Family shoots can be fun and creative... see?

This was a recent family shoot that is fun as it can be... well, maybe I am biased.

p.s.studio Photography: Preview "Family shoots can be fun and creative... see?"

p.s.studio Photography: Preview "Family shoots can be fun and creative... see?"

Planning a Wedding

Planning a wedding is no small task. However, by following some guidelines, assuming you have not hired a wedding planner, you can take most of the stress out of the process and relax on your wedding day. The next few articles will be dedicated to helping you plan your wedding with less stress and actually look forward to your wedding rather than looking forward to the day being over.

Let's start with when do you start planning? I believe that the sooner you begin planning the better off you are. If possible start finding your key vendors as much as a year in advance. Start looking for a dress at the same time. Once the dress and the vendors have been selected they each will offer you tools and valuable insight to help you with your planning and ideas.

Now some might say that I am biased in this article... well, maybe they would be right. I believe that no vendor is more important than the wedding photographer you choose. Why? Number one if you connect with the wedding photographer and you are comfortable with them you will have better photographs ... period. You will be more relaxed and the wedding photographer will be encouraged to take more chances on creative shots.

The second reason I feel that the wedding photographer is so important is that after the wedding day is over, the cake has been consumed, the dress is packed away, and everyone has gone home, no one including you will remember too much about the meal, or most other things that happened that day and you are counting on the wedding photographer to capture the feeling of the day... to tell the story in photographs.

Twenty five years from now the one thing you will still be admiring as a remembrance of that day will be your photographs of your special day. When you are celebrating your 50th anniversary... guess what the kids and grand-kids will be looking for and admiring? I cannot emphasize enough that from where I see it the photographs are the one area which you should not cut corners. You will have to be the judge if you feel the same way.

One last word on that subject. If there is one thing I have heard over and over, after the excitement of the wedding day is over and they reflect on various decisions made are those which regret not having spent more time on the Photographs and placing more emphasis on that aspect of the wedding. There are no re-do's here.

Click here to get a checklist of possible wedding photographs you may want to provide to your photographer.

To my good friend Tony... Happy Birthday!

Jack is Back ... and he is one year old!

Jack is back and cuter than ever. His parents cut him loose with a Birthday Cake... and as it turns out he was quite the cake consumer... I know my Schnauzer would have loved to clean his little feet! This is a special little occasion for us too, as we have had the privilage of documenting Jackson from his newborn days and through his first year... how much would I give to have a collection of cute fine art photographs like this...  Jay, Meagan, and ourselves are very blessed to have this opportunity... I also received my studio canvas yesterday of little Jackson... it is absolutely gorgeous...!

This was little Jackson about one year ago...

The Ferguson & Weimer Familia...

Listen, we always enjoy seeing Stacey and George... they have a comfortable nature between the two of them which always translates into great photographs... we also think they are extremely pleasant people. Having said that it never hurts that they photograph like a magazine cover... this time they brought along a gang of family members... turns out, they all make for great photographs! Can't wait to shoot 'em again!

Easter Tots...

Well, It is always fun taking shots of these little stinkers... Ali is becoming quite the intuitive model... while Kaylee is still a bit like trying to shoot an escaping roadrunner... she has an attention span... about 3 milliseconds... we had a really good time... then had some Ice Cream... not a bad day.... not bad at all.

Breanna

Breanna was a great Senior model. We had a great time and she really produces some beautiful photographs. We received a couple of remarks from her mom relaying the reaction of Breanna and some other family members which meant so much to us... everyone seemed to love them ... including us!

Music from the Web Site

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sarahsswingset

This band is in the Bloomington - Brown County area. I really enjoy their music... and I think you will too. They also have a great Christmas CD which never left my player all through December.

Kaylee Turns the ripe old age of 1...

Kaylee is one of the most expressive little people I have ever seen. I call this one "in the photographers eye"... if you look closely you can see me holding the camera in the reflection in her eyes.... priceless. You can see more from this celebration in the client viewing area on the website.

Click on the picture and you can see what I mean.

Pinnacle Studio HD v14 and 5d video Review

http://pinnaclesys.com/PublicSite/us/Products/Consumer+Products/Home+Video/Studio+Family/Studio+Ultimate+Collection+14.htm

Well after much research and trying several different complex methods discussed by people in discussion forums on the net... what did I find? Well, if you are primarily a photographer the answer is definitely Pinnacle Studio HD v 14. It handles the 5D files like they are a simple jpeg...

The bottom line is that they advertise that it works fine with a simple import and no conversions. It is the truth. It has a very simple interface. They have great tutorial support. It comes with a GreenScreen and a nice manual (rare these days), and it does what it says as advertised. For photographers that want to do some small productions and not necessarily feature films this program is packed with useful tools and effects and allows an awful lot of latitude for this price... at any price in fact. I would go into more of the features but a tour of their site will tell you everything you want to know and offer you a free 15 day trial.

If you have a 5D Mark II, do not want to become and engineer, and want to make some great video including still video, I highly recommend Pinnacle Studio HD v 14.

One of my all time favs...

The Plan...

The plan is to get this blog up and moving and then migrate some of the stuff from the old Wordpress blog to this site. More importantly I am going to have an extension to this blog which will include equipment reviews as well as video tutorials and a host of other helpful stuff. Thank you for visiting my blog.

New Blog... Starting over

Well, just when you were used to my old blog... I decided to start over. I am hoping that this new blog will allow me a little more latitude in what I can do with it. It seems a never ending process... always something to do... guess it beats watching the depressing news!