San Antonio - Riverwalk

I recently attended ImagingUSA (Professional Photographers of America's annual conference) in San Antonio, Texas. Of course, it was rainy and kind of miserable weather while there (but still way better than here!) but that didn't stop me from going out and doing a little shooting along the famous Riverwalk.

The hotel itself, The Grand Hyatt, had a bunch of photo ops itself;




Here's a few from the Riverwalk itself, all a short walk from the Hotel and Convention Center;

Anatomy of a Christmas Card

I got quite a few people asking me how I managed to get all 3 of our pets, not to mention us two humans, to look towards the camera, and strike a nice pose, at the same time. Well, I have to be honest and say I didn't. I actually shot our Christmas card in 3 separate pieces this year, so I figured I'd write a quick post explaining it.

I knew there was no way I'd get both of our dogs to sit nice and look straight ahead, let alone getting Figaro (our cat) to pose at the same time. So, right from the get go, I planned this as a 3 part shot. Planning this as a composite right from the start makes the compositing very easy actually. I set the camera up on a tripod, it pretty much has to be on a tripod or at least stationary, and took a bunch of test exposures to get the lighting and framing I wanted. Once that was done, I had Robyn place Figaro up on the mantle and step back. Of course, it took a handful of tries before I got Fig even remotely looking at the camera;
Of course Kuma, our Golden Retriever wanted in on the shot as well, but as long as Figaro was good, I was all set.

Next, I posed Robyn with Zeus, our German Shepherd. This was easier. :) I snapped a few images while calling Zeus. I made sure that no part of Robyn or Zeus passed by about the mid point of the fireplace. I knew that as long as no parts of the images that I wanted to keep overlapped, the composite would work easily. It only took a couple tries to get a keeper this time;


Finally, I left everything set up and and sat down with Kuma and had Robyn press the shutter while calling Kuma's name. Again, it only took a couple tries to get an image we were happy with;


Now that I had all 3 parts. By making sure the camera never moved, the stationary parts of the picture are all in EXACTLY the same place in all 3 pictures. So, I dropped the picture of Robyn and Zeus on top of the picture of Figaro. I then masked off the part of the picture where Figaro was so he would "show through" the masked off (cut out) area in the picture of Robyn. Lastly, I placed the picture of me and Kuma on top of that, then masked off the areas where I wasn't, letting Robyn, Kuma and Figaro show through. Then a quick crop for size and shape and here's the final product;


Sounds and looks complicated, but if you plan properly ahead of time, fairly easy to actually do.

Shooting Adrianna

I had the pleasure of working with the lovely Adrianna, who's an up and coming young model in the Boston area. We started outdoors, but the extra cold weather ended up pushing us back into the studio, which worked out great anyway. Here's a sample of the images we captured, both on location at a strip mall in Westboro as well as in the studio.

Dogs can be portraits too!

Dogs can be very fun to photograph. We took Zeus (German Shepherd) and Kuma (Golden Retriever) into the woods for a nice long walk and photo session. Along this section of woods, behind apple orchard, there is this old road that is no longer used and it makes for a great wide open place to walk and watch the dogs.

The nice late afternoon sun made for some excellent light and some lovely images!

Peri, trashing a non wedding dress.

Peri works with Erin, who I blogged about last week, as a hair stylist and also spent the day with us trashing some dresses.


Here's a few images of her at the beach!

Trash the Dress session with Erin

Trash the Dress (or TTD) sessions seem to automatically imply a wedding dress, but they don't have to be bridal.

Erin is a fabulous (and I do mean fabulous) hair stylist/make up artist that I've used many times for other shoots, and in fact she did hair and makeup for multiple models earlier in the day. It was about time we get her in front on the camera as well. Erin wore this lovely silk dress for a session at Oakland Beach in Warwick RI and she worked the rocks, beach and ocean for what I think are some really great images!

Things We Project - Wrap-Up

Well, the show is over and I'd have to say it was a resounding success! The gallery was packed, the presentation was gorgeous and I met so many new and interesting people. I hope anyone that came had a chance to interact with all 6 of us and enjoyed the presented work! I think this turned out way better than expected and even better than I had hoped! Hope everyone that came had a good time!

I'd be remiss if I didn't thank my fellow photographers Nicole Chan, Scott Erb, Jeff Haynes, Steve Stearns and Cindy Woehrle for putting together presentations that were both beautiful and inspiring. There's no way this goes off and nicely as it did without them!

Next, I'd like to thank the folks at Niche Hospitality for the delicious fruit/cheese platter and the folks at Sweet for the lovely cupcake platter/tree. Great food for a great show!

Next, The Sleepless Knights provided a great soundtrack to our show with the gorgeous jazz sounds.

Next, the folks at ProSystems.tv did an absolutely amazing job with the technical portion of the presentation. The 52 inch displays for our individual shows looked fantastic and the 12 foot wide projection screen was simply gorgeous! They also did a great job with the lighting design for the room!

Lastly, thanks to everyone who came out to see the event. I hope you left after having had a good time, seen some good art and a fun presentation!