Where do sports and weddings cross?

Well of course, in the Volleyball court!
We did some fast images for Kara and James. We absolutely love taking pictures of these guys. So much fun and they're just made for each other. Besides, it's always so interesting to learn about the passions of our customers. Kara is into Volleyball, like REALLY into it. We haven't had the opportunity to see her play professionally yet, but we sure witnessed them playing each other, and boy, I got to say, they get real into it!

Anyway, here's a little teaser. More to come of this couple's great engagement images. These soon to be married couple met us at the Lee's Summit public volleyball court.
Sorry I don't remember the name, I'll ask the wife.
Adrian

Connecting with customers

I received an email, from a good friend of mine asking me to do some family portraits.
Truth to be told, family portraits hasn't been my forte, and I'm still trying to decide why, since usually they end up being so much fun.
The day of the session, I arrived extra early, I mean 2 hours. I scouted the place, took notes and waited. For some odd reason, I was really nervous. I guess I wanted my friend to get something really special for her family.
When they arrived, within five minutes all came back to normal. Her family was so much fun, accommodating and even helped me carry my gear! (I carry way too much stuff to my shoots, but that'll be a different post)
How many times you get to know that your customers met in elementary school and married nine years after? and how many times you get to know your customers business, their story, why they moved and how they interact with their kids?
The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I don't do more of these portraits.
anyway, just wanted to share how a day that worries you so much, can turn out to be such a great experience.
Adrian

Saludos desde Puerto Rico!

Almost a week in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico. What a wonderful place. The people is so nice and helpful. Except the taxi drivers. And the desk people at the Sheraton (old San Juan one. they look like they need some exlax)
Anyway, for the first time in many many years, I found myself traveling without at least one camera bag. No lenses, flashes, memory cards, stands, nothing. NOTHING! is driving me crazy!!
I feel absolutely naked, I feel so useless that is scary. Like awesome scenery, great opportunities come my way just to mock me, to laugh at me. To say, come on, bring your little iphone, big boy.

Besides the feeling of being lost in the jungle without an Swiss army knife, it made me realize something:
It's so much easier when people don't feel the pressure of the hude camera with the huge lens and the huge flash on top. Nothing, just a small point and shoot can give you access to places you never dreamt of. So, I'm seriously considering a smaller format. Pictures from the iPhone to come...

Talking about sexy pictures

Because of the great interest in our boudoir/ glamour photography, We have now a sister photography site, to serve Kansas City, Missouri, Wichita, Lenexa, St. Louis, Olathe, Topeka, Jefferson City, Manhattan, St. Joseph, and all the Midwest.
With a fresh approach, and great creativity, we introduce Good Girl - Bad Girl Boudoir!
please visit the site and tell us what you think!
We're working hard to create great concepts at a killer price, and of course, we continue to offer fashion and trendy wedding photography. More to come!

Where inspiration comes from

To be honest, I'm going through some changes. Professionally, personally, philosophically.
Then I happened to be visiting one of my favorite blogs (check it out it's pretty awesome) and he's interviewing a wedding photographer, who has a pretty cool story. the year she picked up her first camera ever, she did three weddings. Next year, she books forty plus weddings. All word of mouth, no previous experience. She actually dropped from Law school.
It kind of struck me. How many of us photographers, or anybody for that matter, would love to have that happen? well, it doesn't "just" happen out of thin air. She was ready, she was determined, she had the drive and the talent.
Are you ready?
As she put it, it's not only the technical stuff, which she obviously didn't have down when she started, it's all about the attitude. She said something that just makes sense. "would you rather fail at doing something you love or succeed at something you hate?"
Many times, I thought I was ready. obviously, I wasn't.

So this lady, got into photography because her own wedding photographer inspired her. why? because he loved what he did.
Many time in my career, I focus on the stuff that doesn't seem to be working. But rarely we consider the good things that happen around us. Now I want that to be my focus. So, stop the madness, let's go back to basics.

This is day 8. We'll see how many it takes.

Down by the park in Lees Summit

A couple of weeks ago, we met Kara and James in a small park in Lee's Summit, Missouri, to take some engagement pictures. What a lovely young couple, so full of energy, ideas, dreams. We were hoping to be able to use the Volley Ball court, since Kara is really a great Volley Ball player, but of course, it was already in use. We're hoping to come back some time soon and do some action pictures. In the mean time, it's amazing what you can get with such a lovely couple.

Wedding photography? easy!

I just got done with one of the most challenging weddings I've done in years. That got me thinking, about how people, both customers and photographers, who want to start shooting weddings, don't usually have a clue what is involved in doing a decent job at shooting weddings. For one, most people think it is about having a camera. It's not. Nowadays cameras are fancy, so people think they just point, shoot and voilá. Great pictures!


Um, no.
Just to give a better idea, I'll describe the process I followed for this specific wedding. Granted, each wedding requires a different approach, based on the place, the time of day, the weather, the couple's taste, the particular idea you have for their wedding, the venue, etc.

This was a summer wedding, indoors. It was at a venue I love: Town Pavilion in Kansas City.
It's a gorgeous place. Since I've been there, I knew it was huge, dark and has four story ceilings. Gray ceilings.

The bride wanted to take some images outside. The forecast was 98 degrees and sunny. The time for the outside pictures, around 2pm.

So, the day before the wedding, I spent the whole day recharging about 50 AA batteries, camera batteries, the quantum battery and the Vagabond for the monoblock flash I intended to use for the outside pictures to kill the sun and have decent images. Also, to light the rotunda at Town Pavilion.

While going back and forth checking batteries, I was modifying the set up I use to transport gear.
So I was building a mobile cart with a light stand, to easily and quickly move the whole battery package, stand, umbrella, and many pounds of gear without having to do and undo every time we moved to a different location. (we shot at a total of nine locations)
I also made sure I had maps from every location, driving directions, made sure my assistant was ready to go, formatted memory cards, cleaned lenses, camera sensors, tested all flashes, remotes and wires.
It took me about eight hours to do all this. This wasn't the first time I had to do with this wedding. Previously, I did three engagement sessions for the couple. One last winter at the skating rink where I was taking pictures inside the rink trying not to get killed by the people who actually had skates on them! Then two sessions at the Overland Park Arboretum, another gorgeous venue we love.

Then, when gear was done, I mounted and matted the couple's signature image, a favorite one of our brides, which they display on an easel at the reception for their guests to sign.

Anyway, that was my Friday. Went to bed around 1:30 am, just thinking I had everything ready, car was in good shape and trunk with the gear packed.

Saturday came way too soon. Shelby, my assistant, came up at 8:40am, we went over the day and the plan, got a quick snack and got there right on time.
Weddings are fast stressful events. You got to hit them running. Started taking pictures right away, while setting equipment up. So we got the"getting ready" pictures started, got a good spot to hang the wedding gown up and took some more, then while Shelby kept taking candid shots, I went back for the rest of the gear, and then took off to take pictures at the groom's house, while he was getting ready.

Guys pictures are usually fast. They don't care about posing a lot, nor having lots of pictures. It's mostly about the bride. So once done, went back to Town Pavilion, right in time to get the images of her slipping into her dress, and take some amazing and emotional pictures. After that, it was time for the groom to see his bride for the first time, barely had time to set up my lights, and took some images there. Then went to the roof top for some amazing images with the city buildings, bridges and the river as the background. It was already very hot, and setting up gear was difficult. It was really windy on floor 37, so we tried to move fast.

Then off to the trolley. Trolley was packed and we went to three different locations( Union Station, The Westin and Kauffman Gardens) where we had to go out first, set up lights, do all bridal party and couple pictures, pose people, make them smile under their tuxes at almost a hundred degrees, pack up and move to the next location.
After all that was done, go back, get the rest of the gear and head up to the church to set up lighting for the formals. This picture was taken at the Westin Crown Center Hotel, where they nicely allowed us to use their waterfall for pictures.

We've been at it for already seven hours, and the most important part hasn't even started. We haven't eaten, have not even sat down. We get to the church to find out that we're behind schedule, so everybody is stressed out and have to do formals in about 40 minutes with a huge bridal party and a huge family on both sides. Once we managed that, had to pack up gear, because the church didn't allow flash, so we had to shoot all natural light. It's a good thing we have fast lenses and good cameras at high ISO's. After mass, the bride wanted some portraits by the stained glass, so we set up again at the church and took some portraits. Went on fast to get to the reception before them, and yes, set up lights again.

Now, Town Pavilion is HUGE! So we had to set lights on the third floor, second floor, and dance floor level, make sure nobody tripped on them, and move between hundreds of guests in a very packed area. A note to myself: I need to grab a different kind of bag for this scenario, my backpack is just too bulky.

We did the reception pictures, toast, first dance, dollar dance, bouquet tossing, garter tossing, candids, rings close up, a bunch of special picture requests for people we didn't even know, got in the dance floor to get in the middle of the action. I got to eat something at 10pm, right before we left around 11pm.
For all these different scenarios, we needed a lot of gear, we needed to know how to use it, set it up FAST, have back ups, work as a team and very important, keep our cool when things got stressful. At the end everybody was happy.... and we were so exhausted!!!!

Now, I look forward to editing the images. With just 2599 images to go through, sort and edit, should take me another 10 hours. Then, time to design the wedding album.
But now, I'm taking an painkiller for my back and legs.

That's why I really believe most people don't get all the effort it takes to get those images. It's countless hours of preparation, planning, strategy and passion, just to get a final product: A beautiful wedding album that the couple will hopefully keep for many, many years and show proudly to their families for generations. It's history in the making and we're proud to help show it.

You can see more images of the wedding in my website. click here.

Why is wedding photography not cheap, anyways?

When I meet with potential customers, I always have many things in mind: Are they cool? are they going to have fun at their wedding? Is she going to be a Bridezilla? Do they know what a reasonable price for photography is?
I want to touch on the last one a bit more. It's something I don't totally get myself. I see adds, websites or people tell me about $500 wedding photography packages. Obviously, that's not my range. But I wanted to know how that works, because even though I tried and tried I didn't get it.
I mean, How can you invest 12-14 hours at the wedding, 2-3 at rehearsal or engagement session, 7-8 on post processing, hire an assistant, get the right gear, back ups, insurance, and pay $350 for a decent album while managing to charge $550 to the couple?

So I went to Craigs list and found an ad. $550 for the rehearsal, the wedding day and an album.
I emailed the photographer a week ago, but I haven't heard from her. (funny, isn't it?) Then I remembered my colleague charges pretty much the same. He goes, spends some 8 hours and at the end of the day, he gives the couple a DVD with unedited images.

That got me thinking,
I mean, takes years to get decent at your craft. it takes lots of money to get the gear. Sure, you can get a DSLR for $400 nowadays. but I'm talking Pro gear. Lenses, strobes, stands, remotes, tripods, bags, back up for all of them, a good computer, several back up hard drives, calibrating software for monitors, website, domain, advertising, insurance, photography association fees, education, books, magazines... the list just goes on and on.

So how does a photographer manage to have such low prices?
Well, I've seen a mixture of factors.

Time: as my friend told me "I burn a DVD on my laptop and I'm done" he also refuses to meet with the couple before or after. just adds overhead.He also saves all the post processing time.

Gear: Keep it low price. Entry level gear, and just the bare minimum. I even know people who advertise themselves as professionals who borrow cameras for their shoots.

Overhead: If you shoot from home, you save money on studio rent. If you have no insurance, you save. If you shoot solo, you save on assistant salary. If you do it part time, you don't have to pay your health insurance out of photography. If you don't buy insurance for your business, you save that too, just pray nobody trips on your light-stand or your camera falls. If you don't advertise on the Knot or Perfect Wedding Guide, you save $700 a year.

Album: if you burn a DVD, you save anywhere from $100 to $500 on the album alone, plus the post processing time.

Post Processing time: If you just adjust contrast and coloron your 1000+ images, you are done in a couple hours. If you add filters, layers, crop, clone, dodge, burn, blend, correct, and do the whole nine yards, well, you're stuck in front of the computer for many many hours.

Experience: If your photographer has no experience, but a lot of passion to get into the wedding photography, because popular word is that that's where the big bucks are, chances are He or She will loose money, shoot your wedding for 10 hours, then spend another 10 on post processing and even give you an album, for $500. Just to get decent images for his/ her portfolio, so next time he/she can charge what should've to begin with.

To me, is a matter of what are customers willing to give up.

As in everything,
you get what you pay for. Is the couple giving up experience? or assurance? or back up, or post process? or all?

I just can't do it myself. I even tried for some time the shoot and burn approach. Thank god nobody ever even showed interest.

Something great can be around the corner

Last nigh, I was at the west bottoms with some other fellow photographers, on a meet up shoot.
It's so interesting to work with other guys interested in the same thing, and see how we all have a different take on the subjects, the light, the surroundings. Even how we work and the way we interact with models and customers.
So one of my colleagues had chosen this place, (picture above), with a nice long old wall, and had a bride lined up for pictures. I took a couple pictures at the same place while he changed his set up, but I wasn't feeling it. I went my ways, just being nosy and walking around, next thing I know was I was at this magical place, sort of abandoned garden of doom, with broken things, high grass and bushes, even a tree growing out of a wall. I knew this was the place I wanted to shoot at, just like that, around the corner of the other photographer's place of choice. This just makes sense, though: My colleague is into more classic-looking images, with soft hugging light and a nice safe feeling. Me? well, I'm just all about crazy concepts, nonsense, chaos, juxtaposition of contraries, drama. This is MY setting:


Now, I went to see what other photographers were doing, AKA crash their photoparty. So they had this model in front of this cool looking garage door. They even let me do some pictures with their setting. Again, although the pictures turned out nice (see below) I usually have a different approach. So, this time I didn't move the lights, didn't change the place, didn't do anything else but ask the model to sit down. That's it. why? I wanted a different feeling altogether, but the place was good for my idea, just needed some reinterpretation. So I came up with the bride sitting down between the weeds. For some reason, I love that picture.

Now, I want to recognize something a don't see often: Sydney, who didn't know me or the other guys for that matter, who was so gracious to work tirelessly with us, in such a place as the bottoms, at 10:20 at night, and putting up with all our crazy ideas, with the cutest smile in her face. all the time. Sydney rocks! This is Sydney:

Price of art

So, I went to this group's practice. Brazilian Capoeira. They're so amazing! Besides the whole concept, a martial art disguised as a social event cuasi-dance, the elegance of the moves, the interaction of the players, the respect and feeling they display while playing is amazing. It's hard to take pictures at an event like this. first of all, these guys move....fast and a lot. secondly, many times the background is not the best, so you have to get creative.

I chose lower angles for two reasons: would leave the trees as background, cutting out bystanders and buildings to a minimum. secondly, because it gives a sense of greatness to the players, which is what I wanted to convey.
The problem I didn't count on, was power. I set my lights, get readings and then started shooting. I had a quantum battery pack, plugged to my sb-800 flash, so I was good to go. and I went. actually, I learned why the newer brother of the sb-800 has a thermal cut off. to avoid overheating.

this is how my flash looked before I ended my shoot:
This is after I noticed some burnt plastic smell but disregarded it as maybe somethin unimportant:
My trustworthy flash wouldn't stop firing. even when it melted.
So, next time, gotta either use two flashes at half of the power, or use the bnigger strobes, such as the Alien Bees 1600, to keep the little guys from working too hard.

just saying.

Why I work with the models I work with

My take on models and photography is that each model's image has a unique feature, that helps me do a specific project. So when I get in touch with a model, I insist on meeting first. I need to get a feeling about the person, the ideas, the way they move, talk. After that, I start thinking on what theme to develop. I always ask models what ideas they have, but so far I haven't been lucky: All I get is usually "I don't know, edgy, something cool and different"
So I base the whole shoot on my own ideas. I try to come up with something unique for each model. It helps when they have lots of wardrobe, so I can play with that as well. As in everything, some models have an amazing amount of clothes, accessories and shoes. Some, not so much.
The other thing that I've observed is chemistry. I'm talking about chemistry at a personal level. I had models where we barely spoke more than a couple words, and I had models that wouldn't stop making me laugh. Those are the models I go back to. Granted, the model is an image, so the final effect doesn't depend on if he/she talks or not. however, my work flow is all about improvising. When we're having good rapport, a laugh or an interesting chat, my creative juices just start flowing and there's never enough time to do all the things I'm imagining. If the model sits there and doesn't even say moo, well, I take a couple pictures I had already in my mind and call it a day.

I've worked with Tiffany a couple times already. Something I love about it is that she's as crazy as I am. She will climb, go up, down, and do whatever takes to get the picture right.
It's been so interesting to see how she keeps growing as a model. But something that hasn't changed, is that she models because she loves it. Not for the money, not because she believes she's so cool, or because she needs images for her portfolio to get discovered by an agency and become next America's top model. She just loves it.
I love photography too, so I guess that's why we click.

Down at the Arboretum

Last week we went to the Overland Park Arboretum. Out in the middle of nowhere, this amazing garden, with lots of different ecosystems and feelings to it. Lots of bugs as well!
This session had to be split in two, since they close quite early (7:30) and there's just too many things to do here.
Jessica and Kyle did great and were so patient.
Jessica and Kyle's Wedding is on August at Town pavilion, another beautiful venue we work with quite often, so we're getting all the engagement pictures ready.
Here's a little teaser,
Enjoy!

Fashionably early....

About six and a half hours to be exact. that's what this professionals, models, make up artists, hair designers, wardrobe and attire people, photographers (well, some photographers) and other support staff invested in time before the event. Gee, I knew it was hard (I've seen the devil wears Prada!) but I didn't know models had to spend 6-7 hours previous to the event!
it's hard work, no doubt.
It's a whole different world too. People are just so different. interactions are different, attitudes, the way we all behave. we have a job and we got to get it done. plain and simple. So, I was supposed to do candid pictures. and I did. but of course, I also did more. I'' be posting more as I get my computer to cooperate.





I was talking to Jim, He's a photographer friend. I decided him and I have a very different take on things. Jim set a mini-studio set in the same event and did portraits of the models. He had the models come to HIM and ask HIM to take their pictures. I, on the other hand, was chasing models, putting up with their crankiness and had to actually carry a bunch of lenses, batteries, flashes and other stuff for hours, change my settings every time, and move light stands move, got stuck in stairs, under the clothing racks and so on... why? I don't know. Jim asked me, "so, would you be able to take portraits against a backdrop to 500 models?" I immediately said heck no! That's it. Jim plans his set, takes his time and gets pretty consistent results. I'm not like that. I play with the light. I play with the angles, I chase people. and I'm not that charming...therefore, models would never come to me.



This is was I'm talking about. without the strobe in the back, this would've been a plain point and shoot image. Now it has volume, texture, a certain halo that makes it work. well, just to get that light in the back, I had to haul my clamp, remote control, flash, and climb to the stage, clamp it to a pipe, then come running back and pray Gabriel wasn't done applying hairspray to the model. Luckily, he wasn't.