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.

Teddy was representin’ the Philadelphia Trolley Works and 76 Carriage Company.

Khalir Love from the Philly Horn Band hams it up with some potential clients.

And here’s my humble display featuring banners from Simply Canvas and albums from Finao. Photo courtesy of Dan Cohen from the Philly Horn Band.

It was a fun day with the incredible people at the Hyatt. Hope to get back there this coming season!

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.

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.

• 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.

Ryan and Tyler from Home School Dropouts.

The day way still young and the sun was getting warmer so I made my way up to Northern Liberties to check out the Piazza at Schmidt’s area. I stopped in at Two Paper Dolls and met Jen.

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!

Gotta give a shout out to the clever folks at Truli Confectionary Arts!

This one was from Sandy and Kyle’s engagement session at Valley Forge Park. Still one of my all-time faves!

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!

I was so rockin’ the CTO filter!

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!

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