Well, I’ve had CS3 on my computer for almost 6 months and finally decided to load all my actions and other software onto it from CS2 and give it a go.  It’s much faster and has alot of extras that are really speeding up my productivity! I also have Adobe Lightroom, but still have no idea how to use that software yet, I need hands on training. I’m the kind of person that if you show me how to do it once I remember and then I’m ok. Hand me a book that is over 1,000 pages …sorry, takes too long and will put me to sleep.

Here is a quick shot of my beautiful wife Laura working on her laptop from across the room. Shot with a Canon 5D, 70-200mm IS lens handheld at F25th/2.8 at 1600 iso. CS3 did the retouch in less than 10 seconds with one of my actions.

Before

After

The lighting is provided by the laptop screen only. Who says you need expensive flashes? Oh, and Laura wants to make sure I tell you she has very little make up on and looks terrible. I think she looks pretty good for 57 years old!

It was another great Easter service with our wonderful worship band and Pastor. We had a record attendance at Harvest Community Church here in Roseville, California. It is such a blessing to see more and more people realizing how important GOD is all year long and not just on holidays.

The wedding season is coming up soon and I hope to have lots of great new images for you all. I will be shooting more and more photography without the use of any flash and using as much available light as possible. My good friend Randall Braughn has inspired me to shoot this way. Everytime I check out his blog and his wedding work I am in awe of how he captures natural light and how it provides so much more to a image, makes them all breathtaking!

The site is www.http://www.mydreamwedding.ca/wedding-cake-toppers/

One of most important holidays to me is Easter. It’s not about easter bunnies and colored eggs, its a whole lot more. Next week I’ll share with you the true meaning.

WEDDING INDUSTRY STATISTICS – WHERE THE MONEY GOES

The average cost of a wedding now exceeds $20,000.00. Yea, but what about in California????

Costs are typically higher in the Northeast (NYC, Boston, Washington, Philadelphia) and in major metropolitan areas.

Here is a ballpark summary of where the money goes based on a variety of ongoing research and discussions with wedding professionals.

 For the last departmental picnic, management had decided that due to liability issues, we could have alcohol, but only one (1) drink per person.

 

 

 

 

 

I was fired for ordering the cups.

Airport Security Spoils Wedding Proposal Plans

Sharp-eyed screener finds tucked-away ring; man pops question early.

It seems like more and more parents are calling me for senior portraits than ever before. I really like to spend a little time getting to know my subject before I start a shoot and with teenagers it really helps to get them to tell you what they want, or what they’ve seen that they would like. And they know what they like and will tell you. This actually helps makes things run much smoother and keeps everyone happy. I wish more adults today were like some of the teens I shoot, they’re really smart, know what they want and expect, and appreciate how I work with them for the finished product. That said, here is a small sampling from this mornings shoot with Matthew who is 18 and graduating this year.

When business slows down all it does is make me work harder at coming up with new and exciting ideas for next year. I’ve been in the Instant Event Photography business now for almost ten years and next year I’m going to offer an “Oscar Party” theme to drum up business for my holiday parties. It only takes 15 seconds for an instant 5×7″ color photograph and guests love them, we’ve also used this service at our wedding receptions and people just rave about how cool and how fast they can be photographed with any photo as the background anywhere in the world!

Its not cheap, but it will have your guests or clients talking about you and your event for quite sometime!

Another thing I tell clients is look for some of our new advertisements and emails throughout the year, as time to time I offer some really great gifts, such as a Free 24 page library Bound Parent Album ($900 value) or maybe an upgrade from an 8×10 album to a 11×14″ album!