Merry Christmas

Last night we did the big extended family and friends Christmas dinner. I love getting together with my family and just hanging out. I hope all of you who read this enjoy your family as much as I do. As we were driving home, instead of singing Christmas songs, the kids and I sang the different harmonies of a lot of Beach Boys songs. I recommend the "Endless Summer" Greatest Hits CD.

Also today a question. For those of you who are going to Imaging USA in Tampa, would you like to get together one evening for dinner and discussion. I know some folks from Kansas and Indiana are going and want to get together, everyone is welcome. Lets e mail back and forth and set something up.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Horn Tootin

I just got this e mail from one of my brides. Thought I would pass it along.

Hi Scott. I wanted to let you know that we received our albums. They are beautiful. We couldn't be happier with the end product. You exceeded our high expectations. We enjoyed working with you and will happily pass your name along to anyone we know who is in need of a photographer. In fact, one of my co-workers wants your number as soon as she finds a suitable man to marry.

Thanks again.

Happy Holidays.

Amy Freed

I love hearing back from my customers.

Augusta, Ga

This week I am at the Marriott Riverfront in Augusta, Ga. I am photographing a job being preformed by a woodwork retouching company. Basically they make all of the wood trim and panels in the hotel look new again. Over the years the wood work such as base boards , chair rails and furniture gets all dinged up. It is much less expensive to retouch it than to replace it. As I was watching them work and making photographs I made the stupid mistake of telling these guys that what they were doing was a lot easier than retouching a photograph. Back in the old days before Photoshop and computers, I retouched photos for a custom color photo lab. Back then I used paint brushes , air brushes and other art mediums to fix the mistakes of many of Atlanta's best (and sometimes WORST) photographers.
I said too much and next thing you know some one handed me a paint brush and a jar of stain and said "Put up or shut up". So.......in between photographing I am retouching wood work. They charge$50.00 per hour to do this. I wonder if I will get a check.

This Weekends Wedding

It is 3am in Auburn Alabama. I am in my hotel room editing the stuff from today's wedding. It is really 4 am in my time as I live in the Eastern time zone and Alabama is in the Central time zone. (Or as we say in Georgia, Central time 1972) Sorry ! Had to say that. I must say that Auburn is the nicest , most clean college town I have ever been in. The streets are filled with beautiful girls and it makes me want to go to college. Anyway, I have just started editing and have in now way even looked at all of the photos, but these two jumped out at me. The groom holding her shoes while we walked threw town just kind of says it all. I wish that kind of love on everyone reading my silly little blog.
One more thing. If you are having a wedding or corporate party any where in the Southeast, 1) Hire me to photograph it and 2) hire the band Bobby More and the Rhythm Aces at (615) 254-7553. These guys are GREAT. I promise you will have a "Funky Good Time" My other favorite party band is The Neons at http://www.theneons.com neons.com

The Holidays

I hope everyone had a safe week. I went to my brothers for Thanksgiving dinner and then on to some friends for another dinner. At my brothers, everything was just like it is supposed to be at Thanksgiving. Most of my family was there and it was comfortable and warm and it just felt like home. At the other dinner I went to , it was like just about any scene from the movie Steel Magnolias. Lots of mature Southern ladies sticking their noses into everyone business and big hair.
I hope we all keep this year's holidays about Faith and Family.

The one photo is part of my "Faces of Town" project that I will be hanging this week at a restaurant in town. I took it yesterday. It is of one of the people that work at the restaurant. She does not want me to use it in the show because she does not like her chin and nose. I like it, what do you think ?

Todays Shoot in South Alabama

It is late so I will not write much. These photos are just a few of many that were taken today. I wanted to do some artsy kind of things to use in her wedding album to set the mood of the book so I mixed it up with some formal portraits and shots from around her home town. Out of these four my favorite it the one with the big white building. Or maybe the one in the middle of the street. I took about 150 shots and have not even looked at all of them yet. These just seemed to jump at me so I put them up here on the blog. The next post will be from my Super Monday class being held,...well, this Monday. Oh, and happy birthday Wanda.

Todays Portraits

These are some photos from the two portrait sessions I did today. The first one just has me saying that I can not remember any Grandmother looking that good. But she is one and does.

The composite sheet started out as a shoot for my Faces of Town project and I went a little overboard. The photo I choose for the exhibit is on the bottom left. No one likes it but me. But, it is MY exhibit, so in it goes. Any comments ? Should I go on as a portrait photographer ? Someone pick them apart. tell me what you don't like.

Halloween

So tonight was Halloween. The photos are of Christina and Jonathan who have been staying with me for a few months. Jonathan will be two at Christmas and tonight he was a pirate. The next photo is of my son Garen and his girlfriend. Garen dressed up as her and she was a thug gangster with a aluminium foil "Grill" Seeing my sporto son dressed as a girl sent a cold chill down my spine. He looks like my brothers daughters and a little like my mother. Oh well, David Bowie made a lot of money dressing that way.
The last photo is of what I did for the evening. I just went for a canoe ride to photograph the geese. I got started to late and only got this one shot of 4 of them taking off in front of me.

Red Sox Win

OK, so the Red Sox won the World Series. They played better than the Rockies. They deserved to win. But I was still pulling for the Rockies because I am a National League kind of guy. Go Braves in 2008 !

The Faces of Town

Here are a few photos from my personal project called "Faces of Town" It is a collection of photographs of the people that you see almost daily around the downtown area of McDonough , Ga. This is a great town. The fruit stand lady leaves all of her produce outside at night on her little stand and no one ever steals it. There is the guy that gives out the parking tickets. The firemen who are always outside. My real estate agent, half naked in black and white. The pretty blond owns my favorite restaurant. I shot those this morning. I have many more on the way and they will all hang at the main restaurant on the town sq threw Christmas. All of the prints will be 30 to 40 inch gallery wrap canvas.

Y'all Get to Church

Just a photo from today's wedding in Fayetteville, Ga. I think I will call it "Y'all Get to Church"

The Post Below This One

In the post below this one I said that "I almost Promise" to update the blog every day. Look for stuff from the two weddings I have this weekend in the next post.
Also, as of yesterday I will be the speaker on Sunday night for the Alabama- Mississippi PPA convention in July in Moblie , Al. I will be doing my new "50 Things Every Photographer Should Know" show.

South Dakota and Dominican Republic What Do They Have in Common ?

Both places have someone new looking at my blog ! And London, England checked in too. Welcome to you all.

And hey Ringold, Ga. I need a comment. Also one from Memphis would be good. And lets see......... I need a post from J in Kansas and one from just north of Ocala, Fl and I haven't heard anything from the good folks in Kentucky in a while. Greenville, SC needs to call me with a credit card number and the jackass from North Carolina that keeps e mailing me, please stop.
To the TVA photography group, I would love to do a Photo Restoration seminar over there next year. To the Aniston , Al Cheehah group, please send in my speaker merit form. And I would love to do another show over there also and then go drink beer with y'all again. GLPPA in Louisville, KY I still need y'all to send in my speaker merit form to PPA. Also, Brownsville, TX please e mail me and let me know how you liked the DVD set.

That about covers all of the things I needed to get off my chest. I almost promise to update the blog every day.

Portrait Session

This morning I did a quick portrait session at my house. We viewed the photos projected in my media room and an order for 12 8x10s , 3-16x20s and a 30x40 inch Gallery Wrapped Canvas was placed at that time. I never really enjoyed doing formal portraits before but I am starting to like it. I think I am going to do a week of portraits each month. The photo with 3 people in it is going to be the 30x40 with 16x20s of the other two. Any comments ? Should I just stick to weddings?

This Weekends Wedding

I had a good time this weekend. My wedding was for a family and group of friends that I have photographed several events for. I love photographing this family. They have such beautiful daughters. I asked the brides father how he manged all the guys buzzing around as they were all growing up and he gave me this look like I really don't what to know. He and his wife must have done a great job because all of the sisters are so articulate, witty, and graceful. What we call "Good Southern Girls"

Here are just a few photos from the wedding.

Just Saying Hi

I know it has been 3 weeks since my last post. I have been super busy and the blog got pushed to the back burner. Nothing really newsworthy other than I took 1st place in the Wedding Category at the Georgia Professional Photographers print competition in Augusta, Ga. It was at the annual convention and I got to watch the judging of the photographs. It took about 7 hours to judge them all. It was very enlightening.
The only other thing of any interest was that I was almost killed at last weekends wedding. I tripped and almost went over the balcony railing at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Atlanta. The photo is taken from where I landed. Those steps are steep and slick.

That night when I got home and started to unload my bags and download all the images, my little dog Sonny was the only one waiting up on me. He crashed on my light kit bag the instant I sat it down. He has never done that before and now I can't keep him off of it. It is comfy. I slept on it one time in an airport.

Lastly but the most enjoyable thing is that I took my daughter Marah out for her 17th birthday this evening. The photo of my kids was taken at the ball field a few weeks ago with my little Nikon S9.

A Whole Lot Going On

First of all, I want to apologise for not posting very much over the last month. I have been very busy . Lots of weddings and DVD production and a very big personal project called "The Faces of Town" I may do a separate blog just for that project.
Right now I am watching something on CNBC called "The Age of Wal-Mart" Love them or hate them, Wal-Mart knows how to make money and how to cut costs. Overhead costs are the number one killer of the small business.
Wal-Mart keeps track of everything. What was sold. What did not sell. What sells best when a hurricane is due to hit your location, then they react by ordering more or less in real time.
EVERYTHING is about cutting costs and delivering products to the common person that they can afford. Now the flip side. Does Wal-Mart put such a squeeze on their suppliers that the suppliers can not make a profit ? I hope to find out with a DVD project that I am working on. It does not even involve photography. I will not say what it is other than to say that there is wealth in knowledge. Sell what you know. Because there is always someone that wants to know what you know. Thank you to all the new people that check out this blog. England, Germany and New Zealand are countries that have folks that have checked me out. Welcome to you all. Or as we say here in Georgia, welcome to all y'all. Photos from the Faces of Town project will be in the next post.

This Saturdays Wedding

Here are a few photos from this Saturdays wedding. I have not even downloaded today's wedding yet, but will do so tomorrow.

Old Stuff Can Be New Stuff

Yesterday it was raining here for a while in the afternoon. So instead of working on the continuing clean up in my yard from the storm damage, I started poking around in some of my old files looking for some photos that were my favorites a few years back. When I came upon this one I remembered how I had wanted to take this photo for about 5 years but never had a wedding couple and a Pickett fence that were both willing at the same time. I remember that it was about to rain when this was taken. I added the painting effect with Corel Painter and Photoshop.

I Have a Date with a Chainsaw

Yesterday afternoon, after I shot a small local morning wedding. I went to have a late lunch at the restaurant across the lake. It is only a mile if I walk from the house so sometimes I do that. The temp was only around 90 and the wind was blowing so it was no big deal to walk.

While I was eating and having a few cold ones on the deck outside, my cell phone rang and it was one of my brides calling with some changes she wanted to make to her album that I had posted on line for her to see. I told her that I would go home and do them and send her a proof in a few hours. So I left lunch early and walked on home to start on the 3 changes that she wanted. Now if she had not called, I would have had desert and another beer and then walked home 15 min later. It takes about 20 min to walk home and as I walked up my driveway, the wind started to pick up and I felt a very cold rush of air. Within the next 2 minuets I lost 8 trees in my backyard . My garage was filled with limbs and parts of lawn furniture and several windows were smashed. If my bride had not called, I would have been walking home in all of that. And from seeing all of the damage along the trail I used to get home. I might not have made it. Thanks for the call Mary Ann.

This Weekends Wedding

I had only one wedding this weekend and that is fine with me because of the HEAT.
This week it was in Montgomery, Alabama at a beautiful church in the old money section of town. The bride and bridesmaids were all from old south society and veterans of many debutant balls. And every single one of them was absolutely beautiful. (Hey, I'm a guy. I notice stuff like this.) Anyway it was 109 degrees in the shade. See the photo of the thermometer on the mirror of my truck. All was going just fine until the electricity, (that runs air conditioning and lights) went out at the church 20 min before the wedding and stayed out the whole time.
No problem. I did not freak out like everyone else was doing. Just a few minor changes to my cameras settings and all turned out fine. I always bring a studio light for the family alter shots. The lights plug into a special power pack that does not need to be plugged into the wall. So all went well for me. See the photos below. The first inside shot of the church is with the lights on. All others are after the power went off.

A Few More from Saturday

Lets set the stage. Atlanta. August. Temp is 101. Humidity around 90%. Put on a suit and tie and go take some photos outdoors.

Scroll to the bottom of this post to see two photos that I combined to get the shot I had in my head when I took it. You have to take both photos exposed differently intentionally in order to make it work. It was not a simple "Cut and Paste" job as the tones were different and there was no real detail in the evening sky. Making the sky blend smoothly was the most difficult part.
I will put this bottom photo on my next Instructional video and show how it was done. I will do the sign on the rock wall thing also. I am not finished with the sign photo yet but wanted to post it anyway.

One more thing, I decided to name the photo on the swing "Play Mate, Soul Mate" Is that to cheesy or does it work? Comments please. And don't e mail me, actually post a comment. It is not that hard people.

And one more thing. You two in Antigua. Quit looking at this blog and get back to honeymooning !