Wagons East!

Well, a Westjet plane east anyways. My wife and I are flying out to Ottawa to begin our well deserved vacation in Eastern Canada which will include stops in Montreal and Quebec City.  Lots of photo opportunities in the cities and we hope to catch some of the fall leaves. (You can't see but I am crossing my fingers.)


Interestingly enough, I had a goal of getting Jessica and Garrett's pictures done before I left and I am happy to say that not only did I get them done last night I also didn't feel especially rushed. I just kept on working on them and got through. I am quite pleased with how they turned out too! Jessica and Garrett were great models and were a lot of fun to shoot. Heck they even humored me for some of my more unusual ideas.

Yup...I still have Lake O'Hara shots to go through but those can wait until I get back since they're for me anyways. Of course I'll have another boat load of images from this trip too....

Flash!

I read an article by Joe McNally on his blog  and it made me realize that I have been playing around with flash photography a lot lately. During Jessica and Garrett's wedding I had to use flash if only because the venue was so dark. But I also had a lot of fun and got some pretty cool results even when there was plenty of ambient to work with. I found it gave the shots an edgy look and feel to them.  I have to say that I absolutely loved this shot when I saw it on my LCD and I was ecstatic when I saw it on my monitor.

I still think there are a couple of areas I need to improve upon. One is that, while I can do edgy, sometimes I want soft. Sometimes you want that light to wrap around your subject like a warm blanket. While the image above isn't the harshest I have ever seen, its definitely not soft.

The other problem I have is using flash so it doesn't look like flash. One of the comments on my self-portrait back in the spring was that it looked like I had been photoshopped in. So again, a softer more subtle touch with the light goes a long way. I need to work with the ambient and not against it.

Am I lot better with flash now? Absolutely. But I also recognize that I have a lot to learn. Maybe when I take Joe's two day workshop in November I'll learn even more. Did I forget to mention I was attending that workshop? Silly me! I am definitely looking forward to it.

Congratulations Jessica and Garrett!

Its been a long day but a lot of fun. I had the privilege of shooting Jessica and Garrett Blakely's Casino themed wedding and they were a lot of fun to work with. I also have to give a shout out to my wife. She takes care of a lot of the little details and keeps me focused not to mention how much help she was with lighting and doing a lot of the little things that go a long way to making a shoot successful.

So Jessica and Garrett...congratulations! I know you are leaving later today but if you happen to check out the blog before or during your travels here is a really quick sample (click on the image for a larger version):

(No editing or anything. Just a quick export and upload)