Children Photo Contest - THE WINNERS

Many thanks to the parents who took the time to bring their children to the studio to participate in the Children Photo Contest we were organizing this Saturday.

I hope parents and kids had as much fun as we did. The kids were awesome and we were able to capture some very nice pictures. Many of them will surely make their way to my portfolio. It was a difficult task to designate a winner as all participants were simply wonderful. We will be shipping a package including (1) 8x10, (1) 5x7 and (2) 2.5x3.5 to each entrant.

After much debating, we decided to nominate the following winners:

First Prize - Paige, who showed so much enthousiasm and looked so confident and comfortable in front of the camera will receive a beautiful 11x14 Gallery Wrap.



Second Prize - Caleb, 4 years old and full of energy, displayed the most geniune expressions, and will receive a 14x11 print in a silver frame. Good job Caleb !!!




Third Prize - Finally, Alexis was very quiet and sweet and allowed us to capture some beautiful portraits. She will receive a set of ten 5x7 Greeting Cards.




Congratulations Paige, Caleb and Alexis. Thanks again to the parents for being so nice and patient throughout the day.

Friendship

Julie's best friend was over at our house for a sleepover this weekend. They have known each other since they were one. They are now four years old. It's amazing to see how they stick to each other at the daycare. Her family and ours are relocating to different states soon, Georgia and Texas respectively and we decided to give them a chance to spend more time together. Last week we took them to Chuck'E Cheese and this week they had the sleepover.

I took a few pictures throughout the day and made them DVD slideshows that they will hopefully keep for years. I don't know if they will ever meet again after we move but I wanted them to be able to see each other whenever they want through this little souvenir.

STROBIST to the rescue

This weekend I was shooting for the wedding of this great couple I did an engagement shoot for a couple weeks ago at the beach in Delray Beach, Florida.

In the last one and a half year I have shot a few weddings down here in South Florida. I don't need to tell you how wonderful the weather is around here, and consequently all weddings ceremonies I got the opportunity to cover so far had been outdoor ones. I have always favored available light photography because of the natural look it allows me to deliver in my images. That was when I thought flash only created unflaterring artificial looking light on my subjects. It's only a few months ago, when I came through an amazing blog in the internet, http://www.strobist.com, that I realized flash photography wasn't just about that. I have since then been reading a lot on the strobist blog and some other resources found on the internet and have learned a great deal about off camera flash photography and about lighting in general.

After experimenting the techniques explained on http://www.strobist.com with my favorite model daughter, I used the techniques at two recent weddings I was booked to shoot. I only used them in a "limited" fashion since I am still learning all that and a wedding is certainly not the right place to experiment (too much). But after making sure I had gotten all the necessary pictures just as I would have gotten them before discovering the "strobist" techniques, I did try to get some flash lit images. Each time I used my off camera speedlites to get some shots during the bride's preparation and the reception. I got a few images I would have never been able to get otherwise.

So last friday I am headed to the reahersal for Saturday's wedding. We had decided with the couple that we would shoot the formals prior to the ceremony because they wanted to take advantage of the beautiful scenary at the Bear Lakes Country Club, starting at 4:30pm the next day. The reception was scheduled for 5:30pm, under a large tent just outside the country club. Needless to say that available light at that time of the day, under the tent was very limited. So here I am for the first time facing a situation where I have no other option than add light for the ceremony, and I spend a good part of my evening thinking about how I would set myself up for that purpose. Here were the challenges, and my objectives:

Challenges:
- high ceilings, hence bouncing of the ceiling would leave me with little intensity left.
- no side walls but screens, hence no bouncing possible on the sides
- large room, with close to 150 guests, the last row of guests will be at 25m from the bride and groom
- the couple to be photographed and most of the wedding party are black people, they will need an additional stop or two to be properly lit.
- I only have 2 flashes

Objectives:
- produce a soft natural looking light. avoid harsh shadows
- produce enough light to expose properly my clients
- light front and back of the room
- not to spoil the decor with umbrellas and light stands

I figured the best way to light the front of the room where the bride and groom will be standing and meet my objectives was to place one of my speedlights on top of the arch in front of which they would be standing and bounce it off the high ceilings. A quick test showed me that with the stobe set at full power and with an aperture of 2.8 (ISO 100 or 200) I would be able to expose my client properly and have a nice even light.

I was then left with 1 more flash that I decided I would place on a lightstand as high as it would reach, also at full power and bounced of the ceiling, to one side just behind the last row of guests, gelled with an orange gel hoping that it would add to the mood (the effect isn't very apparent on the pictures). The gel was taken off to shoot the just married couple as the walk off.

On D-Day, after the shooting the formals (not so formal ;-)) out on the greens, I quickly ran back to set the lighting up for the ceremony. I am glad to say now that everything went well, except for the flash sitting on top of the arch which didn't fire when I was shooting from the back of the room (I assume that the PW laying horizontaly didn't trigger it because of the orientation of the antenna).

If it wasn't for all I have learned recently from the strobist resources I was able to dig out, this would have been a very challenging day and all I could have gotten would have been flatly lit close ups with the on camera flash with underexposed background, or very grainy pictures if I had chosen to shoot in ambient light at high ISO ...

Later at the reception I got shots of the first dance using a cross lighting setup, and some more in the dining room bouncing the flash off the ceiling.

Introduction - making the big jump into publishing

Ok, so this will be new to me. Lately I have been learning a lot from several blogs ... to name a few Strobist, Matt Adcock and his FlashFavor blog, Sol Tamargo, Bert Stephani, Rui's Lightingmods blog, and I also realize that an increasing number of artists are blogging about their art, the creative process behind it, their personal live, their techniques or simply their most recent work, serving the double purpose of giving back to the community they belong to and of making themselves so much more personable to their past, present and future customers.

I don't know if I'll be able to keep up and blog regularly myself about my work, experiences etc, but I'll give it a shot, in a plain and simple fashion ... after all, the english language isn't my forte being a french speaking belgian guy ... aiming at the purposes mentioned above.

I hope you will enjoy what you find here and that you will come back often to check for updates. I am already thinking about using this psace for running special offers on photo shoots etc. So stay tuned. That will keep the pressure on me for providing meaningful and fresh content on a regular basis ;-)