BUSY- and having a blast!

I’ve been having fun lately with photography projects, getting new prints, putting together albums (yes I said fun). I enjoy photography, and doing a nice album, nice prints, etc makes me feel good. I get to see the results as soon as I open up an order to check it for a customer. No matter how much I see on the screen, the prints are so much nicer. 11x14 size prints are a great way of showing off your photographs.

I’ve been getting a lot of people wanting to book wedding that are less than 2-3 months away, Some I have been able to help some I have referred to another wedding photographer, however, we’ve had to turn people down that might not have had to be if they booked early. People are booking right now into May of next year for us. We have a some dates open for the summer and fall, esp for Friday or Sunday weddings, feel free to ask us if your date is close, we might not have it open but can suggest someone to you.

Our preferred vendors list is growing, We added the DJ I mentioned last week to it, Young’s DJ Service – you can call Mike at 859-635-7716 Just tell him I sent you.

Also feel free to join us on www.Linkedin.com and network with us. And check out some of our work on Flicker at http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgestarrphotography On our regular website you can view a recent wedding album in our gallery section.

You can view our profile on the Professional Photographers of America web site at http://www.ppa.com/findaphotographer/9300/George-Starr.php

Fun Weekend... Lakes and Weddings

Thanks to a cancelation we had Friday off, so took the day off and went to Kincade lake and had a great time with my wife and son. The weather was great, and I took a camera a long with me and go several Birds of Prey (halks, etc). and just enjoyed sitting beside the lake for a while with the family.

Saturday we had a fun time out in California Kentucky with a really fun couple and their families. Tractors, shot guns, and a lake along with good food proved to be a good combo for a great time by all in attendance. We even had a DJ that we had worked with before who did a great job, I love the DJ's that work with the photographers and make sure we are ready for all the events of the evening. I'll post a link with his info on my web site later in the week because we'd love to work with him again.

The image above is a candid of the bride's mother taking a quick snapshot, and I just couldn't resist..

SPRING!!! Gotta love it!

Had a great weekend wedding down in Georgetown Kentucky, got the pictures all processed in record time. It was a great day for the weather, a little cool but not cold, but when you are working that’s always a good thing. We are geared up to handle an very busy spring wedding season, and the Senior Portraits and Boudoir sessions that are lining up.

Since we posted about the Boudoir sessions last week we’ve actually gotten a lot of interest in them from brides and others.

I’ve added a preferred vendor section onto the site also for local vendors that brides and others might find useful and there still is room for a few more to be added.

Business Notes:

This week due to a demand, we added a Store to our site where you can purchase some artistic prints. Right now it only has a few on it, but we’ll add more. Check it out at http://starrphotos.net/store Let us know what you think!!

Due to one person we have had a policy change in regards to personal checks, While we’ve always had a returned check policy we got our first bad check for a wedding since we’ve been doing weddings. It was for a deposit on a wedding date that was within 3 weeks of the booking on a Friday night. Looking at what other photographers are doing we have rethought our policy on personal checks, we are not going to penalize everyone for this one person, however, we would prefer a bank cashiers check or money order for the final balance but understand that does not work for everyone and we will continue to accept personal checks. For a wedding the is within a month (very rare) we will require the deposit to have cleared our bank. Just a side note, we do prosecute for bad checks plus fees. If you have issues let us know and we can work something out.


QUICK TIP:

This week I’m going to include a QUICK tip for taking photos in low light levels, We do this at weddings or even out and about when the light is not as bright as we would like. It’s great for shooting birds with a big zoom or flowers in the shade without a tri-pod. What you do if your camera allows it for it is to set for a burst, rapid fire or continuous shooting mode, and fire off several shots, the idea is that during one of the exposures you hopefully have held the camera still enough for one shot to turn out! Does it work? For me it works pretty good and some of the blurs are even useful for backgrounds, etc. You can also change your ISO to 400 to even 1600 and beyond depending on the camera you have, you get a little more grain but sometimes the trade off is worth it.

Gearing up and Adding Boudoir

Gearing up for a busy season, April and May are always busy months with weddings and we are looking forward to shooting in a lot of nice Churches and locations in the upcoming weeks. This weekend we are going down around Georgetown Kentucky, for a much anticipated wedding. Two weddings are scheduled for the next weeknd and several in May.

We’ve started offering Boudoir Sessions a while back but really never promoted them before now. If you read our web site you will find a link for http://starrphotos.net/boudoirphotography.htm On the page it list some questions you might have about Boudoir Photography, what to expect, costs, and a limited time offer for a select few people that want to Model for some samples that will appear on the website. We do have samples available upon request from previous models that requested not to be placed on a web site that is open to the public but are fine with them upon request. We do have releases for the pictures we display and your pictures will never be shown to anyone that you don’t show them to.

Boudoir photography makes a great gift for that special person. Over the years these images have become a popular to be given as a wedding or anniversary gift. Our limits are your limits as long as it is legal and not pornographic. We are open to Individuals, Girls Night Parties, and Couples. If there is something special you need we can probably help you. We do Mini-BLACK book albums and custom prints.

Another Great Week

Another GREAT Week - Had a shoot Saturday, in between raindrops at a local park, It turned out really well. The couple is getting married in a couple weeks and wanted a nice engagement fun picture for a signature matt. This isn't what they chose, but I liked this one, it shows why We do weddings, They are in love and it showed through he whole shoot and made me feel good for the rest of the day.

Wedding season is really starting up!! -Be sure to check our Links pages for Vendors that we recommend.

Time for another phototip - We've done, Exposure for shooting in the snow (hope we don't need this one again for a while), Shooting outdoors with Fill Flash. This week Lets go into a little of

Shooting at night
we are talking doing Cityscapes, building that are lit up, etc.

First off using a TRIPOD - This is really needed, although you can get by with using something like a wall, or a fence post, or even a trash can or top of your car. The important thing is not to move the camera during the extended exposure you need.

It helps to have a remote release too, or you can use the camera's self timer. If your camera has an option for Mirror Lockup that can help with vibration also.

Okay you have found something you want to take a picture of, set you tripod up mount your camera on it. You can try letting the camera take the picture, but I recommend playing with the settings to get the look you desire. Depending on the scene you can start at f11 at 1/2 second and go up and down from there. If you camera don't have manual settings you can still take the picture using your auto settings, Try flash on, flash off, this helps even though your flash can not reach or light the scene, most cameras will set the shutter to 1/60 of a second when using a flash. Sometime you can set a EV setting of +1 or +2 or -1 or -2 Try these and keep notes so you learn what works for your scene. I've shot scenes at f5.6 and 4 seconds and got great results, it all depends on what you are shooting. Next time around I'll write a little bit on using Flash at night for shooting people and other things close up, and even a WEDDING TIP will be included for those with SLR Cameras.

I shoot Canon SLR Cameras, and will do some Tips on settings for these cameras specifically too.