New and Exciting stuff

Just had a meeting this week with a Social Network Consultant, Kind informative, and something we have done in the past. I.e. This blog, Myspace, Facebook and they recommended a couple others that I hadn't heard of "Twitter" and "Linkedin"

"Linkedin" looks really cool so far, join me on there at http://linkedin.com/ look for me via my email George@starrphotos.net

Great Weekend

The opening image is an Infra-Red Image of the Supension Bridge and Downtown Cincinnati.

I got spoilt over the weekend, the weather was great.. The days started out a little cool but turned out nice. My son and I went down along the Ohio River heading to the Newport Aquarium and got distracted by a Helicopter hovering above one of the skyscrapers. Being four and a half years old this was something for him so we stopped under the suspension bridge. We got out pictures of the helicopter and took some of the cityscape and bridge, took a walk and took some more. It was a very relaxing morning for the both of us. It does make me wonder how good he will be in a few years, he was using one of the extra cameras we have a Canon Rebel XTI which is about his size camera.

The image below is one of his favorite's and I love the angle he took it from, it's like really seeing it from his view.

Time for another Photo Tip

This week I'm going to go with a Photography Tip, The weather outside is really nice so lets take our cameras outside.

I'm a wedding/portrait photographer and I shoot people outdoors a lot. One of the biggest helps I have for shooting outdoors in the sunlight is my FLASH, yes a flash. What most peopel do is forget their flash when they go outdoors. Most of your point and shoot cameras have an option to turn on the flash even outside (flash always) or (Fill Flash) It really does work more than you think to light up faces and take away shadows caused by leaves, and other items.

I always try to find some shade to shoot in outdoors, it helps people not to squint, reduces hotspots on peoples skin and foreheads.

Granted shooting in direct sunlight is to be avoided when you can, but try using your flash. Even in the shade I use the flash to bring detail out for the main subject. I'd rather blow out the background (over expose it) than have the people so underexposed that you can't see their faces.

With an SLR camera you can set the flash power, I normally end up going to a setting that is +2 over what the meter thinks it needs. (see your manual on how to do this, EV+2)

Using your display on a digital camera outdoors is next to useless, shoot a few and and go inside and check your images until you have learned how to get the results you want outdoors.

One other note, for those of you with a Digital SLR, shoot in raw mode, it really helps if you are not right on your exposure, you get about 2 stops of extra exposure (forgiveness for a lot of photography sins)

Good luck and happy shooting!

George

(The Above picture is of My son - just having fun - no fancy equipment or anything)

Rough Times for all

I just saw a segment on the news this morning about Wedding and people spending less or downgrading their wedding expenses. This makes me feel for the young couples that I meet with and I hate seeing ones that walk away and not able to afford us, I just hope they have been able to find a photographer to meet their needs. I'm not sure they can find one that carries the amount of equipment that we do to any given wedding or that has the experience that we do as a team. We are not in the estimated 8,000.00 price range for photography that they listed, but I think that is very high for our area.

I've priced other photographers in the area and for what we offer there is very little competition in our price range. Sure you can find a “Photographer” cheaper, but do they have backup cameras, lighting, and most important, we have a second photographer, which is something that is normally not offered in our price range. I hope these couples don’t sell themselves short and go with someone that is not a true professional.

We do custom packages if your needs to not fall inside our standard packages, and we can work out monthly payments if that is easier for you. We don’t meet the prices of others, but if you look closely I bet you will find we beat most of them. If not let us know and we will look to see what is really different.

Okay - Fun Stuff

I just got done RE-SENDING my web site to the server! Some hacker, hacked into it and deleted some files that were needed to make it work. It's bad when people do this, makes me wonder why. Anyway, it's back up, by provider is researching what happened and I'm taking steps to prevent it from happening again.

If you tried to view our web site in the past and it wasn't up shoot me an email. I was wondering why things were slow from the internet and I guess with a site not working it could happen. Rest assured we are not going anywhere and if you ever do find our site not up and running please shoot me an email. I'll be watching it a lot closer. I found out due to wanting to add a link to our links page for a friend that sells Holy Clothing - you'll have to visit the site to find out more on this unique line of clothing http://kjsalittlebitofeverything.com/ tell her I sent you if you like.

Been a while - Sorry

WOW, trying to keep this update has been a test at times. Anway, The month of January was a busy month for us. Weddings and a couple other events kept us busy, which is a good thing but didn't leave a lot of time for blogging.

We are excited to be starting a new season, trying some new ideas, new shots, new poses, and new equipment. We have a couple of exciting ideas that will be tested over the next couple months and then offered to other couples.

On a SAD note, With the cost of everything from battries to shipping to insurance going up we are going to see a slight increase in our packages, which will still be very competitive in our market area. I'm trying to work it out so this will be a small impact on new customers. If you booked for a lower amout, your prices will NOT go up. Ala-Cart rates may go up very slightly.

WOW - Busy Winter

Sorry it's been so long, it's been a busy winter this year, The mild winters in the last couple years have led to more winter weddings, which is great. The churchs are so decorated with all the Christmas flowers, etc.. Easter is another great time for this and it's great! Anway, we had a great time at a the weddings, got some great pictures as normal. I'm very thankful for having Canon L lenses with Image stablizaton built in, during the last couple wedding we were not allowed to use flash during the cermony. The pictures turned out great regardless.

One of the recent weddings had a really entertaining DJ team that really kept the party moving, They actually did something I've never seen before with a picture frame. The Bride and Groom went around the Room as "Freeze Frame" was played, and posed inside the picture frame for a quick picture. At the time I didn't think much about it, but the pictures were FUN to look at and I'm sure the couple will enjoy them.

Okay, I've promised to start some tutorials and tips so I'll keep good on that.

Our Photo Tips:

When shooting a picture outdoors in this snow, set your camera to overexpose the picture by 1 stop. This will make the camera expose the snow as WHITE instead of a dingy blue/white or gray. If you are shooting people with it, you might want to turn on your flash to brighten up their faces in the picture too. This Fill-Flash is a great thing.

For some good locations for shooting in the snow try our local Cincinnati Parks like Sharon woods, Ault Park, Mt. Airy, Eden Parks Mirror lake, Devou Park overlook, etc.. You will probably run into some deer and other wildlife in your adventures. Esp, in Mt. Airy, there seems to be deer and racoon's there every time I'm in the park. You might try some of the smaller Cities like Covington, Fort Mitchell, and Newport for some very scenic urban snowscapes. The trees were really nice driving through town this morning.

Keep in mind your camera is a lot like you, It don't like a lot of the cold weather, and bringing it in and out of the cold is not the best thing in the world for it.you might try placing your camera in a plastic bag when you bring it back indoors from being outside to help avoid condensation on it a little. Also Battery life is shorter in the cold, keep a spare battery with you in an inside coat or shirt pocket.

If your Camera offers it, shoot in RAW or Camera RAW format, I use Adobe Lightroom and/or Photoshop to convert these into jpg files after any correction that needs to be done. Of course you might not have these programs, Adobe elements works pretty good also and most cameras included that program with them these days.

If you don't want to shoot in raw because it is too much work consider what you give up by shooting in jpg mode. a JPG file is a compressed file, where the color set is compressed down, the color depth is lower and even the dynamic range of the picture is lower. Generally a picture that might be over/underexposed by 2 stops can be saved simply by having a RAW file. I have shot side by side raw/jpg (our cameras will do both at the same time) and the JPG file loses detail in both the highlights and shadows, where the raw brings out much more detail to work with. The RAW file also does allows you more room in sitting white balance (A whole topic in it's self).

The most I can say is Try it for a while and see how you like it. Worst you have done is taken some pictures and had to put in a little extra time learning to use your camera and computer. Hopefully you have learned that RAW is better for a lot of things, I won't say all, because it does add some post processing time, but for important pictures like your wedding pictures it is all we use.