1) Talk to them.  About anything, really, especially if you have a lot of time (on a post shoot or at an engagement shoot, for example).  If they are really fired up about the wedding details, then you can talk to them about that, but MOST of the time I find that will leave one of them (usually the groom, but occasionally the bride)– the one who has been less interested in wedding planning– high and dry.  So try to find some common ground.  I may ask them to tell me how they met or got engaged.  If one person is talking more than the other, I’ll find specific questions to ask the less-talkative one (even if we spiral off into work topics or their house on the Vineyard or their favorite vacation overseas).  If they seem quiet, then sometimes I’ll do most of the talking in the beginning (until they start to relax).

2) Set them up for a great interaction that you can photograph from afar.  When I’m really crunched for time (at a wedding) and if I have the space (a beach, a field, a city street, etc), then I have let them interact with one another.  I’ll pick out my favorite vantage point, put on a long lens, and tell them to walk together while holding hands.  I’ll give them one rule– they can’t look at me while they walk (that stops the occasional couple from giving you the “deer in headlights” look from afar).  Once they realize how easy the photographs can be (because, hey- they are finally getting to spend some time alone on their wedding day, and I have given them a reason to take a moment and actually enjoy one another’s company without anyone overhearing).  If I don’t have much space, then I may just set them up to relax on a bench together, kissing on a street, or just cuddling up together under an umbrella.

3) Do something unexpected.  One of my favorite shots to start with is a shot of the bride and groom kissing from below.  Most couples like it, and some brides will even say “I’ve SEEN this shot and I LOVE it”.  Even if they don’t end up loving it, it usually gets all three of us laughing.

4) Play to their strengths.  Couples come with all types of “couple personalities”.  Whether you are in the middle of the wedding day or just meeting them for the first time, you can usually get a glimpse of how they will interact best with each other within the first few minutes/poses.  I work with some couples that just cuddle so well together.  I have some couples that just want to laugh and frolic (yes, frolic).  And I also work with other couples that are more serious in their demeanor.  As I work with them, I play to their strengths and give them interactions/poses that work best for their “couple personality”.  If they are serious, then perhaps the more quiet poses will work best.  If they are fun-loving, then perhaps something sillier.  I let their personalities dictate the direction of the shoot.

5) Tell them what you are doing.  If you are taking a silhouette shot, or a shot of their arms intertwined, or something similar where you can’t see their expressions, it may help to give them a heads up that you can’t see their faces (especially if they are worried about their smiles or where they are looking, etc).  If I am photographing a silhouette shot, for example, I tell them not to worry about a stray hair or the way they are laughing at each other or anything else, for that matter, because I simply can’t see it on camera.  If I am photographing a detail shot that they are part of (in the background), I might tell them that they are completely out of focus.  That wipes the worry right off their faces, gets them to trust you more, and will often get them to relax for the NEXT set of shots.

6) Be confident.  If they need help with their posing (awkward arms, etc), be prepared to help them.  If they look to you for direction, then give it confidently.  But also recognize when you need to back off and let the interaction naturally unfold.  Your confidence will inspire their trust, which will let them relax.

There are many ways to get a couple to relax, and these are just some of my favorites!  If you have a favorite method, be sure to share!  Happy shooting!

~Michelle

Post by Maine Wedding Photographer Michelle Turner.

As a lead up to our Portraits with Panache workshop happening on May 17, we are themeing our next assignment series “Panache”. (More details on the workshop are here: http://shootstyle.com/mingle/announcing-the-portraits-with-panache-workshop-in-old-orchard-beach-me.html)

Your assignment is to show us images that have Panache, whatever that means to you! This might be a photojournalistic exercise or an artistic construction. We leave it up to you to define the phrase and how you will interpret it.

You are more than welcome to comb through your files for a photo that illustrates the term, but we would absolutely love it if you shot something for the assignment, special!!

Our assignment series is open to everyone. We’re hoping you’ll wanna play along! The most creative entry wins!

We will post all of the entries on our Facebook page, and post a few of our favorites on our blog, complete with a link back to your blog or website.

How to enter :

Images should be sized to 590 pixels on the long side. (If you need help figuring that out, ask your favorite Shootstyler.) And by all means, slap that logo on there if you have one! You can enter up to one photo a day for the duration of the assignment. Email your entry to:

assignment@shootstyle.com

We have an album on our Facebook fan page. When the entries start coming in, we’ll post them there first. Check in with us at Facebook if you are looking for some inspiration.

www.facebook.com/ShootStyle

The deadline is May 17! Let’s have fun doing this together!!  Assignment series: “Panache”

Alright, so in order to spend less than $100, you have to make sure you have three small flashes, and a way to trigger them from your camera.  Plus light-stands and at least one umbrella bracket for your light stand.  I already had all of the above, so my $100 was spent on a 60″ parabolic shoot through umbrella (for my key light), and a 9 foot roll of white seamless paper.   For my flashes, I used Canon’s new 600ex-RT’s triggered by a Canon ST-E3-RT Wireless Transmitter, but could have used any three small flashes.

Setup is super easy, I set up two of the three flashes (Flash A & Flash B) approximately 3 feet from the backdrop, aimed at the backdrop to light the white paper.  My goal was to blow it completely out.  I placed the third flash (Flash C) on the umbrella bracket aimed into the umbrella.  My goal with this flash was to light the model.  The parabolic umbrella, gave a wonderful, soft, wrap around light.  I lowered the wide angle diffusers on all three flashes to maximize the spread of light.

And that’s it!  I adjusted my flash output to balance output and recycle time.  With my newer Canon bodies, I have no problem using ISO3200.  That meant I could keep my flash power very low and still achieve an aperture of f8, giving me plenty of depth of field.  And with the flash power that low, my recycle time was very good.  Shooting at moderate speed, I didn’t have to wait for the flashes to recycle.

Straight out of camera the images look great.  And with a little love in photoshop I can make them look even better.

So there you have it – using flashes you already own, a $30 umbrella, and a roll of white paper, it’s easy to create high key fashion lighting for fun and profit.

Here’s the umbrella: http://www.adorama.com/LTU60T.html

While wedding days are filled with exciting candid moments that are fun to capture, sometimes the portraits can be more of a challenge. In this workshop, Michelle Turner and Jamison Wexler will take you through their favorite methods for creating great portraits. With a strong emphasis on composition and posing, workshop attendees will benefit from clear classroom instruction with specific examples and techniques that are proven in the real world.

After the classroom portion, participants will have the chance to work with Jamie, Michelle, and the rest of the ShootStyle team as we head out to photograph models in smaller groups to put the new techniques into practice.

We are limiting the workshop to 16 participants, so don’t miss this opportunity to improve your portraits as the wedding and portrait season shifts into highgear!

Bring cameras, lenses, and flashes if you want, and we encourage you to bring your laptop so that you can follow along with the presentation.

The Portraits with Panache workshop will be held on May 17, 2012 from 1-6 pm in Old Orchard Beach, Maine.

Click here to sign up!

Where it will be featured – The ShootStyle Facebook page
Dimensions – 850px x 315px at 72 dpi with your copyright info/logo/watermark in the lower right.
Deadline – End of the day on Friday April 6th 2012.
Submissions go to – assignment@shootstyle.com
How often can you submit – Once a day.
Prize – Fame! Fortune! Your name in lights!

But I’m not going to give you advice on how to raise your prices, sell wall collages, or market to high end planners. No, I want to help you make money the old fashioned way… by selling your crap on eBay!

No joke, that box has been living under my desk for about a year. When I straighten up my office and come across something that I just never use anymore but that is still too nice to throw away, I put it in that box. When the box gets full enough or I’m feeling broke enough it’s time to sell! And truth be told, a lot of the stuff I’m selling isn’t really crap – I just call it that to help motivate myself to get rid of it. My list of things to sell in the next few weeks runs the gamut from a Nikkor 17-55mm 2.8 and 85mm 1.4D, to a D700, D200, and IR modified D70, to old iPhones, print servers, cordless telephones, and even some never used Apple VGA to DVI adapters.

I’m always amazed how much money I get for stuff I sell on eBay, and I have one primary secret for getting the best price – a secret that I’m going to share with you:

Post Great Photos of Your Crap!

It sounds like basic advice but you’d be surprised at how many sellers have really bad photos. I want my photos to be professional looking and well lit. This isn’t the time to get creative with moody side lighting or silhouettes. I want the lighting to be flattering, but more importantly I want my photos to show off every flaw of whatever it is that I’m selling. If there’s a scratch I want to see it. If there’s a blemish I want it to show. I sell clean products but I want the buyer to be able to see every spec of dust I missed. I even link to high res photos of the products so that buyers can zoom in and really inspect them. Why? Because if I go out of my way to show every flaw, a buyer can trust that they’re not going to get a nasty surprise when they open the package. And when you’re selling online, trust is worth money.

I have a basic lighting setup that I use every time I do a batch of eBay selling. It’s easy to set up and I can use whatever gear I have on hand to make it happen.

Here’s my basic lighting setup:

Today I’m using a roll of white seamless paper draped over a table. I’m usually waaaay more ghetto with the background. I typically use a large piece of construction paper taped to the wall. I’ve even used the backside of a really large print. But I’d just set up the seamless for a portrait shoot, so that made the background choice easy. I’m also using a camera (incidentally one that I need to pay off) with a 105mm 2.8 macro. It’s important to use a sharp, close focusing lens so that you can come in on the details.

I’m also using Radio Popper JrX triggers today because I had them out for the aforementioned portrait shoot. Usually though, I’ll just set up one radio trigger (or sometimes just an on camera flash) and have the other flashes triggered using their optical slaves. That method is fast and easy to set up since once I manually set the power of the strobes, I won’t be fiddling with them much.

The lighting instruments are

1. Alien Bee 800 with beauty dish and sock
2. SB-800 in a strip style soft box
3. SB-800 shooting into a large umbrella

The specific lighting instruments don’t really matter too much, what does matter is that the light modifiers (beauty dish, soft box, etc.) that I use are as large as possible. If they are large and have a flat diffused face it’s even better. That’s why I’m using the sock on the beauty dish–it turns it into a round soft box.

Tip: to make my light just a little softer and more even, I use the translucent domes on my strobe even inside a soft box or umbrella.

I position my two flattest faced light sources (numbers 1 and 2 in the photos)  on either side of the object I’m shooting. They can be a little above the object in height, but I try to keep them as low as possible. I also position them so they they are slightly in front of the object I’m shooting. This allows their light to wrap around the object . If I don’t have enough flashes on hand I can replace one of these side lights sources with a large reflector, but I’ll have to get it as close to the object . My third light source is a big umbrella that is right behind the camera. It’s job is to add a tiny bit of fill to the shadows and to make the shiny bits on the object sparkle.

You can see the effect of each individual light source below:

1. The beauty dish and sock is to the left of the D200. Notice how it makes pretty reflected highlights in the grip, prism and other left facing areas of the camera. You’ll also notice that this light is a little pinker than the other flashes. The color temperature of the Alien Bee varies as you lower the power on the flash. For this purpose, I won’t mind it in the final shot.
2. The strip box is to the right of the D200. Notice how it makes pretty reflected highlights in the right facing areas of the camera. The power of lights 1 and 2 are adjusted to be about equal.
3. The large umbrella is right behind the camera I’m using to shoot with and is adjusted to be about a stop below the power of the other strobes. All it is doing is filling in the darkest shadows and making things like the lens mount and AF illuminator sparkle.
4. It all comes together with the three lights. Note that since each strobe is contributing to the exposure, this shot is brighter than the ones showing individual lights. The final exposure was about f/11 at 1/250th with an ISO of 800. I use the blinking over exposure indicator on the camera to set my exposure. Nothing on the background should be blinking.

I am as scattered as they come. After a couple of years of being in business I realized that I needed to standardize my client folders so that I wouldn’t lose my mind.

I created a client folder template that lives on my hard drive, and eventually built automation into my Lightoom catalog. Every client has the same output, every time.

That way, when the client gets around to ordering their files, or vendors come around looking for sample photos, the images are ready to go. No need to fire up Lightroom again.

I use a new Lightroom catalog for every job. I do this in part because Lightroom has a reputation of bogging down after tons of images are added to the catalog, but mostly because I find it keeps me better organized.

I created a Lightroom catalog template, which lives in my client template folder. It has all of my preferences set up the way I like them. My special development settings I use on import, slideshows specifications, brushes and presets and are all ready to go each and every time I create a new catalog.

Every time I create a new job, I copy the folder template and rename it with the job name. Inside this template is the Lightroom catalog. I rename the catalog, open it and start importing.

But what really keeps me organized is the Export panel.

Here is where Earl Christie saves the day. He helped me create a folder structure on my hard drive for all of the different size images I use.

Then we created Export User Presets for all of those files sizes. I use Client High Res, Client Small Res, Blog and, Facebook. Each User Preset is created with all of the specifications I need to output those files.

When I export, I work my way down the list of export options and all of the images go into their respective folders in my hard drive “00Processing Output” Folder. I don’t need to navigate to the appropriate folder every time I export. I just click one after the other and all of my files are automatically exported. Then I go to bed.

When I come back to work, I simply copy the entire collection over to the client folder. Since I am copying the folders, the folder structure is identical for every client. If I need to pull images for a blog post or for a vendor, I can go right to any client folder and know exactly where to find them in the right dimensions.

Once I’ve copied the files over to the client folder, (and backed up my drives) I trash all of the files in the 00Processing folder, so it is ready to accept the next export from Lightroom.

It’s a super simple solution that is one more step to staying organized.

Let me hear what you do!

First place goes to Tennile Sunday’s submission featuring footsteps in the snow.  We liked the strong composition with the footsteps drawing the eye into the person walking away as well as the warm pastel color palate.

In second place (by one vote) is Greg Hinsons entry featuring a frozen house covered with snow.  We loved how stark the scene was with the covering of snow making us all wish we were inside…in front of a warm fire…and the infrared treatment was particularly effective making the sky look dark and menacing.

And our strong runner up is Joe Goldsberry’s image of his street through hanging icicles.  We thought that the icicles framed the street in an interesting way, and the iphone camera was particularly effective in capturing the scene.

Thanks to everyone for sending in your images and sharing the Brrrrr! Stay tuned in a couple of months for our next, warmer, assignment series.

No, this isn’t a post for the Jacks. This is a post for those who really do have a specific focus, with most of us it being weddings and portraits. But that’s still too broad, isn’t it?

Take weddings – you might specialize in available light or shooting for shadows, making brides look like princesses or making couples look like themselves. You might like to skip the getting ready portion and stay through the entire reception, dancing to Stevie Wonder til the wee morn. Or you might love the nerves and raw emotion of the earlier part of the day and peace out right after the first dances. Whatever it is, to be consistent, you are told to have a formula – to have a label. To be a photojournalist, to be a glamorous portrait photographer, to look for emotions, to concentrate on details, to be master of off-camera light and use it all day.

Chances are, you have that formula, that label, because you think it’s pleasing someone. You think it’s what your couples want and that’s why they hired you. You think it’s what the magazines look for, and you want to be published. You think it’s what makes you cool amongst your peers, and you want acclaim. All justifiable reasons, don’t get me wrong. I do think consistency is important to establish a brand and I also think you’ll never grow if you pigeon hole yourself.

So, if you’re really truly specializing in one thing, (be it portrait photography of women in wings with a ring flash, or simply glued to your zoom lenses), I challenge you to take on a little project going into this season and break your mold. Face the fear. Shoot one thing that scares you. You’ll never grow if you don’t try.

With that, I am going to make my own goal. This season – at each wedding (which are all within a 8 miles of each other), I am going to find some place new to shoot. I will not photograph a portrait in the same location, the same way, twice. I’ll report back and I hope you do too!

Since no post should be without a photo – check out this image of me in about 1980. It’s the only one I have of me at this age, laughing. Imagine if the person behind the camera waited until the light was perfect to capture this? No photo for me.

This post was inspired by the Wedrockers talk at Mystic Seminars, or as I like to call them – The Mexican Contingent. They are a small group of wedding photographers in Mexico who talked about never shooting the same thing twice, growing and shooting for yourself at each wedding. I thank them for pushing me to grow.

~Zofia

Our newest assignment for you is “Brrrrrrrr!!”!

Your assignment is to show us your best images interpreting Brrrrrrrr!, whatever that means to you! This might be a photojournalistic exercise or an artistic construction. We leave it up to you to define the phrase and how you will interpret it.

You are more than welcome to comb through your files for a photo that illustrates the term, but we would absolutely love it if you shot something for the assignment, special!!

Our assignment series is open to everyone. We’re hoping you’ll wanna play along! The most creative entry wins!

We will post all of the entries on our Facebook page, and post a few of our favorites on our blog, complete with a link back to your blog or website.

How to enter :

Images should be sized to 590 pixels on the long side. (If you need help figuring that out, ask your favorite Shootstyler.) And by all means, slap that logo on there if you have one! You can enter up to one photo a day for the duration of the assignment. Email your entry to:

assignment@shootstyle.com

We have an album on our Facebook fan page. When the entries start coming in, we’ll post them there first. Check in with us at Facebook if you are looking for some inspiration.

www.facebook.com/ShootStyle

The deadline is February 15! Let’s have fun doing this together!! Assignment series: “Brrrrrrrr!!”