Wedding Wednesday! I, as primarily a portrait photographer, would like to express my concern with weddings and the photographic industry as a whole.

Weddings are costly! Just go to google and type in “average cost” the first suggestion that shows on the list reads: “average cost of a wedding”. People want to know what they are financially getting into.

Why do you think the average marital age is 27 years old? If you look around just at people you know 27 feels still too low for most people out there.

The best guess, and it’s hardly a guess, for people choosing to wait longer these days to get married is because of the money! To supplement this change, vendors from every service in the wedding industry have been giving more for less. This change seemed like a great idea, until… vendors began giving a lot for just a little. That brought out more competition, this change had devalued products and services, more and more of your long standing professionals have gone out of business trying not to change while the market increases for the armatures.

I’m not against photographing a wedding for $500.00 and giving the customers a disk of images, I’m against photographers who make a person believe what they are getting is a good product, and not following through on that idea. Here is one of very many cases on YouTube.

To be honest the price you set as a professional photographer is your business; the product you give is also your business. It is just frightening how may brides get garbage for their 1 special day, all because they stopped looking. There will always be better prices, until you find me and always better work… again, until you find me. J Just saying, if the average wedding costs $28,762.00 you may as well find everything you really want for that kind of price.  Until next time… I now pronounce you, good and night!

So my big finding is not that big, however seems to be a great candidate for technology Tuesday! Portrait Professional 9 has been out for a while, although they have had their latest version out for this long; the price has dropped on it substantially. At a solid $69.95 the program is well worth it. Within just a few minutes of organizing your edit the program takes care of any major blemishes, skin clean up, sharpening of the eyes, restructure the individuals characteristics, and dramatically improve the looks of your portraits. The software uses multiple patch selection to work through its tasks, such as skin softening. This portion of the tool in itself is amazingly realistic, that is due to the skin texture overlays Portrait Professional 9 uses to supplement the images with in place of the unflattering skin of your subject. So to all you photo tech heads, go ahead and get yourself the free trial just to get a feel for it. love it, and buy it while you have the $30.00 off deal.

3-29-10

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Let’s get to it! Macro Monday is all about getting close and personal! I would like to zoom in and tell you more about myself and love of macro photography. As a photography student at The College of DuPage I had explored many areas of photography. I had found myself leaning toward nature more and more with each semester. The summer prior to my final year attending The College of DuPage I had purchased a macro lens, but not just any lens.  Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G macro, this was my first major investment in glass and I love this lens without end. If there is a bit of room to work with it makes one of the best portrait lenses you can use. Having an f-stop ranging from f2.8 all the way down to f57 there is a lot of potential to be creative. An f-stop of 57 seems out of control; however the 3 things that affect depth of field are focal length, subject to camera distance, and the f-stop. With this 105mm Macro having a 1:1 aspect ratio you need to close down your aperture to near f22 just to have even a small range of focus. If you are at a 1:1 ratio; f2.8 or f3.5 would just come out to be a sliver of a focal plane. The image of the dragonfly is at f8 and as you can see, the eye is sharp while the rest of the image is falling out of focus rapidly as you move away from the focus point (the eye). My love of photography, and particularly nature, became heightened by the owning of a macro lend. This lens let me really try to discover the simple and beautiful features of nature. Tune in next week for a new view on close-up photography!

           I am so excited to announce my final type of posts that I will be doing on a weekly basis! I am more excited about next week and becoming even more involved with each days idea and I can’t wait to see the growth of this blog and how many follower will keep coming back. The photographic community is so largely spread because anyone can be a photographer, and the digital age makes it easier every day.

          These rapid changes in the medium are the reason for my Friday blog posts: Review Fridays.

          I will be covering the large brand names, Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Pentax, Fujifilm, Sigma, Tokina, Tamron, and others. Beyond the brands and what is a better choice, I will be showing you the best places to get your equipment: Adorama, B&H photo, Calumet Photographic, and many other options on where to purchase. This will ensure viable information for all users in the field. I highly encourage amateurs and hobbyists to follow Fridays very closely, just to have one more opinion of a working professional.
          That concludes my introduction week! Tune in next week to see these concepts unfold into relevant content corresponding to the individually unique days. Enjoy your weekend and be here for the official first posts of:

• Macro Mondays
• Technology Tuesdays
• Wedding Wednesdays
• Random Thursdays
• Review Fridays

Thursday is the next day in line for me to discuss and inform you on what my Thursdays are going to be about… are you ready… Nothing! It’s kind of like Seinfeld. That doesn’t mean there is nothing to see here; in fact my Thursday blog posts will be very much like Seinfeld, it is a post that does not always have a streamline connection from week to week, however Thursday s will be an episode all on their own.

               

                I would like to tell you I have a cleverer name for Thursday’s purposes like my others (Macro Monday, Technology Tuesday, and Wedding Wednesday) I have decided to have a more general use for Thursdays. Here we all are craving the weekend and getting ready to finally enjoy a little free time; Thursday should be an easier day in the week. For that I introduce to you “Random Thursday”.

                With Random Thursday I will be looking for something… well, random. This could be a number of things. Perhaps, a business technique that can be used, a mobile upload of an interesting sighting, a discussion about seminars coming to you, photography in the news, or anything that fits in a more general category that probably doesn’t have enough content to be gifted with its own day. That is what Thursday is all about… nothing, because after that there is only one last work day and a weekend, Monday’s biggest dream.

I'll see you tomorrow to conclude my “introduction of days” week, and next week the real fun will start. 

Well… Wedding Wednesday is just the Way We Would all love to spend our hump day!

                I have heard, like most of you; a girls Wedding day is the most frequently fanaticized day in their entire lives. I for one never wanted to become a Wedding Photographer! Yet, I know more about it know, and found rather than a want or not… I learned to love it.

                A wedding is a wonderful time for all those involved, and it should be wonderful. I do my best, as a photographer, to be more involved with the whole wedding more than the majority of the guest attending the ceremony. It had taken some time to find Wedding photography as a passion of mine. Honestly I first got into weddings thinking the money would be worthwhile. (Not true)

                Follow along as I show images from recent weddings and engagements; not only to have as a good source of image ideas, but also because I will be giving tips and tricks to posing, lighting, and least/most important: editing.

                I feel a wedding is one type of shoot that is never done, my goal for Wednesday’s is to give comfort to all those struggling to get the gig, starting out in the industry, or just wants to learn how to organize the knowledge you already have.

                Be back next week ready to take a perfect memory with you forever! 

Welcome back. Here I am in day two, and I know you all have been going crazy just wondering what my Tuesday posts are going to be about. I like the “play on words” idea (ie. Macro Mondays); I prefer the use of more largely spread topics as well. Something that will have a lot of information, but also maintain your interest as a reader and follower of rkphotoblog. I think this one seems to fit, just perfectly.

                Time to add Technology Tuesday to your calendar!

                Look forward to seeing what’s Hot and what’s Not, or maybe you’ll come to find a neat trick to make something easier than it had been, how about knowing which new app to download to make your photography business run that much smoother, possibly finding out that equipment you put down a few years back is the only piece you need to make your images pop like never before, or what if you see the latest tools for your editing tricks. Be sure to stop in because Tuesdays are totally tech.

                Tuesdays will be nice, there is a good understanding about what you can expect from week to week, but there is no telling where the topics could be coming from, or even where they will go.

This has been your Technology Tuesday update… and it’s already out dated!

Well here we are. I am proud to announce this blog will now be up and running.

The goal: A post five days a week; each day has its own purpose and will be updated once a week to that purpose. Before I get into what each day is about, and just jump right into it, this first week being back on track will describe what the days are about and starting next week you will get a little more flavor that represents the day more appropriately.

                Monday’s:

This wonderful start to the week is going to be designated as Macro Monday! I love to shoot nature! I love it so much, my first real investment in glass was my AF-S VR Micro-Nikkor 105mm f/2.8G IF-ED. This lens is a great Macro lens:

• It is closer that the 60mm gives “close-up” a more effective meaning
• Unlike the 200mm your minimum focus is 1.0ft (0.314m) where the 200mm is 1.6ft making it harder to maintain a good focus.
• Affordable! Fewer than one thousand dollars for Nikkor glass, f2.8, full frame, and Vibration Reduction

My Macro Mondays will be talk related too, but not limited to:

• Style
• Process
• Macro photographs
• Techniques
• Tools
• Post production
• Place
• Time
• Light
• Other uses

I look forward to seeing where our Macro Mondays take us and what we can all learn from them. Until next week,

Keep Close!

Under Construction

This blog is undergoing a bit of construction at the moment. trying to build a better structure for its purposes. 

Be back soon though I hope to have it fully up and running no later than Monday March 22nd

Art?

I understand photography can be viewed as an art, just as dance, painting, sculpting, drawing, poetry, etc. However I never felt a true calling to “art” parse. I first found my passion in action/sport photography, an area I have least explored, and felt this idea of documentation was and is the most important use for photography. I then found myself gravitating toward photographing nature; I enjoyed the peacefulness of being outdoors and getting in touch with the natural world. I’m going to be honest in flat overcrowded northern Illinois nature is limited, or so I thought. Moving through my path of discovery, as far as my own personal photography, led me to a class I attended. There it seemed inevitable for me to look for an artistic approach to my photography. Took only one semester and the exploration of my creativity and photographic knowledge to come up with THIS! Does this now make me an artist? Who knows, really who cares, but it is something I am proud of, however not so much that I am chasing a way for it to be the center focus of a gallery. Yet, if an opportunity presented itself I would think exploring that avenue would only grow my knowledge and love of photography.

Who am I

I should say a little about myself and what this blog is about…

I am a photographer:

My site Here

My company with my brother Here

My extended portfolio Here

I will be posting every day. That is if I can keep it up. If you’re quick you already see I missed a day, however I am posting to the blog twice today to make up the difference.

To be quite honest I have no real solid goal for the blog at this point, yet I do know a few thing I will be doing with it for now.

1)         1)   I will be updating my experiences with you, being my photography experiences, and at the moment those will be weddings… and if I have time my nature work.

2)          1)   I will keep my eyes peeled for interesting images or just little “tid bits” of photo related, for lack of a better word, STUFF!

3)          1)   I will be presenting interesting thing in photographic history and news!

So keep following and see what there is to see.

You may also find me on facebook and a faster way to do that would to be click Here or then again you could click Here

Thanks All!

Brother From Another Mother!

Is it me or does Taylor Mays look like the black bulkier Taylor Lautner?

Now that’s what I call a “brother” from another mother.

Here I have a few images from the wedding yesterday. You'll notice I don't have any with visible people, this is because I feel the bride and groom should have the first look at the pictures, however giving a preview of so of the detail images shouldn't be a problem.

How to kick off my new blog!

I have my first wedding of 2010 today hope it goes well and I’ll be back with an image or two tonight.