My Baby!!

Well, I packed up the Mark III and shipped it in for the mirror assembly fix the other day. I am missing my camera already. I have 2 other DSLR bodies, but they are not the same as the Mark III. I should have it back by this Thursday, since I am a CPS member and they did promise me a 5 day turnaround. It figures though. As soon as it is gone, I have an urge to shoot all kinds of things that I didn't before. Typical 'don't know what you got till it's gone' mentality. Oh well, I can just keep a candle in the window until she's home.

Jeff
-3D-

recap

Ok, I promised that I would post a recap of the pst several days for those of you who are interested. So I spent last weekend shooting a the Cheerleeder competittion in Athabasca. All of the hotels in town were booked, but I stayed a the loveliest B&B. It is owned by a local artist who uses it as a gallery and studio. I would highly reccommend it to anyone. I believe that name of the place was the Red Roof Gallery. I was also fortunate enought to shoot with Annette and James who had a lovely baby girl not so long ago, here is a shot of her. I wish them all the best. Rowen is a beautiful girl and has a really nice temperment.

I think I hear my daughter upstairs, sounds like she is sick. Gotta run.

Jeff

Posting on the blog

I have been busy for the last week shooting families, 2 separate cheerleading competittions, framing, going to seminars, and meeting with clients, yet I haven't posted on the blog in 10 days. I promise to put some stuff up here soon. Probably a recap of the week post. I am not on my main computer right now so I will not be posting any images in this post, however I will post a really cool link to a good thread about lighting diagrams. www.modelmayhem.com/p.php?thread_id=96872&page=1 It serves a a great learning tool and is very good reminder to us all to save that lighting info. Even the positions are quite critical if you ar replicating a shot. I have an old favorite that I use for pregnancy shoots, and the position and height of the back light are very important to how the light wraps the subject. Once I had the source too low and too far back and didn't get the result I wanted. It is a simple 1 light set-up, so I never really thought much of it, but in hind sight had I made a lighting map I could have got the exact result on this and every subsequent shot. Now I have it commited to memory, but I ought to take more shots of my setups myself so I can contribute to the pool of information.

Jeff -3D-

Cheer team competittion

I had the pleasure of shooting some cheer teams this weekend at a competittion. I must extend my thanks to Brian from On Sight Photography for allowing me to shoot along side of his team for the event. I was there to get some practice and see what one can expect from this type of event since next weekend I am headed to Athabasca to help Burnadette shoot a cheer event up there. Upon arriving, I saw that there was a pro dedicated to shooting the event, and out of respect for their contract, I sought out the person in charge of the photography to introduce myself, and ask for their consent to allow me to shoot there. While they were not too keen on the idea of having someone else 'eat their sandwich' so to speak, I was able to convince them that I was not there to cut in on the gig. In fact I offered to shoot for them, as an additional photographer. So Brian gave me a shirt and a memory card and sent me out there. I did what I was told, 3200 ISO f2.8 1/320 sec at 4200K for proper exoposure, and went to it. After filling the card and returning it to the event shooter, I decided that to get faster shutter speed I could use the 85mm F1.2, where I could get the shutter up to 1/640 th at f 2. This limits the DOF, but really makes for some nice action grabs. I was going to try some additional strobes to cross light, but I didn't want to make a scene. I may try it next weekend, but I am unsure if I will be able to have the lights keep up to the frame rate on the Mark III. Any rate, the lesson here is be respectful, up front, and personable when shooting at an event that is being covered by another photographer, and let them know what you are doing and why you want to shoot there. This holds true for all events, especially weddings, where it is not uncommon to have several people shooting the same shot over the hired photograhers shoulder. Give the main shooter room to work and don't be a distraction.

Jeff

-30-

Birthday girl

Tonight was Amanda's 30th birthday. So after going out for a few drinks, the gang all came back to my place to play some Wii and have a few more brews. I was playing around earlier today with the home made ring flash reflector I made, so I still had the studio set up for making some great portraits. I convinced Amanda to let me take her birthday photo, and this was the result. I used two slaved flashes to give accents from the side, and the ring flash reflector as the main.

Happy Birthday

Jeff

-30-

Trade show

Well, now that the trade show is complete, I can settle down and get some rest. I spent the last couple of weeks scrambling to design my booth, get handouts made, do a banner, cut some mats, figure out what materials to bring, etc. Hence my absence from the board. I really enjoyed the Bridal Fantasy show. It is the largest wedding show in Edmonton, and there were plenty of people there. During a lull in the show, I had Chris take some shots of the booth so yo ucould see what it looked like. For a first time exhibitor, I was pleasently surprised. I think the booth looked great, and Chris and Krista did an excellent job helping me out there. So far I have been in touch with a bunch of people and I suspect that I will be able to gauge the success of the show in another month or so once all of the bookings start to peter out for this year. I am looking forward to the next show already!

Jeff

-3D-

Blog break

Well, after taking a couple of weeks off from the blog, I guess it is time to get back on track. While I was away, I managed to redo an entire bathroom in my basement from the studs to finished, Make an ice rink in the back yard, meet with several couples about upcoming weddings, and get my trade show booth organized. That last one is not really done yet. The Bridal Fantasy (Edmonton's largest wedding show) is next weekend. I still have so much work to do in prparation, that I am not sure I'll finish in time. I may have to do some things a little different than I originally planned. I am really looking forward to it. This is my first trade show so I will be curious to see how everything goes. Maybe we'll see you there! Booth 183 & 184

Jeff

-3D-