Yeah, I knew you’d look at this post just based on the name. I would, too. What IS the original sin, you may ask? Well, if you read your religious text there are many different ways to learn the answer. But in the case of this post, the Original Sin is a heavy metal band for which we did group and individual photos.
The group is an eclectic mix of five guys you might not ordinarily put or see together and say “there’s a heavy metal band waiting to happen.” No, these guys are unique personalities that all seem to get along quite well. Unedited, this is one of my favorite shots of the band as a group.
We took two sets of individual photos of each band member. One without instruments and one with. There’s something about one of the band members that just screams “heavy metal” to me. It’s one of the images I like the most. Everyone else seemed to like it, too.
The guy in the black sleeveless shirt in the group photo is a close friend of my younger stepdaughter, Tara. Of course, they came to us for their first album shots and publicity photos. I think things went pretty well.
On the complete other end of the spectrum, I also did a wedding tonight. I’ll post that in my next entry. I have three portrait sittings on Saturday, so look for the wedding and portraits later in the day, maybe even Sunday. 🙂
G’nite!
Most people don’t ask. They just trust that we are handling their wedding photos with care. We are, but there are a lot of “what ifs” floating around out there that can completely destroy your wedding images – forever.
Before arriving at a wedding, the storage and security part has already begun. I bring a lot of digital memory cards with me to record onto. At least four cards and at least 8GB. That will usually be good for around 2,000 images. Larger weddings will obviously need more image space, but that’s another subject.
At the wedding, I carry a device that is basically a portable hard drive that reads and stores memory cards. At critical moments during the day, I put the memory card into this device and copy all the files off the card and onto a hard drive. I can then reuse the card or continue taking photos in addition to what is already on the card – I just put them on the hard drive as a safeguard measure.
Once back at the studio, all cards and the portable hard drive are copied to our main server. After I’ve verified that the images are all on the main server, I make a backup disk of the files on the hard drive – usually onto a DVD. That DVD is filed away and then the images are copied onto my laptop for editing and publishing.
On my laptop is where I edit out blinks, bad pictures and the like. After editing, I renumber the images into their chronological sequence. This puts the pictures into a sequence of the way they occurred, since I use multiple cameras at the wedding. Once the sequencing is done, I do basic color correction for those that need it and publish them to the online site for the wedding couple to review.
After publishing, I move the edited and resequenced images to the main server and off my laptop. The original images are still safely tucked away on a DVD and we print from the edited images.
Any questions? 🙂
Not every senior season starts with someone who has already graduated, but this isn’t a normal year anyway.
Joelle graduated from Musselman High School a year early, taking some classes in the summers to help complete all her high school requirements early. She told me she has an older sister in college, a younger brother in high school and plans to attend Shepherd in the fall.
With a great interest in small animals, she wants to explore veterinary service in some way.
We took about 30 photos of Joelle in several outfits. She arrived early and we were done with her sitting in about 45 minutes, including a drape shot and several formal photos. This close-up ended up being her mom’s favorite.
Congratulations to Joelle and best wishes for her continued future success.
So after spending the first two and a half hours finishing up the keying in of baseball pictures, I spent almost an hour with Mrs. Bennett and her daughter going over dance pictures for the last three dance seasons. This is one of our favorites of her. A little of the new Impressions has been applied. You can see that the skin glows a little, there’s more emphasis on the face and it just seems so much softer. There are technical descriptions for what we’ve done, but the picture speaks for itself.
After that, I hurried down to Inwood to do some team photos for Professional Realty, Inc. in Inwood. I was really taken by the building they occupy. Built from modulars, it has the appearance of a nice home on the side of the road, but inside it is all office. I really liked the front porch – which needs some furniture, but did have a lot of nice hanging flowers. So, when they tell you it’s the fourth driveway on the left, don’t pass by the blue house with the wide front porch – that’s the office!
Here’s a shot from their sitting. They had about 15 photos taken in four locations and in two outfits. We did it all in about an hour. Very cooperative and helpful, Kathy, Pam, Melissa and Sam made this job a real delight.
When I got back, and after relaxing for a brief moment, another of our dance parents stopped by to see some of the photos. Mrs. Stocker has always been one of our best clients, and enjoys the photos of her daughter a great deal. Diana and I enjoyed sitting with her and talking about her daughter’s portraits, and reviewing something special we’re doing with one of her portraits in particular. Hopefully I’ll have more on that later this week.
Speaking of dance pictures. It’s time for a brag. It’s not often during dance picture season that you have the opportunity to take a magnificent image – one that turns everyone’s head. Well, in a dance studio like Tari Jo’s, there are going to be talented dancers. And Sara is quite talented, and challenged herself and me to capture an image that embodied the skill of the dancer and the timing of the photographer. That image is below. An image like this deserves special treatment, so Diana added some wonderful Impressions work and it went from “wow!” to stunning.
At home, I picked up some branches so Diana could continue mowing while the dogs were out romping around. I did a little more painting around the windows, and took a short fall that bruised my right elbow… I think I’ll live. But the painting will continue. 🙂
Good night, all.
Instead of trying to go back and catch everything up, I’ve changed the way I’m doing things. I’m going to spend at least 10-15 minutes EVERY DAY on my blog, regardless of what else goes on. It has been my sanity in the past, hopefully it will just be a good release.
So, we’re painting the house. We moved into our home in 1994 and it was in great shape. The former owners took exceptional care of it and we enjoyed how well they had done so. Over the years, though, we kept promising ourselves to paint the house. We got close a couple of times, even taking the paint chips home and looking them over. But alas, we never resolved to do it.
This year, we were determined. Diana was more determined than I, so it was important to me as well. We agreed on a color early in the spring and it got put aside again. But around the middle of May we were at the Home Depot and picked up some more paint chips to look at and matched one with the color we had settled on over the winter. We went ahead and bought the paint, plus some white for the trim, some roller kits, brushes, tape, everything we thought we’d need. We had some stuff left over from when we painted the studio, so we were ready to go.
On Memorial Day Sunday, we had a lot of help in doing a lot of the prep work and starting the painting. Jeff and Mike removed a lot of the caulk and replaced it around many of the door and windows in the front. Jill and Diana worked on trim and the front patio. I was power washing the house and trying to remove much of the damage done by ivy vines we had over the years. The power washer was phenomenal in removing most of the grime, some of the paint, and a few pieces of the siding. 🙁
After lunch, Tara came by with some friends and worked on the north side of the house for an hour or so before they had to leave. Jeff kept working on painting that side of the house, fighting with a bush. I went to pick up crabs while Diana finished washing the house, and Jill continued painting the trim.
We cleaned up around 7 and sat down to some great crabs and fixin’s.
Thanks much to Jeff, Jill, Mike, Tara and her friends and of course my lovely wife Diana.
Since that time, we have been dabbling. I went to the Wal-Mart and picked up a Wagner Power Painter. Why hadn’t I done this before? Holy moly.
After figuring out a new plan, I decided to spend each evening doing the edge work (around windows and doors) and then this weekend I’ll use the power painter to do everything else. I can’t believe how fast this thing covers. I’m really looking forward to getting it all done. The gutters in the back are next, then a thorough cleaning of the gutters.
I’m off to bed. I have a location sitting on Wednesday. Looking forward to it. 😉
