Sometimes equipment really is important...

Creativity and vision are always more important than equipment in photography. Without those, you can take crappy pictures with a 60gb $40,000 Hasselblad all day. With those, you can take amazing pictures with an iPhone.

But when it comes to particular photographic endeavors, sometimes, equipment really is important. In my wedding class, I am often asked if you can shoot a wedding with a Nikon D40 or a Canon Rebel XTI and the 18-55 kit lens.

While the quick answer is yes you can, the truthful answer is "not my wedding". Often times, in weddings, you are shooting under extreme lighting conditions. Wedding photographers live at high ISO's and big apertures. This ain't no sissy job. Dark churches that don't allow flash, dark reception halls that do allow flash, harsh midday sun, group portraits at dusk, large groups, huge groups, beach weddings with sand and wind, the list is long. As such, often times, consumer gear won't suffice. You need the extra boost of fast glass, f/2.8 zooms, and f/1.4 primes. You need the extra boost of quality high ISO's. You need the ability to change settings on the fly without diving into a menu.

Sports photography requires many of the same things, as does photojournalistic work. Wedding shooters live at f/2.8 and ISO 1600. The newer cameras (Think Canon 5D MKII and Nikon D700) take amazing images at high ISO's. They make the job for the shooter easier. It gives the shooter 1 less thing to worry about. Less stress, worrying about image quality or what will happen if you can't use flash, or how do I keep my shutter speeds up enough to avoid blur. The next piece of the puzzle is glass. Gotta have f/2.8 zooms if you are serious about shooting weddings. And IS or VR if it is available for the zoom your looking for. I live with my 24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8IS attached to my camera bodies.

And if that wasn't enough, what do you do if a camera or flash malfunctions during a shoot? Well, you grab another one out of your bag and keep shooting. You don't get to come back tomorrow if your flash breaks down. I see a lot of people getting their first DSLR and a kit lens, and now they are wedding photographers. Please keep in mind, that to do this professionally, taking pretty pictures is only part of the occasion.

The 2 pictures you see here were taken during a class I taught on Thursday night. The lovely model is Sondra. Thank you Sondra, I know it must be overwhelming to work with so many students. While the class was using my flashes off camera, in the dark at an abandoned gas station, we had the model lit with a low powered hot light to aid in focusing. I utilized that light, ISO 6400, and f/2.8 with my Canon 5D MKII. Are they noisy? Sure, but I had 80 students that wanted to shoot, and I didn't want to get in their way. So I just followed the hot light, and fired away. All in all, I am amazed at the quality of these images at ISO 6400. The Canon 5D MKII continues to surprise me. And the good thing about this exercise is that I get to test out things like this before I need to utilize it in a real world, paying situation.

If you have any equipment questions or concerns, you can always ask them here: Faded and Blurred

And of course, if you are looking to learn more about photography, you can always come check out Tri-Community.

Coming up in class this week:

Monday night we have cars and models. Bring your gear!

Wednesday night we will cover paperwork. Contracts, releases, etc.

Thursday night we will have some Photoshop instruction.

See you all soon, have a great rest of your weekend!

Frank

Just keep shooting!

Hey everyone! And to all the new Tri-Community students, welcome!

I'm often asked what is the best way to become a better photographer. And the first thing I need to do is look around to see who they are talking to.

Actually, the answer is easy. Get out and shoot. But what if you can't shoot the subject of your choice? Who cares. Just get out and shoot.

But what if your a wedding photographer and need practice shooting wedding related things?

If you think shooting landscapes or products or your kids/family/TFP modeling shoots won't help your wedding photography think again.

Get out and shoot. Call a friend and go shoot. Go to a Faded and Blurred photo walk. Take the kids to the park. Post a casting on Model Mayhem, or an ad on Craigs List. Go take a hike, or hit the park or a car show.

Now you may ask, exactly how will this help? Because it gives you stick time. Time behind the wheel. Got a new technique you wanna try?

Practice on something non-important.

Got some new equipment you need to break in? Practice on your family.

See something in a magazine, or Flickr you want to recreate? Try it on your own dime. Don't wait to do these things until you have a paying gig, that could spell disaster. Work it out on your own first. Give yourself some challenges, like only taking a fixed lens next time you go out with the kids. Or only shoot at a particular aperature to play with depth of field. You'll learn more about your equipment and it's capabilities. You'll expand YOUR capabilities. You might find a lens that has been sitting in your bag for years has some special look or feel that you love. Just go shoot!
Something else I love to do is shoot with my iPhone. Just me and a 2mp camera, and some pretty cool software installed. Fixed lens, no control of anything (I have the 3G), gotta frame it the way you want, and shoot. It's always with me. These 2 shots of electrical towers were shot today with the iPhone. It challenges me to get creative to overcome it's lack of controls.

Coming up in this weeks classes:

Monday night in Advanced Lighting on Location we will be shooting models. Come to studio B, bring your camera and flash if you have it, and we will check in and then be off.

Wednesday night in Beginning Wedding I will be lecturing.

Thursday night in Advanced wedding, we will be shooting a bride. Bring your camera and flash. We will be meeting in Studio B, and then heading out.

If you are new to Tri or my blog, and are looking for ways to find me, here goes:

Frank Wise Photography

My Flickr Page

Faded and Blurred

My Model Mayhem Portfolio

My Supershoots Portfolio

Twitter

And I am other places too, but you'll need to find those yourself ;-)

And if you are new here, please take the time to read the past entries, and there are links to other sites that I find important on the right hand side. There is also an Amazon Store below with some helpful gear listed, often things I use or we talk about in class. And don't forget that if your interested in a back end solution for your photography business, SmugMug provides a great and easy solution. You can get a 25% discount by using the code "fadedandblurred" at checkout

Now go shoot!

Frank

Not shooting people

Hi everyone. As most of you know, I'm a people photographer. If I'm not shooting people at a wedding or event, I'm working on my fashion skills with models. If I'm not doing that, I'm shooting my family. I took a good hard look at my images 6 months ago, and noticed it was seriously lacking in shots that didn't involve people. And the images of other things that were there, weren't very good. So I tried to figure out what I could do to remedy that. I didn't want to set up lights at the house and shoot still life, I wanted something that could help me in my actual line of expertise, shooting weddings. Which entails shooting the rings, shoes, dresses, centerpieces, flowers, cake, the interior of the banquet and church, the exterior of the church, maybe a beautiful bluff overlooking the water.

You get the point, wedding photography is so much more than just the "wedding couple", that if you want to do it right, you need experience and a bag of tricks to draw from to help you get all those shots. Now that's not to say I wasn't shooting those things, I do. I just thought I saw a little room for improvement.

The great thing about digital photography, the practice is free, and results are instantaneous. No more shooting a roll, then off to the lab to see what you got. If you see an area that needs improvement, you can focus on that and practice to your hearts content. So, I determined that I needed to focus on randomness. That should be easy, right? That could include ANYTHING. Way to focus and make a decision Frank. But I really want to improve at a lot of things in my photography.

So what did I do? Back in May I set off with a 2 other friends to photowalk Olvera Street. I had just gotten the new 5D MKII and wanted to put it through it's paces. It did admirably, and I walked away with several keepers that had no person in the frame.

Then it was off to Scott Kelby's Worlwide Photowalk in July that took place in Chinatown. My account of that is here: Frank's Blog on Chinatown. Now we were up to 50 people. The image I shot of the lanterns reflected in the pond won the local event, and was entered into the worldwide contest. To say I was hooked is an understatement. Photowalking with friends is a great way to remember what you love about photography in the first place. We shoot because we want to share. But why start sharing at the end of the process when the image has been printed? Why not start sharing at the beginning of the process? You know, at image capture?

Why not go off with a friend to shoot something. You probably have lots of other friends that also like photography. Maybe you both have kids. Take your kids to the park to shoot. The kids get some fun and exercise, and you get to share your excitement and passion with a fellow shutterbug. Your kids also get to see you doing something passionately. what a great thing to pass along to them. Even if they don't get the "bug" they will remember fondly that you were doing something you loved.

Like old cars? Head off with a buddy to a car show. Lot's of photogs there. Like beautiful sunsets? When was the last time you sat at the beach and waited? That is also great practice. One of the nuances of photography that needs to be learned is patience. Capturing the decisive moment. Wedding and sports photographers know this and practice patience.

The next step is to share what you each shot. I love looking at images that someone shot who was standing right next to me. What a great way to learn what types of things are appealing to other people. They may be shooting over your shoulder, but with a different lens, different framing, a different aperture, the image looks nothing like yours. What started off as a need and way for me to improve my images, turned in to a very fun endeavor. So if practice and work become fun, what's not to like? And by sharing with a fellow enthusiast, you are making friends. And that may lead to something else. Like shooting a wedding together for some $$. Or shooting the kids sports teams for $$. Or creating still lifes and having a gallery. Who knows? The possibilities are endless. Maybe you could put together a calendar to raise money or awareness to a cause you are attached to.

In the last few months, I've come across several Pro photographers willing to share their passions too. Maybe they aren't telling you what f/stop to use, or what mode to shoot in, but they do share their passion. They can be found here:

David duChemin He also has an excellent ebook available for $5 here: 10
Zack Arias
Chase Jarvis
Joe McNally

They all want the same basic thing. To share their passion.

It led me to wanting to share my passion with you. That's why Jeffery Saddoris, Nicole Rae, and I started this: Faded & Blurred We want to share our passion with you. We want to walk with you, and stand next to you and see the twinkle in your eye. We've got that twinkle. We want to share it. We want us all to grow, experience, shoot, live, breathe, and share. Have a question? Ask it. Don't know how to do something in Photoshop? Post the question. Have a charity that needs some assistance? Tell us. Need some exercise? We have walks coming up. Our 1st walk last weekend had almost 70 participants. Info on our upcoming walks are here: Photowalks. What's the worst that could happen? Meet some new, like minded friends? That would be horrible. Just remember, we want everyone to share what they've taken away from it.

So have I shot anything new that I'm proud of? That doesn't include people? Yes, I have...

Getting ready...

Hey there everyone! I am calling this post getting ready. I am getting ready for a lot of things it seems these days. Right now, I am getting ready for the next semester at Tri-Community. It's always amazing how much I miss being around all the students, the enthusiasm, the common interest that we all have at the Photography school. I am getting ready to teach my new Advanced Lighting on Location course for the 1st time. I am also getting ready to teach 4 classes starting in January, all 4 will be wedding related, including 2 shooting classes, and 1 of those will be on Sunday afternoons, which opens up all kinds of exciting possibilities.

I am also getting ready to put in lot's of time and effort to a labor of love that Jeffery Saddoris, Nicole Rae, and I are molding, shaping, and tending to called Faded and Blurred. We have designed it to be a community for photographers to share, learn, and get excited about the art of photography. We are building it from the ground up to have a main theme, giving back. Now giving back can be doing some charity work, (we are currently participating in http://www.help-portrait.com/ 's effort to give back on 12-12-09, you can read about our efforts here: http://fadedandblurred.com/community/) or passing along knowledge learned with our tutorials (the 1st 1 is up and it's awesome!) or organizing photowalks to get everyone out shooting. Our first walk in Venice had almost 70 people show up in blazing heat during a major fire. The info just went up on our next 2 walks, and we are planning more. All that info is available here:

http://fadedandblurred.com

Please see if you can join us, the photowalks are a lot of fun, and a great excuse to just get out and shoot. And while you are bouncing around the site, stop by the community section, register (it's free of course) and tell us a little something about you. Maybe you work for a charitable organization that could use photographic services? Maybe you've always wondered how some photogs always get beautiful blue skies? Maybe you have some new work you want to share. Come tell us about it.

I am also getting ready for a busy shooting schedule over the next several months. I feel a shift in style and focus coming that I need/want to explore. I have some paid gigs, but I will also be doing a lot of shooting on my own to examine where I think I might be going. Again, this is a journey. I feel like I took an extended rest, stretched my legs, and now I am ready to get on the road again. I have some ideas, a few new toys, some new friends, and a supportive family allowing me to stretch these wings.

Some of my favorite photographers have also been stretching their wings, and their influence with some amazing blogs recently Zack Arias, Chase Jarvis, and David duChemin have become must reads.

http://www.zarias.com/?p=450

http://www.pixelatedimage.com/blog/

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/

I am also getting ready to turn 40 soon. I don't know why we look at that number as such a life changer, but I certainly feel that my life is headed in a completely different direction then it was just 1 year ago. and that change is good. Home, family, and business are heading in the right direction. It feels like I have been laying so much ground work for so long, and now I am finally starting to reap what I have sown.

I am getting ready, are you?