I was asked to shoot the Day in the Life of WPPI book with a four other photographers including Andy Marcus, Brett Tyler, John Arcara andTony Corbell.  Each year, WPPI and my album company, GraphiStudio produce a book documenting the convention.  Here are some photos I took at the convention for the project.

While I was on the WPPI show floor, I spent a lot of time speaking at various booths.  One of the booths was the Shoot dot Edit booth.  This company takes over the post production work for small and large photo studios so they are freed from the time consuming process of selecting, adjusting and delivering images.  They are a great company.  I highly recommend them if you want to off load that part of your business and concentrate on other aspects of your business.  I love the dot man doll.  I kind of wish I had one, but apparently, it is a limited edition, so they wouldn’t give me one.  The have the Flat Stanley version in paper, but I want the real thing.

The show floor and the classes can be an overload.  You will see photographers sitting against the walls and windows trying to catch their breath and absorb the information and a little sun.  I particularly loved the back lighting on the banners in this photo.

This is Brett Tyler, one of the other photographers on assignment on the Day in the Life of WPPI project.  He’s a fun guy.  We spent an afternoon walking around vegas taking in the sights and the masses of photographers with their cameras.  I took quite a few photos of him that day.  It’s always nice to have a ready model with you wherever you go.  Anyway, this is a particularly beautiful photo.  I love the bright whites and the few rich blacks.  And I love the person on the cel phone in the background by the window.

Later, at a small private gathering at the Shoot dot Edit suite, I was able to get a nice view of the city.  The greenhouse looking green building in the foreground is part of the MGM Grand hotel where the convention was held.  I think it is the casino floor.

This is Tony Corbell giving a lecture.  He is a very skilled photographer.  I enjoyed listening.

This photo is from a Lecture by photographer Jesh de Rox.  He’s a very entertaining guy.

Pictage, my online printing partner had a number of people running around the show called the pictagerazzi.  These guys were a couple of cool cats.  I liked them a lot.  If they email me, I will send them some photos of them.  Nice to talk to you guys.  Shoot me an email.

One of the evenings, I forget which one, we found ourselves at the Pictage party at Studio 54.  That is one flashy place.

At the Pictage party, there was a little impromptu fashion show put on my KISS BOOKS.  That’s Kevin Swan down there from KISS at the end of the runway.  It was a fun evening, but I called it a night pretty early.  I’m not much for parties.

I have never used the Renaissance album company, but as I walked by their booth, I was struck my the piles of books and the lone man in the left corner trying to organize them.  It is the framing that struck me the most.  I love the emptiness at the bottom of the image with the heavy intellectual weight of the name of the company juxtaposed with the cluttered pattern crammed into the top half of the image and of course the poor guy in the corner, trying to make some order out of the whole thing.

Well, that is my show and tell for the day.  I have so many more photos from Vegas to show.  I will post again tomorrow with a set of my favorite photographs from the GraphiStudio Fashion Show.  It was a great event and I came up with some fantastic photographs.  So tune in tomorrow for some more images from Vegas.

As many of you know, I was in Las Vegas in March for WPPI 2010.  I was there teaching a Master Class on Image Post Processing called “The Ultimate Adobe Lightroom Workflow.”  The class we sold out and people had a great time.  Well, most people who go to Vegas for a convention, spend their spare time gambling, drinking and going to shows and clubs.

Now, there are three things I dislike intensly: noise, large crowds and smoke.  That is vegas in a nut shell.  I don’t drink and I don’t gamble and the nightlife was never my thing, so when I am in Vegas, I either hide in my hotel room, or I run around with cameras and take pictures of others, gambling, drinking and going to clubs and shows.  And sometimes, I run into Elvis.

One thing I will say for Las Vegas is that it is a unique place where everywhere you turn is a backdrop or a subject that you won’t find in many other places in the world.

It is also one of the strangest places.  Perhaps one of the reasons “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is that no other city in the world would accept what happens in Vegas as normal.

Every visit is an experience to say the least.

Next up on the blog: some great photos from the convention itself.  I was asked to shoot the Day in the Life of WPPI book with a four other photographers including Andy Marcus, Brett Tyler, John Arcara and Tony Corbell.  It was a fun project and I am looking forward to seeing the final book, which is being designed and produced by my album company, GraphiStudio.  Tune in for that post.

In case you didn’t know, we received a new baby into our family last week.  She is a beautiful and healthy little girl.  Both mother and daughter are doing well.  We have been very blessed.  She is already sleeping through most of the night and has been a joy to us.  I am thrilled to have her join our little family.

A little Tech Talk:

During an infant portrait, it is important to keep in mind that flashes and loud camera equipment can interfere with the portrait session itself. The equipment matters to the point that it does not interfere with the portrait session.

I shot all of these infant portraits with the Canon 1D Mark IV, a pro level camera, that offers an incredible 12800 ISO, which allows for very low light photography.  This ability was absolutely invaluable as I photographed our new little baby.  I hate using a flash during an infant portrait session and especially during the documentation process at the hospital.  It is just a bad idea to use a flash.  So shooting at a high ISO with a fast lens is the right way to photograph an infant.

In addition to the high ISO, one other invaluable option on the new Mark IV is the silent shutter mode.  Those who shoot with smaller, consumer or pro-summer cameras will find that the sound of the shutter is not too loud to begin with, still perhaps enough to wake the baby, but not too abrasive.  However, pro camera bodies have much more durable shutters and they make a lot more noise when they fire.  This is not good for weddings or infant portraits.  If you want the baby to continue sleeping, you can’t start snapping a loud shutter a few feet from her face.  And even when she’s awake, that shutter can startle her.  But the ever so quiet “silent” mode on the Mark IV work nicely.  It softens the noise made by the shutter movement by slowing down the movement of the shutter and by separating out the two movements of the shutter.  Pushing the shutter release button trips the shutter to expose the chip, but the shutter reset movement only occurs after you release the shutter release button.  It is a fairly ingenious system and helps to mitigate the noise coming from the camera.

While the baby was sleeping, I put the camera in Silent mode and when I was ready for her to wake up, I took it out of Silent mode and sure enough, she started to stir as a result of the sharp noise from the shutter on the camera.  So the noisy shutter turned out to be useful as well.

If you have shot with the 1D Mark III, you will have used this feature as well.  They seem to have improved it in this model.  It feels even quieter.  Still not anything like a leica and the 50D and other pro-summer models are just as quiet in normal mode as the 1D M IV is in silent mode, but their shutters are not nearly as durable.

As I may have mentioned before, my brother, accountant and second photographer, Rex, got married in San Diego a week ago.  The wedding was in La Jolla, Califonia and the reception in San Diego itself.  I was only there for a few hours, because I was needed at home (our little baby girl was just born).  So I flew in for the wedding and flew out before the reception was over.  It was quick, but it was a beautiful day and such an honor to photograph my brother’s wedding.  He’s a great friend and his wife is a fantastic person.

The wedding portraits were shot on the beaches of La Jolla, California.

My favorite images are below as well as a slideshow.  Enjoy.

The sky was blue and the sun was perfect, but sometimes, color, even as beautiful as it can be, is a distraction from the shapes and form of the photograph.  So, I removed the color and the image just sang to me.

The flowers were a subject unto themselves, so I couldn’t have the flower girl hold the flowers near her dress.  The needed to be on their own, against the horizon, just like she was.  She was already holding them up and out a bit, so I asked her to pronounce what she was already doing and for heaven’s sake, don’t look at me…  I think there is something wonderful in this photo.  I see a young flower girl who is just about to grow up.

Kacey really wanted to do a few shots in the gas lamp district.  We were running out of time, but we did it and I am so glad we did.  I loved the images we got down there.  And I think the effect here on the photos goes well with the feel of the streets in the area.  I make some pretty quick decisions (some not consciously) while shooting and editing images, but they usually end up being the right decisions.  I think that is what photography is all about.  Making decisions.  We make a lot of them in split seconds and have to live with them.  I am glad I make those decisions well.  I suppose if I didn’t, I would need to find a different career.

Can you believe the perfect luck on this photograph.  I couldn’t have planned it any better.  We got them into position and put the light on them to help equalize the exposure between the bright sun and the couple and then…  cue the bird!  That bird just makes the photograph.  Jonathan Livingston Seagull, anyone?

The La Jolla coast line is full of absolutely beautiful and strange beaches.  It is one of my favorite places to photograph wedding portraits.  No matter what time of day it is, there is a spot for some pretty magnificent photographs.

The next photo reminds me of a photograph I have by George Bernard Shaw (the author).  I found the photo in the archives at the London School of Economics where all of his films and prints are kept.  It is quite a treasure trove of images and I think the strangest place for a photographic collection.  The color effect makes it feel a bi more like BS Shaw’s Photo, albeit his is scratched and full of dust and poorly printed.  The LSE staff is not great at printing.  I suppose they would be the first to admit that the principles of division of labor preclude them from being good at anything artistic.  Anyway, as I was shooting this photo I was thinking about Shaw’s photo in my modest collection of old obscure photographs, which is one of the few little sentimental pleasures in my life.

This one Kacey broke out of her shell and started hamming it up.  That is always a good sign, when your bride and groom forget about being cool and just start having fun.

My workshop on the 13th of February in Phoenix sold out in three days.  That’s great for me, but there are a lot of people who still want to come, so I have opened up 5 more seats.  I think that is all we can fit.  If I still get more inquiries about it, then we’ll have to mover the venue to somewhere much larger.  So sign up, if you are interested and it you get to the store and can’t find the workshop, then that means it sold out.  Send me an email and let me know you are still interested and we’ll look into changing the location.

Thanks to everyone who has already signed up.  I am looking forward to this one.  Because it is being filmed, I have to be on my best behavior…

Sign up for the workshop here.

Merry Christmas to everyone.  It’s Christmas morning and time to relax and enjoy family.  There need to be more days like this.

And for those of you who don’t like in Phoenix, Arizona.  This was taken just a few days ago.

We love our weather. 48 degree, cold winter mornings… not too bad.

I was interviewed recently on the Pat McMohan Show on AZ TV Channel 13. It was a fun interview. Pat is a humorous man. We talked about simple ways to make your photos better. Many times it is the simplest things that make a photograph great, and it is usually not the quality of the camera…

FreeVideoCoding.com

We shot a very small wedding at the Phoenician today in Scottsdale, Arizona.  It was an elopement, so there were a total of six people there.  Me and my assistant, the officiant and the coordinator.  I love small weddings, and this was definitely the smallest wedding I have ever shot, and I have shot some small weddings.  I love the intimate feel of so few people.  It was very casual and very fun.

The Phoenician has a remarkable wine cellar where the bride and groom had their dinner after the wedding.  It is a fantastic room for a small intimate dinner.  I suppose that this was one of the first times it was used for a wedding though.

Paige (from the Phoenician) and I had a first today.  We got to sign the marriage license.  It was an honor to be so involved at the wedding.  It’s not every day that you get to do that.

The New York workshop was great. We were completely packed. It was fun. Thanks to everyone. It was good to meet you all. Now it’s time for Philadelphia, the Washington.

Boston was sold out and packed! Only three seats left in New York. I opened up another two seats in Philadelphia and we’re getting tight in Washington DC and Atlanta. Things are going great. Can’t wait to meet the rest of you in the next week. If you are thinking about booking a seat, do it now. See you soon.