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 !

The Best Thing That Happened In Baseball Tonight

The Braves beat the Mets 7-3
Comments ?

Yipeeeee !

This photo shows how happy I was to get home from today's wedding. This little girl was the flower girl and she just LOVED playing in the flowers ! Beautiful kid .

It was so hot today. It was in the 90s all day and someone said it hit 100 degrees. The wedding was out side and was really beautiful. My couple were smart and had ice water in big tubs for the guests when they arrived.
I had a lot of water but the sweat was just pouring out of me. I checked when I got home and I lost 7 pounds today. I have another one tomorrow, outside. So I am off to bed. I will post more photos from today's wedding in the next day or two.

Last Night at the Braves Game

There are times when being "Dad" feels unappreciated. I am in my 40's and my kids are in their teens. We went to the Atlanta Braves game last night and this time my kids and friends did not want me to sit with them. I am just to old and say stupid stuff. So this photo was taken just for the teen aged boys that went to the game with us last night.

Sometimes it pays to sit with dad ! Dumb Asses !

A Rare Day Off

When I am not shooting, giving classes, speaking to other photographers groups, designing wedding albums or filling out every stupid tax form in the known universe, we play around at the house. We either play baseball or guitar. This photo was taken this evening at about 8pm by my assistant. It is a very rare photo of me. I am sitting on the swing that my grandfather made for me about 2o years ago. My Father, Garen and I put it up the other day and it is just about my most favorite spot on the property. Over the last few days when my eyes would get tired from the computer screen I have picked up one of the many guitars that are around the house and went to the swing to play in peace. I ran electricity out there so I could plug in a small amp. Have you ever tried to mimic the sound of geese honking with an electric guitar ?

When I got home from last Saturdays wedding at 2am I went out there to sit for just a moment and fell asleep.

I will post more new stuff next week. One more thing, my new Instructional Disk Set "Wedding Album Design from Scratch" is now shipping. I will do an e mail about it on Monday, so if you are not on the mailing list, get on it by sending me an e mail scott@scottevans.com

Mini Seminars

This week I am doing 2 mini seminars in Alabama. Last night was in Aniston, Al The folks in the photography group there treated me great and seem to be a well organized group. The title of the show is "Combating the Shoot and Burn Photographer" There were a few shoot and burn folks that came to the meeting that were not members, and I hope that they do not feel as if I was there to pick on them. Although I did point them out several times. For those of you that are not familiar with the term "Shoot and Burn" That is the photographer who shows up at a wedding and photographs the whole thing and burns the photos to a CD for $500.00 and walks away. Most of them have NO training, do not color correct the images or offer any other services such as albums or prints. The resulting photos are often quite horrible when compared to a real photographer. These two young ladies were very receptive to everyone's suggestions and I truly feel that they were there to learn. I hope to see good things from them soon.

Thanks to all the members that took me out for cold beers after the show.

Tonight I am in Huntsville for another show.

State Baseball Championships

This weekend has been a wild one. We started the playoffs on Saturday morning at 9am in Blue Ridge, Ga in the Beautiful N Ga Mountains. It is about 130 miles from my house. It is now Sunday night at 10:45 and we just got in. We stayed in a hotel last night but came home this evening so I can get some work done tomorrow morning. We go back tomorrow for a game at 8:30 pm and will stay the night if we keep winning. Three more wins and we will go to the World Series in Memphis, TN.

Looks like I have some washing to do also.
I promise to have photography stuff up on the blog in my next post. Maybe some game photos with explanations as to how they were taken. I designed 3 wedding albums between games and will be posting them on my video site at http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewalbum.html?bm=79060

Fireworks

This photo was taken from my house looking over towards my office. My office is on the top floor of the building to the left. A fireworks display company did a pretty good show on Sat night for all the folks around the lake. Exposure was 10sec at f11 ISO of 250.

I held a black t shirt in front of the lens between the two bursts.

Portraits

These are just a few photos from a photo shoot of a couple who's wedding I am shooting in the Fall. We spent 5 min at my house shooting down by the lake and then they followed me in to town and we shot for 5 min at a loading dock around the corner from my favorite restaurant.

I was not keeping track of the time but Garen set his stopwatch just to see how long it would take. Total time including travel was 32 min.

So, I set the stopwatch to see how long it would take to download, edit, color correct and crop the photos. Also I timed the retouching and artwork and out put a 20x24 on watercolor paper and then tore the edges to make it look cool. Total time after the photo session was 4 hrs and 18 min. Almost 5 hours total. Over one half of a normal work day for the average person.

I am giving all of these time details so that people can see just how much goes into making a piece of photographic art work. This photo session had the purpose of just making one print to hang at the wedding reception. Imagine the amount of time that will go into photographing the wedding and producing a wedding album that will knock peoples socks off.

Basically what I am saying is that if you really want something different. If you want quality. You have to hire a REAL PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHER. The key word here is REAL. Not someone with a decent camera and a lot of time on there hands that will shoot some photos and burn them to a CD. It takes so much more to make something different.

The equipment used in the session was as follows:

1 Nikon D200 with 70-200 2.8VR lens. Lexar Compact flash card. 1 juiced up computer and monitor. Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop software. Epson 9800 printer and watercolor paper. Total value of equipment used was $ 10,500.00

Now I am not saying that the 4 photos in this post are just the best thing in the world of photography. It is just my style of photographing 2 people. What I am saying is that it takes a lot of time and equipment to produce the best results. That is why REAL photography is so expensive.

Does anyone have any comments ? If so PLEASE post them or e mail me.

I am out of contact until Monday

This morning was so cool. My customer was Boeing. I got to go places that I would have never been able to go. My subject was the US Navy Blue Angels. The photos go to Boeing, but I kept a few for my self. After the shoot early this morning, Garen got to meet the pilots and had them sign his shirt. Work is all done now. Tomorrow, we start a baseball tournament.

New Orleans to Pensacola

Today I had to do some business stuff. (It has to do with my Instructional Videos) and then Garen and I went to eat and then drove along the Mississippi and Alabama coast. New Orleans was a dump. Almost 2 years after Katrina and there were still blue tarps and tons of junk. MANY abandoned apartment complexes and businesses. The 9th ward is still in very bad shape. In contrast, in Gulf Port and Biloxi Mississippi, where the hurricane actually came on land, rebuilding is everywhere. There are still places where it is just a slab of concrete where a house or bank used to be. A lot of times, the sign for a business was still standing, but the building was gone. Washed away with the storm surge and wind. It was raining all day so I did not take to many photos. Still had to feed Garen . The photo is from downtown New Orleans with his gumbo. I will be photographing the US Navy Blue Angels tomorrow morning so I have to call it a night. Those guys get up early. The photo of the jet was Garens idea. It is really on a stand at the Florida welcome center on hwy 10. A little photoshop work and the stand was gone and flames were coming out of the engine . We do the real thing tomorrow.

Must Feed Kid

The only problem with taking one of your children along on a road trip is you have to feed them. I will be out of town doing a little business and adding a little fun along the way. Tonight we are in Mobile, Al and then on to New Orleans tomorrow. This photo is of Garen beating that damn golf tee jumping triangle game at Cracker Barrel. He beat it. I won't tell you how I did. I will post more from the road.

JUMP !

I have not done the "Everybody Jump Up In The Air" shot since around oh maybe 1992. A lot of people do it today but I always try not to do what everyone else is doing. I was doing a lot of the so called "New Journalistic" photos 20 years ago. I like to think of my work now as a blend of all styles. I am an all digital photographer these days. But I still remember the 20 years that I shot film every weekend. I went digital for my weddings in 2000 and since then I have been able to produce on paper what I see in my head when I take photographs a lot easier than I could back in the days of the custom darkroom.

These photos are from Saturdays wedding. Scroll to the bottom to see the before version of the car. I had to do a complete "Tuck and Roll" job on the seats upholstery. There was a driver sitting in the front seat. And blank white walls are full of color if you know how to look for it. I show you how in my DVD sets. See http://www.scottevans.biz/ to order. ( I have to throw in the plug because I just replinished my stock of instructional videos with 100 more sets)

One more thing. This wedding had the best party band I have heard in a long time. The Coconut Groove Band from North Carolina can be found at www.cgb1.com My favorite Atlanta band is still The Neons but these guys in the Coconut Groove Band just blew me away

Thank You All

This week I sent out an e mail to about 3000 photographers on my mailing list asking for some help in finding a replacement fish eye lens. I wanted to try to buy a lens from one of my blog readers before I tried e bay or out of town camera stores. I got WAY more response than I thought I would. People were searching E Bay, calling camera stores, getting prices and then e mailing me or calling me personally. This is what it is all about people. Photographers helping other photographers. Now no one wanted to give up their personal fisheye lens, but I did order one from a very small camera store in Ohio.
But here is the neat thing. Chip McGrath, owner of http://www.atlantabride.com/ ( A new up and coming wedding planning site) called and offered me his lens for the weekend. What a cool guy.
Below is a photo I shot with it today.
I am off to bed, I have another wedding tomorrow on Sunday. I hope you enjoy the 2 photos from tonight's wedding in Athens, GA.

People, Go To Bed

It is 12:55 AM on Thursday morning and 10 min ago I sent out over 3000 e mails to fellow photographers. In 7 minuets over 120 people had opened the email and more than half are on my blog right now. Thanks Guys, but come on, get some sleep.
I can't sleep because I am in a hotel room in Colombia , SC at the moment and the band at the bar next door is keeping me up. It would be ok if they were any good.
Thank you all for checking out my blog. Please leave a comment.

Peace and Quiet

It is midnight and I am sitting on my back deck looking out over the lake. The water is so still and the night is very quiet. All I hear are frogs and crickets. No stereo with the psychedelic mid 60s music floating threw the air along with the smell of incense. No cold ones. Not tonight. That was LAST night after I got home from Saturdays event.
Anyway, tonight I am working up a little advertising sheet that is for the event facility that my Friday night wedding took place in. The guy that owns the place says he does over 200 events a year there and does NO advertising. Now many of these events are lunches for local civic groups and garden clubs and such. But you never know who will pick up a card with your name on it. I had one lady spend over 33,000.00 (Yes that's thousand) dollars with me over a period of 2 months all because another lady that she did not know was sitting next to her in a restaurant and snooping in on her cell phone conversation hearing that she was planning her daughters wedding and gave her my card. You photographers listen up. The advertising card that I just made is in 8x10 size and fits in a brides wedding planner book just perfect. Print up 100 of these and give them free of charge to the event facility. You put your name and web address on the card ABOVE where the name and contact info for the event facility goes. Why does you name go on top ? Because some of these event planners, especially the ones that hiss when they speak will trim off the bottom of the card where your name is so that the free 8x10s that you just gave them will only show off the photographs of the event facility and no one will know that you made all the photographs. Then the event director can recommend another photographer that gives them a kickback while still using your free advertising 8x10 to show off their facility. Sounds bad but it has happened to me several times.
The peace and quiet was just shattered by the most hideous noise. It was either two bobcats trying to kill each other or just getting it on REAL GOOD or space aliens have landed in the water off my point and that was their mating call. Either way, I think it is time to go inside. The skeeters are starting to eat me up. See the photo of the advertising card. The event facility info will be added when I remember the name of the place.

One more thing. Hello to who ever is in Venice , California and has spent over two hours in the last 5 days looking at all the back pages on my freaky little blog here. Do you like what you see or are you plotting to kill me like my old paranoid neighbor used to say about blog readers ? Just wondering. Please California, post something or just send me an e mail at scott@scottevans.com