Attending a wedding

Had a blast attending a wedding.. as a guest this time.. It was hard not getting all the shots I normally would get.. I did give in and take a camera (minus my brackets and other toys), took way too many pictures at the reception. Not as many at the wedding, It was really hard not to be able to move around any. Especially when their photographer got right in front of me blocking my view of the first kiss. I know we have had to do it to someone before, but still.. I had to remind myself it wasn't my wedding and he HAD to get the shot. I also missed doing the formals, I assume they did great, they shot Canon cameras like we do, and really looked like they knew what they were doing.

Wedding are something we do because we enjoy them and it was enjoyable no to have the stress of getting all the pictures and enjoy the party.. I have seen something already I don't ever see in our wedding pictures, A picture of my wife and I on the dance floor! All in all we had a great time being guest that brought our cameras along.. We didn't try to compete with the photographers and stayed out of thier way and all had a blast.

We have a forth of july wedding that we are looking forward to, it should be a blast. Looking forward to shooting an outdoor wedding, and SPARKLERS and FIRE WORKS are in the works!!

Images - Albums

Talk about HOT... This weekend was HOT. Got some albums designs done.. Which made me think about some questions we get. How do we choose our album is a big one. Well We have done lots of albums in the past and we generally get pretty close to what you would like. Normally we have 2 or 3 pictures you might not like in your album, and we change those. We always allow you to preview your album before you place your final order.

People are amazed sometime the images we capture from their weddings to use for the albums, Stained glass, the outdoor view of the church, the Unity Candle, etc.. We try to, as we are photographing your wedding, capture as many detail images as we can. You might even see a few "Blurry" images in your previews, that while they are not good pictures they make great backgrounds when edited (changing contrast, brightness, etc). Images that are blurry are not accidents all the time, We call them SOFT FOCUS.. and they are a useful part of wedding albums. We even do some that have intentional streaks in them at receptions. We are not sure how your album will be designed until we see the images.. We have a pretty good idea, but always leave the creativity options open.

We also will accept a few images from you to put in your album, We do reserve the right not to use any of your images though if they do not meet our standards.

This coming weekend we are doing something rare.. We are atending a WEDDING as a GUEST.. It happens, and it is nice to leave the camera's home and enjoy the party. It would be unfair to the couple and us to shoot their wedding. I will be honest from the weddings we have attended as guests, it is hard to not to be involved with the pictures, suggesting poses, etc.. But they have professionals and they can handle their job. My job is to find a nice location to sit, close to the food and bar (okay I don't drink anything harder than Diet Pepsi but still nice to be close) with a good view of the dance floor, and just relax and enjoy our friends and family.

Playing Around a Little

As part of my on going training I'm always learning something new, This picture was from a couple weeks ago and was just handy.. The effect is called "stepping out of the frame" I'm a little rough with it yet so be kind.

I missed the car show this weekend, but that happens. It's been really busy lately and Just needed the day to relax.. Our son got up at 8am and climbed in bed with us and we slept until 10, got up and I made breakfest and the three of us just enjoyed the day.

Got an interesting question today about weddings, that does come up from time to time. What if we have to move the date? Generally we will work with you to move your date, provided we have your alternate date open. If you let us know as soon as you can then chances are good we can work with you. We have a backup team for weddings in case something happens and we can use them if all else fails. Also Sunday's are better for alternate dates. If you think it might change, for a small fee we can hold the second date for a while.

I'm going to start a section for Tips for Brides where I can share some questions I've got over the years. How to select a Photographer, or DJ or floist, etc.. one of the best ways I can say on any of these is look at the work of the PERSON you are hiring, not just the company. When you hire us, you get GEORGE STARR, not a photographer that just happens to be around and able to go to your wedding. You see my work here, some of my Second Photographer's work might appear in the albums, but in general you see the work I produce personally. If you see flower designs ask the florist, did YOU do these, or of a DJ ask him, are you the one that is going to be at my reception.

Now I will say there is the posibilty for a substitute lead photographer if something would happen with me. Generally it would be my wife or another well qualified Lead photographer. This has NEVER happened, but I am human so I won't say that it never will.

Next Time around I'll post up a little something on thing to remember.. You will be suprised what people forget.

Okay this Blog is titled Playing around a little, Here we see a Groomsmen doing what a Groomsmen does best on the day of a wedding.. KILL time..

On a kinda sad note: With rising prices everything goes up, and the same is with Wedding photography. Our price have been and always will be very reasonable, but there had been a slight increase in our package rates. Nothing earth shaking, and some of the packages have been updated to add more features. We have added Press Printed books, and guest books, even Canvas Gallery Wraps into some of our packages. We have also added Social Media Sized files of some of your favorite images so you can share your images on all the Social Networks out there like Linkedin, Facebook and MySpace. If we quoted you already don't worry we will honor our quoted prices for a few months. The new prices are on our web site http://starrphotos.net/weddingrates.htm It not all bad... some nice things have been added.

Great Weekend - Ault Park Car Show

Had a great weekend, Saturday morning my son and I went to Ault Park and had a generally great time. We ran into a preview of a Car Show... If you get a chance please show up next Sunday for a great car show, I was told there will be more than 250 cars there, in support of Juvenile Arthritis. A great group of people were previewing for the show, and even offered us Ice Cream, and one kind gentleman even let him sit in the rumble seat of his Packard.

Donovan Took a lot of pictures, If you want to see some check out our myspace page at
http://www.myspace.com/georgestarrphotography He's got a few sections of his photos on there... Guess it is time to make him is own web site.. He took the picture below, which I posted just to show the date and time. I'm not ready for him to assist me at a wedding yet, maybe when he turned 5 in a few months.. Just kidding.

Stormy Weekend

It was a stormy weekend but we stayed dry *MOSTLY* Our wedding on Saturday went well, when we were doing pictures outside we got ran back in when it started pouring rain. We got all but the wedding party formals whre they the bridemaids and Groomsmen were together outdoors, and we finished those up in front of the alter of the church. They all turned out great and are already posted for the couple and their guests.

It was really a busy month in May and we kept up pretty good. All the wedding photographs were up for display withing 3-4 days of the weddings which is well before our contract goal or 2 weeks!! We had a lot of great weddings last month and like always people are having a rough time narrowing down the pictures they want.

It's nice to finally have some warm weather for a change too...

Photo Tip: When you take a picture, any picture, divide the frame up into 4 sections and check the four sections to see what is in them, v/s your main subject. Look for things like Trash cans, bottles, trash, outlets, or other unsightly things. This simple step will become second nature after you've taken 20 or 30 thousand pictures... (okay, you might catch on before that)