Wednesday night Church shoot

Okay everybody, this is only open to students of my wedding classes. We are shooting at a church in Baldwin Park on Wednesday night, 11/4/09 from 7-10pm. We will be meeting there, and I will take roll. Please bring your cameras and flashes!

The address is:

4303 Maupin Ave.
Baldwin Park

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The link takes you to directions from Tri-Community. See you there!

Dia de los Muertos

Hey everyone,

As we talked about last night, next Monday's "Lighting on Location" class will be a special one.I spoke to the nice people at Live Oak Memorial Park about having us attend their Dia de los Muertos celebration, and they have graciously allowed us to come and photograph their event with 2 conditions.

#1. That we don't shoot the grave sites out of respect, and only shoot the festivities.

#2. That we share our images with them.

Done, and done. Please keep these conditions in mind when we attend the event, and I will be constantly reminding you of those conditions. I may set up a Tri-Community flickr group just for this event, so we can provide a place for the organizers to go look at our images. I am really looking forward to this event, I think it will be special. The location is at:

Live Oak Memorial Park

200 E Duarte Rd

Monrovia, Ca. 91016

Here is a link to the map: Map here

It is 1 block east of Myrtle on Duarte rd.

The event will be from 7-10, and it is free to enter. We will meet inside the front gate at 7pm. I will be taking roll there.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Dia de los Muertos for some more info.

Bring your cameras and flash. I would suggest lenses in the 24-105 range, with f/2.8 being a big plus. There won't be any available light at all, this is all outdoors.

Here is a link to my flickr set from last weekends event at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

I hope to see you all there!

Frank

Griffith Park Walk

Hey everyone!

First off, I want to thank everyone who came out to the Griffith Park Walk today, it was an amazing day. We had enough for everyone to look at. There were motorcycles, plenty of characters, and then I took everyone to one of my favorite "secret" spots, the Old Zoo, a hidden gem in Los Angeles. I arranged to have a couple of models there, and a special thanks goes out to Amanda and Sondra, for being such great sports. The weather couldn't have been any nicer, and we got to use the "open shade" technique that Faded and Blurred just did a tutorial on. You can see that here.

Now that I have gotten all the niceties out of the way, I want to say a few things. First and foremost is that Faded and Blurred is in no way associated with Tri-Community. Yes, many of you know Jeffery and I from there, and many of you participate, but Faded and Blurred will hopefully draw from a much larger base from that and in many ways, all ready is. As such, I am not a teacher at these events, I am a participant and organizer. What that means is that we set these up in a way that these are events that Jeffery, Nikki, Paul, and I would probably be attending anyway. We think they have a cool location or offering that may be fun to take pictures of. Whether anyone shows up to them or not, we will continue to be at these places. Our hope is that we can provide a cool locale that you may not know existed, and that you may get your creative juices going and you will see the potential of such places. These are "Photo walks" for photographers, not a 3 hour class or seminar. They are free, and we do our best to provide enough information to get you there. We provide a link to the walk page, a map, and if there is an associated web page, we provide that too. All that info is right here.

We also tell you what time to be there. And we stay much later than that posted time to allow for stragglers. We understand how LA traffic is, we live here, I get it. But eventually, we will need to gather up the troops and move on. I can't be blamed for your bad time, or lack of knowing what the plan is, or your perception that we are disorganized if you weren't there when we specified. If I told you the movie started at 5, and you showed up at 5:30, should I be expected to rewind the movie, or pause it to get you up to speed? Again, this is an opportunity for you to get out and shoot. If you don't like the proposed subject matter, then please skip that walk, and maybe the next one will be more to your liking.

Again, this is an event for Faded and Blurred, a photowalk. It is not a mandatory event, it is put on by people who love photography, for people who love photography. And again, I am probably the most approachable, easy to get hold of person you will ever meet.

And as such, here is all my info, again. Ask around how long it takes me to respond to emails or voice mails. How many other teachers have you had that were this transparent?

Gmail: frankwisephotography@gmail.com
Website: http://frankwisephotography.com
Twitter: @frankwisephoto
Facebook: FrankWise
Phone # 818-458-9761

Perhaps I am too available? Perhaps I care too much? It seems that 60 people had a wonderful time, many of them for their 1st walk. And I will obsess over the one person that didn't. Perhaps I wouldn't be that way if I weren't available to you 24/7? Perhaps I shouldn't be, but that is who I am.

Okay, done, I'm over it.

Coming up this week in class:

Monday night we will have a band coming in to shoot.

Wednesday night we will talk about other fun shoots you can do with your wedding clients, the "E-session", the "Day After", and "Trash the Dress"

Thursday night, we will be discussing ways to get your product to your client. Prints, galleries, etc.

See you all this week.

Frank

Nuff said about that, and if anyone has anything to say, good or bad, please let me know, I am open to discussing

Pasadena ARTwalk

Hey everyone! I am in the process of finishing up images from our most recent walk in Pasadena for ARTwalk. We had a smaller than usual crowd, but it turned out to be an amazing day. There were several photographers showing work, along with painters and sculptors. After the walk, we went to one of my favorite restaurants, the Yard House. Not necessarily for the food, more so for the 150 beers on tap ;-)



After some much needed lunch, we had a meeting with all interested parties about our plans for the 12/12/09 Help-Portrait project. For more info on what we are doing, you can click here. We had about 25 people for that meeting, and several more have expressed an interest, so we are seriously considering expanding our efforts for the day, and for that, I thank you.

After the meeting, many of us continued our walk. We went to City Hall, where we stumbled into a wedding, and several wedding photogs doing portraits. We also met this lovely lady, Natasha Martinez, who just happens to be Miss Panamerican. I assumed she was there being photographed, but there was no photographer around. I had Carol go ask her if she minded if the 10 of us still there shot her, and she was gracious enough to give us 10 minutes of her time. This amazing light was created by the sun reflecting off a column and bouncing back onto her.

We finished up the evening catching sunset on the Colorado Bridge, and caught some beautiful light. All in all, a wonderful day. If you would like to see images that the group shot, you can click here. If you shot with us on Saturday, please post your images there, we look forward to seeing them.

It was also great to watch many of our group getting very creative with their photos. Doing fun reflective self portraits, shooting through magnifying glasses, shooting each other, all sorts of things. Vincent has a new camera and lens, and he is really putting it through it's paces.

Our next walk will be in Griffith Park on 10/25, you won't want to miss this one. Details here.

Now, what should we do in class this week?

Monday night we will have models.

Wednesday night in Beginning Wedding, we will talk about the events of the day, and go from beginning to end.

Thursday night I will lecture, and assign some homework (Thanks Alberto, great idea!)

See you all soon,

Frank

We're walkin, yes indeed...

In case you haven't heard, Faded and Blurred are pounding the pavement again this Saturday. We will be in Pasadena for the ARTwalk, and all the juicy details and maps are here.

We will have our Flickr group up and running Saturday night so you can share your images. There will be several photographers exhibiting work at the ARTwalk, so I am excited to see what they are showing, how they are displaying it, and possibly pulling some inspiration from it. We hope to see you all there, and please be there at 11. We have to get our group shot!

If you like shooting, like being around other photogs, and are enjoying the beautiful weather we are having, then come on down Saturday! It will be a great day. And after the walk, please remember to tell us about your experience. You can do that here: http://fadedandblurred.com/community/

Make sure your batteries are charged, your memory cards are formatted, and bring some water and a snack. After the walk, if you are interested in participating in our 12/12/09 Help-Portrait giving back event, we will be having a logistical meeting at a local watering hole. Ask myself, Nikki, or Jeffery for details on Saturday. Here are some of the ideas we have:

http://fadedandblurred.com/community/Thread-Help-Portrait

And here is the site that started it all: http://www.help-portrait.com/

See you on Saturday!

Fall is here

Thankful that fall is finally settling in. Cooler temperatures are always welcome, especially after the crazy hot September we had here. I'm not so happy about the shorter days. As a people shooter, it makes it a little easier to grab a model and go shoot when it's not 105 degrees. As a wedding photographer, your not as miserable shooting that wedding in the un-air conditioned church. Landscape shooters look forward to the fall colors. There is so much to enjoy over the next few weeks photographically.

A quick reminder that Faded and Blurred has the Pasadena ARTwalk photo walk coming up on 10/10. I do hope that you will attend, it should be a fun event, in a great city to shoot. And then, just 2 weeks later is our Griffith Park photo walk, so we are keeping busy, and taking advantage of the cooler weather too.

If you haven't backed up your images recently, why not do it now? Burn them to DVD, copy them to your external hard drive, or get yourself an automated back up program. I use Goodsync, and I highly recommend it for PC users. It will run as often as you want it too. I have mine run every 2 hours. Do you have a system that works for you? If so, share it in the comments.

Coming up in class this week:

Monday night we have models

Wednesday night: Album Design

Thursday night: The amazing wedding photography of Jerry Ghionis

See you soon,

Frank

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