Just had an awesome opportunity to meet with lots of couples who have weddings coming up at the beautiful Hyatt Penns Landing. Everyone was super nice and the food for completely off the hook! Even the table setups were second to none.
The food stations were incredible. I hope it’s not in poor taste for me to bring a doggie bag next time!
Wow! The desserts were to die for.
Asian food stations, Italian … you name it!
Dude! Marble chocolate tulip? I had never heard of such a thing but it made me drool just photographing it!
Oh, and an open bar.
My new buddy, Bart Wlocynski, pro DJ was there spinning stacks o’ wax.
Just got done a really fun shoot with Béke Beau and Dar Clinton where we had beautiful, late afternoon sunshine streaming through the studio windows … for about 6 straight hours! “Joe, surely you jest! Even we folks in Southern California never get that kind of sun!” Well, we sure don’t, either. As a matter of fact, there is still a foot of snow on the ground and no sun to be had at any time today. However, with the help of a couple Speedotron power packs and some ingenuity …
I already have windows in my studio but the sun rarely comes in and certainly not today. So I went outside with my Speedo, er, Speedotron 2403 power pack and a 2400 ws head and blasted it at full power toward the studio windows. I jacked the pack and the ends of the power cords up off the snow with a crate and packed snow around the light stand for stability.
Here is a view looking toward the windows. I moved the light source several times before I got the effect I was looking for.
Meanwhile, back inside I shot tests to work out my camera position and where the light fell to tune in everything.
My modeling light was useless with so much ambient light so I placed Stephanie into the scene to further fine tune the angle of the light. This shot revealed shadows falling right across her face so it was back into the snow to move the strobe.
Success! Now I have plenty of time to scrutinize while the models are getting hair and make-up.
Turns out that the shadow side was getting a little lost so I added another strobe to the right of the set with a Photoflex half-dome and a grid attachment to control spill.
I had the main light set to full power while the kicker with a grid was set as low as it would go since it was so close. This allowed me to shoot at 1/125 sec at f5.6-1/3. I warmed things up in-camera by manually setting the white balance to 7600K.
I teamed up with the dynamic duo once again to fight for hair, make-up and beauty for every woman! Béke Beau and Dar Clinton are completely off the hook with their respective talents and our shoots have just been getting better and better. Today we were joined by Stephanie and Caitlin. Neither has modeled before but you could never tell. They look like pros!
Despite there being a foot of snow on the ground outside and dense cloud cover, that didn’t us from having all the sun we could ever want pouring through the windows of the studio (more on that when I post the “behind the scenes) photos)!
These photos are completely unretouched. That’s how good Béke and Dar are!
Wow! What a blast! I just love seeing all these great photos at the end of a long day of shooting. Lots more on Facebook.
I recently hopped at the chance to be “Craig Sumsky for a Day” and submit a post to the Cutting Edge Entertainment blog. So please check out my “Be In Love With Photography” article right now and show Craig’s blog the love it deserves!
This is a challenge I made to myself in an effort to:
improve my people skills
try new lighting techniques on the fly
and work outside my comfort zone.
So I took advantage of the somewhat-nice weather, loaded up my “instant fashion lighting rig” (more on that later) and headed to South Street to chat up and photograph complete strangers. Here is what I got.
All that walking and shooting made me hungry so I stopped in at Homeslice for some pizza lovingly made by Brett and Andrew.
Last but certainly not least, I headed north a little further to Fishtown to the super cool home of A-game photographer, Mark Gardner.
What a blast! Next time out there should be a bunch of us shooting so look out for your favorite Philly photog offering free portraits on the spot and then getting together for a beer and critique. Take the challenge, fellow wedding photographers!
For those of you who don’t know, Cathy and I just got married yesterday. Yay! And as a gift, she got me this awesome groom’s cake! Yes, it’s a real cake (I had a slice right after photographing it) and it is delicious!
Just finished up the “Light It, Shoot It, Finish It” workshop and it was an absolute blast! One fantastic venue, two gorgeous models and 18 photographers got together for a full day of shooting and Photoshop. First we all went to the Wilmington Grand Opera House to shoot. The whole workshop revolved around making extraordinary photos quickly and with only the stuff in your camera bag. This one as well as the rest were lit with just on-camera flash. Add a little due diligence in Photoshop and you’ve separated yourself from the pack!
It was great to see so many eager photographers looking to learn and innovate.
Gray, blah day? No problem!
We made a giant softbox from a white wall and we had an instant studio!
What a fun time that was! The next workshop is already in the works. It’ll be at least two days with more models, wedding gowns and will be ultra-intense so stay tuned!
I just got this email from my friend, Vera LaMarche, who attended my “Light It, Shoot It, Finish It” workshop (which I still need to post my own photos of). This makes it all worth the effort!
Hey Joe, I just want to take a minute to thank you again for the Light it, Shoot it, finish it workshop. I used the bounce the flash off the wall technique at my last wedding. When I showed my bride this picture of her and her Dad she was brought to tears!!! -guess what he’s getting for Christmas. I love the moment but also know it would have never had the same impact with straight on or bounced off of the ceiling flash. Thanks again! Vera
Just showed this album pre-design to Jillian and Rocky here at the studio. A few tweaks and it may be ready for the WPPI album comp. Click the HD button to watch it in hi-def!
