Thanks for checking out my site! I'm a lifestyle photographer living in Jacksonville Florida. I've been taking pictures ever since my parents got me an all manual 35mm camera when I was 12. That camera served me well as the Staff Photographer for my Jr. High and High School Yearbooks. I continued learning all I could about photography through my adult years.
What fascinates me about photographs more than almost any other medium, is a photograph's ability to immediately take you back to the very moment the image was made. There are very few things as satisfying as somone looking at a picture that I took and instantly laughing as they remember the moment. That's what fuels my approach to photography. I document memories.
My first wedding of the season is “in the can” as they say in the film industry. It was a gorgeous Florida winter day today. Mid upper 60’s and lots of sunshine. Trudy and Steve had a rather relaxed wedding. A simple service with friends and family then a reception back at their house. Here’s a sneak peak of the day. I’ll post more and give some details when I return from the WPPI convention in Las Vegas.
Woohoo! I’m heading to Vegas to go to the WPPI Conference at the MGM Grand. I’m so excited! It’ll be a few days of learning, networking, partying, and hanging out. I may sneak in a round of black jack while I’m there, too. However, I’m horrible at cards, so I’ll only do it to say I did it. So, if you are going to WPPI, here’s my schedule. I’d love to connect with you while I’m there. All times are Pacific.
It’s going to be an exhausting trip. There are many more parties that I may go to, many people to meet, a HUGE show floor to cover. It’s going to be crazy. I may not sleep… I guess I can catch up on sleep when I get back home.
So… here’s a picture that’s completely unrelated to this post, but blogs are boring without pictures.
Last night was Celebration Church’s launch of “Sub30” a new college and career’esq service. As Pastor Josh Turner brashly stated, “If you are over 30, you are too old”. Yep, this is a service for post high school, but under 30 crowd. Held in Celebration’s Annex, Sub30 has more of a coffee house vibe than a church service and the Annex coffee bar and chill atmosphere puts Starbucks to shame! The night opened with Ryan Kirkland from Between the Trees playing an acoustic set while people hung out and enjoyed their coffee. Over all… great night!
If at all possible, I avoid direct flash from my camera. It’s just not very interesting and makes the images look flat. On a recent trip to Disney World in in Orlando Florida, I took my typical walking around the park set up. One camera body (my Canon 5d mk2) and my 50mm lens. Simple. I also bring a long a hot shoe flash (the kind that sits on top of the camera), but it rarely comes out to play. However… there are times when you really need a flash. For example… in really bright daylight when the dynamic range of a scene (the difference between the brightest part of the scene and the darkest part of the scene) is just to broad for a camera to handle it. Without a flash you have to decide to either underexpose something, or over expose something, but you aren’t going to get everything exposed properly. This is where you just have to have a flash, reflector, or some other light source to balance out the scene.
I’ll usually break out the flash and bounce it off of something. A wall, someone with a white t-shirt, ceiling, or whatever. Not this time… this time, I brought a long the the new Pocket Wizard ControlTL triggers. LOVE THEM! They are so small and easy. I put a MiniTTL and a FlexTT5 in my wife’s purse along with a 580 EX II. I almost didn’t use them at all on this trip. Then, my friend Jonathan noticed these cool cloud patterns. I wanted to get a shot looking up at the clouds with Jonathan in the foreground. Due to the high dynamic range of the scene, I had three choices:
So, I grab the flash and mount the FlexTT5 on it and slip the MiniTT1 on my camera. I manually get my exposure on my camera and set the flash to TTL and hand it to my wife to hold and point at Jonathan. I lay on the ground in the middle of the street at Hollywood Studios and snap the shot. I’m sure I looked like a crazy to all the tourists, but hey… I got this shot, so who cares right! Sacrifice for the art!!!
Wedding season officially kicks off for me next Sunday with Trudy and Steve’s wedding. Trudy told me that she was putting together bookmarks for her guests and needed a picture. She lives in my ‘hood, so I told her I’d stop buy and grab a quick shot. Her and Steve are so in love and are excited about next week, so it was a blast to see them and hear all about their final week of preparations. Here’s my favorite from our very-mini-session.
by tlester
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