Making It A Light and Lively Friday

Good Morning Everybody,

We landed yesterday afternoon about 2 p.m., checked in with the flags waving in the breeze and the Empire State Building right outside our hotel window. We set for the program and were ready to go by the time people started arriving about 4:45 p.m.  And WOW! What a great crowd last night in Manhattan – one of the most excited, fun-loving group we’ve seen on the tour.  Must be all that pent up NYC energy, I guess.

I have to tell you, doing a program in the city is not like pulling up to a suburban hotel, calling for a bellman, and getting the bags to the room. But, we knew that going into last night’s location.  For me, it just adds to the excitement of the moment.  (LaDawn may take exception to that since she is the one dealing with all the room arrangements, 2 full bell carts of boxes and totes, room set up, etc.) 

All said, we had a great time last night and are planning to spend the weekend in the Big Apple. The city is buzzing with this being Columbus Day weekend.

Hey gang, for today’s post, I thought I would keep it a little light –mainly because LaDawn and I are looking for a little R&R after our run from Boston, Hartford, LaGuardia, and Manhattan this week. We are excited to be catching up with my daughter today.  Liz is giving us the tour of PACE University as she just started PACE about 4 weeks ago, so that should be fun.

But anyway, let’s get on with:

Light And Lively Friday

I’ve gone back over the comments from several of our readers over the last three weeks.  Thanks to all for the very nice remarks about my Digital WakeUp Call tour – much, much appreciated.

A few comments in the posts have asked for a little clarification. So today I’d thought I’d spend a few moments answering those questions.

A New Business Card Idea

In Wednesday’s post entitled, “8 Steps To Great Band Pictures At The Wedding Reception” Greg asked if I’ve ever created business cards for the band with my branding (studio name) on them. Hey Greg, thanks for a great idea.  They receive something free that only costs you a few bucks and they’re be spreading the word about you to perspective clients, too.

But Do They Sell?

About the same article, Craig asked if the images of the band really sell and further asked how they increase the sale.  I want to answer this two-fold. First, we don’t sell a ton of pics of the band in the wedding album, maybe 4 to 8.  I still like to include a few because with these images as a part of the final selection, they can easily capture the fun, color and festivities of the party.

We also use these band images as backgrounds in our page design.  Images of a band rockin’ on under images of the guests rockin’ on  look pretty cool in the album design. BTW, I’m planning on running something on album design after we wrap the tour – stay tuned.

The other purpose of the band images is to make the image presentation to the client that much more impacting.  As I said earlier, it’s about capturing the flavor and spice of the party.

Another product we sell at my studio is a DVD of the entire event.  That’s where the band pictures really count. It’s on the DVD that we want to work those images in – again to capture the color and excitement of the event. I know that was sort of a long answer, but I hope you get the idea as to why I take them. Not to mention that the band is always open to having additional images of themselves. Plus, it’s still fun to shoot them ;~)

To Flash Or Not To Flash

Allie asked if I used any on-camera flash in my Wednesday Image Of The Day post entitled, “Looking To My Love”.  Allie the answer is NO. In a church situation like this, there is generally enough ambient light to fill the shadows. 

And, remember too, that the light from the flash used to backlight the couple also bounces around and many times will create enough illumination on the front of the couple.

About the only time I use on-camera flash fill is when I’m working outside when there is nothing for the light to bounce off of. This creates a silhouette effect that just leaves the camera side of the couple completely black.  That’s generally not to my liking so I pop a little flash back on the subject with my on-camera flash dialed way down – at least 3 stops.

And Finally – What Monopod Do I Use?

OK gang, this one is really easy to answer. I use the cheapest monopod I can find. OK, you are still “dying” to know the exact make and model.  Here it is: Bogen/Manfrotto 3216 – about $48 from B&H [link].

Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’m outa’ here in a NY pixel minute. Everybody have a great weekend and I’ll see you in Newark, New Jersey on Monday. -David