Raw at the VooDoo!

 From the Voo Doo lounge at Harras,we had a great time. Met some great artists and some very interesting characters. 

This was our booth. We had to get creative to get our pictures up.

An here's my lovely wifey, who insisted that I talked to all people who visited the booth, instead of  letting them be, which was my first choice. I guess I am more of the introverted type.

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

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:

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.

Jessica and Kyle's engagement pictures

We took some pictures at the skating ring. Jessica had this great idea, and we just went for it. The place was packed! We rescheduled this session as last week was just too cold. and yet, at 34 degrees, I can't say this was precisely warm. (Just ask Michelle, she couldn't feel her toes!)
Still, I got some pretty cool pictures.

Amanda and Drew's Wedding

Congratulations to Amanda and Drew Koester! I had the honor to photograph their Wedding at Town Pavilion last Saturday, June 20th and did I have a ball! Of course it's going to take some time for me to post the pictures, but I couldn't wait to show something at least.

They were amazing, and we got a whole lot of very fun pictures. I knew they were fun before, as I took their engagement pictures before, which I use in my galleries.

I got many comments about a little incident that happened during the ceremony, and I missed as I was taking pictures in the other way (Sorry guys!) , However, after consulting with my lovely assistant (Michelle), I found out that SHE did get this moment. So... by popular demand, here's the glorious moment, for posterity.

To give an idea of how much fun these guys like to have, check the next picture. And that was actually the censored one. (No worries guys, I won't post the ones of the "Superbad" movie)

So, after a long but very fun day, I'll be working on more images in the next few days. Check back often to see the couple doing their groceries, Drew's love for vegetables and the couple's brand choice of wine...

I'll give a free 8x10 print to anybody who guesses the wine brand...(except Amanda or Drew)

Back to my website:

http://www.earthue.com/

Randy and Misty's engagement pictures

Randy and Misty picked a very cool place for their pictures. They like the urban setting, so we went to Wichita's riverfront area and close to the museum. After three hours driving, we were quite tired, but we got energized when we saw the place. It was awesome. the weather was super nice too, but we didn't have much light to work, so we got down to business.

After a couple pictures by the river, we decided to move to the colorful club area.


As always, Randy and Misty were such troopers, and put up with all my ideas. Of course, I wanted to try all the cool spots around!
Randy and Misty's wedding is on July 11. and we plan to use the great scenery to take beautiful images.
You can see more pictures at www.earthue.com