pictures you need to edit each week, day, whatever, so you can meet your deadline.