My Favorite Photos & How They Were Made

There sure is a lot going on this week. All week long I have been re recording my 2nd Photographic Instructional Series Disk set. This one is a 2 DVD set of My Favorite Photographs and How They Were Made. Get behind the scenes video or narration for each photograph. You can see the photos that are in this set at the bottom of this post. I would also like to announce the re launching of my Image Doctor web site. At the moment it is up but in a very basic format. My super cool hip web designer is nowhere to be found so I had to make a basic one. If someone has any ideas for it let me know. See it at http://www.imagedoctor.com/
Tomorrow on Friday, I leave for Louisville, Kentucky. I am the main Speaker at the PPA(Professional Photographers of America) Kentucky Chapter in Louisville's Annual Meeting. If you are in the area come see me. I am doing the show for free but I thing the Kentucky group is charging at the door. See their site at http://www.ppagl.com/ I will post stuff from the road.
If you would like to purchase the latest DVD set , go to http://www.scottevans.biz/ This is Volume number 1 with 4 more volumes to come. I chose almost 50 images for this project and will release a new set about every 6 weeks. The price on the web site is 129.00 but for my blogers, it is $ 99.00 until March 20th 2007. Post something or send me an e mail and tell me you saw it on the blog to get the 99.00 price. When you order on line the order form will show 129.00 plus 5.00 shipping but YOUR special super cool total will be just $ 104.00 Trust me and don't believe your receipt. Oh, And Claudia in McAllen Texas, Yours is already on the way. One more thing. When you run a Spell Check on this blog. The sudgested spelling for blogers, is BOOGERS. Pick a winner for me . Oh yeah, and Garen's team won their ball game tonight 10-5

First Sale !

Thanks to Travis in Enterprise, Alabama. I hope you and your wife enjoy the CD set. Call me with any questions. 770-355-9644

First Set of Instructional Videos

Hey , remember a month ago when I said I would have some big news on Friday ? Well it is still Friday, only a month later and I am happy to say that the FIRST SET OF DISKS ARE READY !!!!!!!.
This first set is called "Photoshop Basics" and it is for those photographers that are just getting started with digital and are just a little overwhelmed with the power of the massive Adobe Photoshop. In this 3 disk set you can follow along with me and watch on screen exactly the way I work in Photoshop using ONLY the most basic tools and processes. It is so easy I do have advanced sets almost finished as well as Disks and DVDs on "Wedding Album Design from Scratch" and "My Favorite Photographs and How they were Created" A 2 disk set.
See the photos of the Cover of the packaging and me holding the first one to come off of the duplicator. I will be relaunching my Image Doctor web site in the next week and then doing an e mail newsletter to the over 3000 photographer that are on my e mail list. When the site goes live, the price for this first 3 disk set will be $129.00. Since you are a loyal BLOG reader, you can have it for $99.95. Order on line at http://www.scottevans.biz/ Click on order on line and then "CDs and DVDs" The price in the shopping cart will say $ 129.00 but when I process the order I will only charge the $ 99.95 price plus minor shipping. I promise. You know you can trust me. Right ?

Just a few photos from Yesterday

Yesterday I did a wedding for Anne and Howard. They are a pretty cool couple. Howard must like Anne alot because the rock on her finger made her walk like a gorilla. I don't even know if she can lift her left hand.

OK, Here is the deal.

The big news was supposed to be the launch of the new Image Doctor web site. It has a "This Weeks Tip " section with a new Photoshop or Photography lesson posted each week. The new site is in 3 sections. One each for Photo Restoration, My Photography and the all New Photographers Only section.
The Photographers Only section will be the coolest one as you will be able to see clips from my DVDs and and order them on line.
The main problem is that my web designer has not given me the framework for all of this new material. We met 10 days ago for the 2nd and he said he would get right on it and I have not heard anything from him since. My video editor and producer, Eric, is on a mission trip to India and was supposed to be back this week. I got a call from his family 2 days ago that said that they did not know when he would be home as the local government in India where he is on the trip to support an orphanage, had taken all of the children out of the orphanage and said they could not have them back until the orphanage paid a fine. That same local government arrested the orphanages director 4 months ago and asked for a fine for his release. Several American churches raised the money and paid his $ 20,000.00"Fine" I guess that they figure they can get more money by taking the children. Eric works for Hope For The World Media. Check them out on the web. I will post Eric's blog when I find the link.
Anyway, I have the DVDs mastered and Eric was supposed to do the duplications so that I could put them up on the web site for sale. We agreed that the duplications could hold off until he got back from India because the new web site was not ready.
So here I sit waiting on other people. I will post and do direct e mail to all of you who have sent me an e mail when everything is ready.
I hope that this clears a few things up.

No News is Good News

There was supposed to be big news today. But it looks like it will be NEXT Friday.

The Best thing About Today

Today I did a Wedding Show north of Atlanta. Now what promoter does a Wedding show on Super Bowl Sunday ? Well, Tommy Vaughn of Elite Events does and it was a very well attended show. I had a good response with at least 2 or 3 brides in front of my booth all day long. But that was not the best thing. Not even the fact that the Super Bowl is over, (And all that really means is that Pitchers and Catchers report to Spring Training in about 2 weeks) is the best thing about today.
The best thing about today is that a lot of people went to church and that the uncut version of Caddy Shack is on Cinamax.
Enjoy the coming week and watch this blog for some BIG news at the end of the week.

Stuck in San Antonio

The ice storm here in Texas has caused all flights out of San Antonio to be canceled. So here I sit waiting for the next flight to Atlanta. I am told it might be tomorrow afternoon or Friday afternoon. All flights tomorrow are full. If they take off. I am sure that they will because the ice has started to melt and fall from the hotel windows onto the side walk and river walk. I got hit by a very large piece of ice a little while ago and it almost knocked me into the river. I am staying in the rest of the night. These are just a few photos I took with my little Nikon s6.

My Kids

Several people have e mailed and asked " Why don't you post any photos of your daughter ?"
It is because I am VERY protective of my daughter. My son can handle himself very well. So, he gets photos posted. The incident in St Louis , MO where the 14 year old boy scout was kidnapped by the pervert has really upset me. My Son is 14. My daughter is 16. She is a very petite young lady and is protected by her daddy (ME) her brother, and her new Black Belt Degree in the Martial Arts. She also has just finally out shot her brother and myself by putting 16 out of 20 .233 rounds in the first 3 rings of a 150 Ft target at the shooting range. If you shoot, you know what I am talking about.
Anyway, my description of my daughter in no way covers the whole picture. Life in my house with these two kids is like a comedy Broadway play. Imagine if you will, Ronald Reagan and Keith Richard as teens living in the same house. I have a very large demographic that reads this blog so for those of you who do not know who Keith Richard is, He is the lead guitar player and chief song writer for the Rolling Stones. When Keith dies, Rock and Roll will die with him. He is flamboyant, as is my daughter. My son is much more conservative. When we go out, my son may have on a jacket and tie, and my daughter will have on a feather boa and a lime green shirt with some kind of punk saying on it. Somebody help me. Somebody cool. The photo is from when we went to the tree farm to get a Christmas tree.

Erin And I

Photo of Erin and I in the freezing rain.

San Antonio, TX

Here I am in San Antonio. FREEZING my butt off. Rain and ice have been the norm since I arrived. I am here for the Imaging USA convention. The last 2 days have been full of great speakers and a lot of schmoozing with vendors who might want to sponsor part of my speaking tour. San Antonio has a great downtown area with the Riverwalk. You can get on the riverwalk and go just about anywhere downtown that you want to go. It has great shops and restaurants. (See the photo of my piece of cake) Lord knows I did not NEED any cake but when I am out of town the one thing I spurge on is great restaurants. I will post some photos later.
Erin (My old assistant from the Fayetteville days) is here with her husband Casey and we are about to go to lunch. (See photo of Erin and I in the freezing rain) other than Erin and Casey I have not seen any other photographers that I know here. I think must of them are waiting until March when an even larger convention will be in Las Vegas. The photographers that I have met here that are my age seemed to have an attitude of panic about all of the young photographers attending this year.
Erin and Casey are in a different hotel than I so it is a bit lonely here. I wish someone very cool was here with me so we could cause some trouble.
Three years ago on Biloxi MS, there were 3000 photographers that attended this event. Last year in Austin TX they had 7000. This year over 10,000 photographers have joined the organization and come to the convention. Most of these new photographers do not have a clue. But they came here to get one. And this is the place to get it. The statistics show that 80 % of them will be out of business in 3 years. Of the 20 % that survive, 80% of those will be out of business in 7 years.
This May I will have been in business 27 years. My new goal is to help some of these young photographers. I am looking for a few good ones with talent and the right attitude to take under my wing and teach for free. All the rest I will try to sell my advice to.

Greenville, SC Art Stuff

Today I am in Greenville, SC. I came up here to see a photographer that wanted me to check out his new showroom . While here I met some of the coolest people in this artist community along a newly developed area of snooty shops and stuff. One of my new friends here is Ric a fantastic artist who is setting the trend in Greenville for high end art. I shot a few photos in his gallery so that he can get some exposure. Ric will be setting up his own new web site and blog soon and I will give a link to from here. Check out the photos.
The two guys are Scott Holloway , "Great Photographer" and Ric the artist.

Family !!!!

You will do things for your family that you would not do for any one else. Just a few moments ago, I was in my car on the way to South Carolina to visit a photographer and see his new studio when the cell phone rings. It is the youngest child of my brother. My nice Erica. She has one of those cushy jobs at a bank where they will loan you money for your dreams and then feed you laxatives and prune juice before you go to bed so that those dreams will never be quite what you thought they would be. I think she is the manager of the customer relations department which explains why she has nothing to do at work but to sit with her friends in the big cushy office and surf the web and look at my blog.
So Erica says, "I was sure that you would have posted the photos that you took of my son at Christmas while we were all down at your house." Yeah, Like I haven't posted anything in over a month, but she was sure that I must have woken up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night and said to myself " I MUST GET UP RIGHT NOW AND POST A PHOTO OF MY NIECE"S SON IN THOSE GAY LOOKING PANTS UP ON MY BLOG !!!!! "
But I didn't.
SO just for you kid because you know I just love you to death. Here is the photo you asked for.

Now if you had just called and said: "Hey Uncle Scott, would you put a photo of Cooper on your blog so my friends at work can see it ?" I would have done so right away. But since you added "And don't put any of those snide comments on it like you do everything else" to your request, I had to write what I was really thinking. And why do you not have any wallet sized photos in your purse. Or one of the larger prints on your desk. I'll bet you husband has one on his desk. I gave you 15 of them before you left at Christmas. You know,the ones that I made in my office while y'all were all in my living room watching football and drinking wine. I would have been in there with you , but no one plays baseball on Christmas. It is a much more noble game. The smaller the ball, the smarter the athlete. And golf is not a sport.

Call me .

Heegh ! Good God !

I know it has been over a full month since I have posted anything. I have not disappeared or anything, it is that this was the first Christmas season that I have operated without a store front shop and a full staff. That did not stop the 173 customers for photo restorations that I had from Thanksgiving weekend until Dec 24th. I did not even see the Christmas season. I was stuck in my Restoration "Hole" as the kids call it repairing and restoring other peoples lost and fading family memories. I have been known as The Image Doctor for 26 years now and really enjoy restoring photographs. In the last 4 weeks I have worked on 319 different photos from color snapshots to 145 year old Daguerreotypes. Over the next 2 weeks I will be in hiding, spending some money and recharging. Mid January should see the NEW Image Doctor Web site. Disks 1 and 2 of my DVD series for sale on line on the new site and other stuff.
But that is not why I am posting today. Many of you that know me or follow my blog know that I love music. My son and I snuck out of town a few weeks ago to go to Canada to see one of my favorite bands "The Who" and it was a great trip. But today I am remembering one of my favorite performers who died here in Atlanta this morning. The Godfather of Soul, The Grand Master of Funk, Soul Brother Number One, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business Mr James Brown. I have seen him live several times over the last 20 years and was even listening to his Christmas album the other day. (Yes he had a Christmas Album ) It was not Bing Crosby I promise you, but it was a funky kind of change.
So James, Good Bye, I will try to continue to work as hard at what I love as you did.
HEEGH !!!!!
Does anyone know how to spell Heegh ! ? As in Heegh ! Ighhhhh!, Good God ! I want to Jump Back and Kiss Myself!

Wedding at Berry College

These images are from a wedding I shot with my son at Berry College in North West GA. It was the first weekend in Nov and the Fall colors were fantastic. The shot of the couple on the bridge was taken from in the water at this small pond with 3 giant snapping turtles hiding in it. GA snapping turtles can weigh over 100 lbs and be down right nasty. But, as many of you know, I will do whatever it takes to get the shot. However I must admit that in my hurry to get in and out of the water my mind was not on my camera settings. To see what this photo really looks like when you do not have the white balance set correctly on your camera see the photographers blog at www.image-doctor.blogspot.com on Monday night.
The fine looking young man in the other photo is my son Garen. He is no where near as good looking as my daughter who is just to good looking to put up on the web.

Thanks for Looking

A big thank you to WPPI for making me "Member of the Month" in the newsletter. When the e mail newsletter first went out, they had one of the photos wrong. The first photo of a bride looking out a window from behind was not one of my shots. They have fixed it now on the e newsletter, but I do not know if it will be fixed in the paper version.
I want to personally thank those of you that were new visitors to my site and BLOG. As of 10pm on Nov 2nd I had viewers from Plymouth UK, Winnipeg Manitoba, Bowie MD, Staten Island NY, San Jose and San Francisco CA, Lola KS, Chicago, Louisville, KY and Kent, Ohio. And a bunch of folks around Atlanta. Thanks again and check out my BLOG for Photographers at www.image-doctor.blogspot.com

New Blog for Photographers

Let me take this time to announce my new BLOG just for photographers. I made this new blog to go along with the all new Image Doctor site that is in the works. Each week I will post some new tip , Photoshop lesson or some video from one of my photo shoots. Some of the content will be bits and pieces from my new DVD series. This week , if you would like to see how I went from the color photo on the left to the B&W on the right, just see the new blog at
image-doctor.blogspot.com

Hi to Kansas

Everyone in Kansas send me an e mail

Moving to the Lake House

I am moving to the new lake house this week. I may be a little hard to get in touch with for a few days. There is a lot going on at the moment. The new Image Doctor web site is under construction by the very talented Chris Hayes. He designed my Scottevans.com site and has a whole lot of new things that he will try to teach me.
The new Image Doctor site will be for photographers mostly and have a special section where I can post a Flash movie showing anything from a Photoshop trick to behind the scene's at one of my photo shoots. There will be a new movie each week that will replace the previous weeks movie. There will also be a page for each of my Instructional DVDs and of course a way for you to order them.
But for now, I am sitting in my office with limited production equipment waiting on the carpet installers. I have about 6 wedding albums waiting to be printed but I will not be doing that until next week when I bring all of the printing and production equipment to the lake house. I will have so much more room at the new place. The photos are of what I see out my new office window. And from the dock.

Time for me to Toot My Horn !

I want to start this off by saying that I hardly ever toot my horn. But this weekends VERY SMART bride and groom are very lucky that they chose me as their wedding photographer instead of one of those "Shoot and Burn" photographers. A Shoot and Burn photographer is one that will show up at your wedding, take about 800 or more snapshots "many redundant" and then burn them to a CD and give them to you with no color correction or cropping ect. No Album no page design, just a CD full of photos by a beginner who has the best of intentions but not much experience.
I will set the stage. The photo of the Groom and his Mom was shot next to a hallway at chateau Elan . The same location that is in the photo on the opening page of my web site. The photo of the bride was "RETAKEN" (more in a minuet) in the seats that the wedding guest sat in.
The reason the bride photo was retaken was that right after I shot this photo the first time , some ass wipe snuck over to my camera bag a picked it clean of all the gear that was in it. I lost 2 high end digital camera bodies. A Nikon D 200 with battery grip and 2 batteries and a Fuji S-3 and Four lenses. All Nikon. an 80-200 2.8 12.5 mm fisheye 85mm 2.8 and a 50mm 1.8 and a light disk color balance device.
The strange part is that I was only a few feet away when it happened. I finished shooting the bride and individual bridesmaids photos like the one of the groom and mom in the hall next to the area where the wedding was to be held. That was done with the camera on the tripod. See the photo below.

I took that camera and 80-200 lens off the tripod and put it in my gear bag. I picked up my other D200 (I had 2) and photographed the bride in the chairs with the 85mm 1.8 lens while the bridesmaids were moving to a spot I asked them to go to. Total time about 1 minuet. After shooting the bride I put that camera back in the bag and picked up the other D200 and changed to a wide angle zoom lens , an 18-70mm , and walked around the corner to shoot the group photo of the bridesmaids. The timestamp on the file of the bridesmaids showed 5:35pm and the next photo, a candis of her mom back at the hall location showed 5:36 a one min time span ! While I shot the Bridesmaids some one stole everything left in my bag. INCLUDING all of the images shot on the Nikon D200. The Fuji was a backup camera and had not been used. I quickly searched the area, did not tell the bride ( As to not freak her out) called security and with now about 15 min until wedding time, ran out to the parking lot to scan the scene and to change into my suit. (In the parking lot next to my truck) Cheatu Elan's security cameras caught that but not the theft.
A snappy , snappy, snappy, burn and shoot photographer would have melted down about that time. I did not. The wedding was going to go on . On time and I had to photograph it. This is where experience comes in. You see, I have been photographing weddings for 27 years. Longer than many of my brides have even been alive. Way back in the good old days we shot something called film. We could only bring as much film as we could afford to shoot. It used to cost about $1.25 every time we pushed the button on the camera so we did not blow a lot of shots just to have something to do during a 4 hour reception or on tons of candid photos that we knew would never make it into the wedding album. Snappy snappy snappy photographers do not understand that quality is so much better than quantity.
Another problem that I had was that the stolen Nikon camera had my other two camera batteries in it. And since the camera that I still had was the one I had been using most that day, a good bit of it's battery power was drained. I knew I had to conserve my shots for the very best ones. And I did. Very much to the dismay of the brides sister who felt that I should be in the reception photographing various people while they were stuffing food in their mouths. (I never shoot that anyway) I was across the room when I saw the brides sister screaming at someone on her cell phone. Two hours later when I checked my messages, I found out that it was me she was screaming at. Saying that she did not see me and that I was missing the entire wedding and that she (not my bride or groom) demanded that I be in the room with her. I was, she just did not see me as I was not photographing her or her kids on the dance floor as I had already done and had the shots of them that I needed My cell phone was in the truck, but I wish I had had it and could have walked up behind her as she was screaming and tapped her on the shoulder. Then took her photo. But my bride and groom were great. You can tell they are so much in love. And he loves her even more than golf. And from what I heard from guests, that is a lot.

So Early this morning, I was calling friends to get back up gear , lenses and extra special camera batteries so that I can shoot tomorrow. I will replace about $ 8000.00 worth of gear on Tuesday.

So, how was your weekend ? Please e mail or post. Yeah POST that would be such a nice gesture from the 342 people that have visited this blog more than 10 times each. I do keep track .

Memphis

I did not get to spend to much time in the land of Elvis, but I did get to do a photo shoot in the cold and rain. This shoot was for an engagement photo for a couple whose wedding I am photographing in November. I left Stockbridge on Wed at 8pm after my son's school football team whipped the snot out of the Stockbridge Middle School football team 38 to 8. He played well against his former buddies and even told me that in the bottom of one of the pileups while waiting for all of the other players to get off of them, he had a nice conversation with the opposing team member that he had just tackled.

Wedding Day in New Port

Just a few photos from yesterday. I must be quick as I am off to photograph the Sunday Brunch for this group of people. Home to Atlanta late this afternoon. Appearance at Georgian Gallery tomorrow. My daughters birthday all day on Wed. Then off to Memphis for a photo shoot and some work on the DVD set and then back to Atlanta on Friday for a wedding on Saturday. When do I get to stop ?

New Port At Night

These are just a few night shots. For you photographers that read this, the techno stuff on the night shots were as follows. The Bridge: 20 seconds at f8.0 ISO 1200. The Mansion : 20 sec at f8.0 at ISO 1200. The Bonfire : 5 Sec at f5.6 ISO 400 with fill flash.

I enjoyed the Beach Bonfire the best. The only thing that kept me from ripping all my clothes off and running into the water with the bridesmaids was having seen the opening scene of the movie JAWS to many times as a kid. I think it was filmed somewhere around here.

Harbor Sailing

This morning I shot some photos at the rehearsal over at Castle Hill. After that we all went on a lunch cruise around Newport. It was cold and windy. The view was wonderful all around.

New Port , Rhode Island

OK OK OK .

I know it has been a while since I last posted. I get you e mails every day. Since my last written post, I have done the following: Bought new lake home. Started Fall Baseball with my son. Still involved with school Football with my son. The new home is under some minor renovation. New floors , paint, serious yard work. I have photographed 3 off the most spectacular weddings that I have done in a while, and this weekend I will shoot another one.
This weekends wedding is at the Castle hill Inn in New Port, Rhode Island www.castlehillinn.com check this place out.
The photo is of my view of the yacht club at my hotel. I will update all weekend.
The next photo is of the gift basket that that was left for me at the hotel. What a nice touch.

Wedding Show and Other Stuff

For those that were at the wedding show and are looking for the link to see the latest wedding albums that I have produced, click on this link. http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewalbum.html?bm=79060

Today I had one of the best wedding shows I have had in a long time. I started talking to brides the moment they opened the doors at noon and did not stop at all until the thing closed down at 5:30. I am very tired. I was at a wedding until midnight at the Fox Theater in Atlanta last night and then up early for the show today. I will post stuff from last weeks and this weeks wedding in the next few days. I know that it has been a while since my last post, and have been getting e mail asking if everything is OK. Everything is fine, it is just that EVERY DAY IS FULL OF STUFF TO DO.
If it is not favors for other photographers, it is take kids to school, pick kids up from school, drum lessons, football games, baseball games, football practice, baseball practice all for my son. Then my daughter, the lovely Marah Evans has dentist appointments, a list of boys on the social calendar and a phone stuck in her ear. I have not moved to the new house yet, but the kids now go to school just 3 miles from the new place, 22 miles from where I live now. Every school day I drive at least 88 miles just in the back and forth commute to school. To top all of this off, a very dear close person to me had major surgery last week. She lives alone and has no one to take care of her. So, she is recuperating at my house. She can not drive or lift anything more than a Coke bottle for the next 3 weeks.
I am up to my neck in STUFF TO DO. So, as I have said before. If you are looking for a favor for free, GET TO THE VERY BACK OF THE LINE, because it just ain't happing this month.