Business Day Thursday: Over Promising and Under-Delivering; Sedona Update–2 Seats Left; & Dinner With Joel Grimes

Good Afternoon Everybody,

This being Thursday, the After Dark crowd is heading home till the next one in Charlotte, NC September 26-28, 2011.  I stopped by to say my good-byes and thank Dave Junion, the “brains” of the operation, for his hospitality in letting me hang out for a few days.

A few of the mentors were wrapped for the day so I invited Ralph and Cindy Romaguera, Phillips Mitchell, and Joel Grimes over to our home for a grilled dinner on our deck.  I hadn’t met Joel before this week but have always loved his work. 

Joel Grimes, is really a down to earth, nice guy with tons of experience and some great stories to tell about his travels worldwide.  You know, everyone just “chilled”, enjoyed a nice dinner, and good conversation. 

The Sedona Experience: A Private Workshop Update: Only Two Seats Left

That’s right, only 2 seats left for my Sedona Experience coming up on June 7-9, 2011!  I’ve mentioned that we’re keeping the class size to a very intimate 6 photographers only who will be eating, sleeping, and breathing photography for  2 1/2 solid days – about 32 hours in total. Those signed up already are super stoked about the experience.  Here is all the info right here.

I just checked time of the sunsets in Sedona and it looks like we are adding a few more hours to each day’s shooting sessions.  Like they say, you can sleep when you get home ;~)

If you would like to be one of lucky two to nab one of the last two spots, give Jennifer a call at 800.292.2994 to get the full details. You can also place your $495 deposit right here to secure your seat.  Jennifer will then call you with more details.

Business Day Thursday: Over Promising and Under-Delivering

It’s Pizza Time:

After returning home from Texas School last Saturday neither LaDawn or I wanted to make dinner and that usually means a call to Papa John’s Pizza.  Pretty good pizza and we can stay loyal to our state because Papa John is headquartered in the great state of Kentucky.

Well, the pizza arrived in about 45 minutes and we were both anxious to dive in.  I opened the box and once again we both exclaimed that the pizza sure looked smaller that usual.  In fact, it was not the normal Papa John pizza we come to expect over the years.  The ingredients were a good two inches from the edge and they weren't all the ingredients I had ordered.  Now normally I wouldn’t complain, but this has been a recurring problem with the past several deliveries from Papa John’s.

I’m wondering if they changed crust size or something. I decided this time to call the store and talk to a manager. Chris, the manager, got on the phone and brushed me off saying that they would get another pizza out right away.  I mentioned the smaller pizza size and then he went into “hi-gear” telling me that’s exactly what I ordered – a 12 inch medium pizza.

I overlooked his remarks and  his anti-sales attitude, hung up the phone, and waited for the next pizza.  The more I thought about it, the more I thought, “This just is not right. We’ve been getting these smaller pizzas for months now.”  I decided to measure the pizza and sure enough it was about 11 inches, not 12 inches as advertised.  It measured just over 11 inches – a good bit shy of the 12 inches advertised.  Mathematically that meant Papa John’s was making a pizza 72 square inches smaller – almost 20% smaller than advertised!  I wonder if Papa knows what going on in his Florence, KY store?

A while later our other two pizzas arrived and were just fine. Dinner was a little late that night but it got me thinking.  Is that any way to do business? I’m not even talking about the “snotty” attitude of Chris, the store manager.  I’m talking about over promising and under-delivering.

Are You Doing The Same? I Hope Not!

You know, around my studio we always try to do just the opposite, well almost.  We “honestly” promise and then over-deliver.  I was just with a client yesterday who was reviewing photographs for their “Birthday” album – yes, birthday album. Can you believe it - we had two birthday shoots on the same weekend.  It was a fun visit and they put together a great selection of images.

Our coverage included 35 images in an 8x8 leather album.  The client selected 34 additional images for a total of 69 images – 69 to represent the year she graduated high school.  I had myself and Nicholas covering the 4 hour event so in a few images I was in the background of some of Nicholas’s photographs.

When the first one popped up, I was quickly noticed by the client who may have deleted the image from her collection. I was quick to point out that any image I’m in that goes into the album is on me – it’s complimentary.  She smiled as did her husband and said, “Well, in that case, we’ll take it.”  It’s a small gesture but it’s still delivering more that what was promised in the coverage.

Let me give you another example.  When reviewing the images for an album, I always suggest that the client add a few photographs of the flowers or other detail shots that we could use as backgrounds in our album design.  When it comes to billing those 12-15 images, they are always at no charge.  And, you know what?  I know the client appreciates the gesture.

A Way to Guarantee Business Failure and Save The Day

Which brings me back to the pizza story.  Why would ANY business ever over-promise and under-deliver?  But it happens all the time.  How often has that hamburger looked as juicy and tempting as it did pictured in the menu?  How often have you had a service performed like a poorly applied asphalt coating, only to have most of it washed away by an over night rain storm.  The list can go on and on – you probably have many similar experiences.

But, if you are a business person/studio owner, you just can’t afford to conduct your business in that suicidal fashion.  Like they say, have a good experience with a company and the customer will tell a few friends. Have a bad experience with a company and they’ll tell the world.

There may be times when maybe it’s your staff under-delivering on the part of your business like the Papa John story above.  As the business owner, you’ve got to know if that’s happening and put a stop to it.  Thankfully, all I hear is praise for my staff from my clients and even many of you as customers that have called to sign up for our Master Classes and/or pick up a Zumbrella or two.

Sure, sometimes something may go awry, but that’s when you throw even more effort at the situation to make it right for the customer.  Boy, can I tell you a story or two here – like when I backed into the cake table while photographing a table of guests and knocked off the top layer of the wedding cake.  You should have seen the expressions of the guests at that table!  Turns out that wedding was the largest wedding sale for the studio during that particular year.  How did I turn it around? Massive over delivering!  But, I’ll will save that story for another day ;~)

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  It’s late in the day and time for a little R&R.  How about I see everyone sometime tomorrow for about the coolest wedding photograph ever – you’re going to love it!

See ya’ then,  David

"Skies Of Blue"

"Skies Of Blue"
©David A. Ziser

You would not believe the conditions under which this image was captured.  Bright afternoon sun, no acceptable location to place the bride for a decent background – nothing was going right.  It looked like we weren’t going to get anything till I decided to “play” with the light.

The background of this scene was the church parking lot – with several cars parked in it!  Beyond the parking lot was another building – ugly and pretty darn challenging.

I figured that if I got as close to the ground as possible that I could eliminate most of the clutter in the background.  That worked for the most part but I wanted all the clutter gone.  That meant a slight 3/4 crop on the bride. That mostly did the trick.  I still needed to remove a few of the parking lot lights but that was easy in Photoshop.

The next problem was the bright sky behind the bride – how could I get any color at all into that sky"?  The answer, of course, is to under expose the sky.  That was going to be a bit more difficult because I still needed to get light on my bride’s face.  Anyway, I decided to give it a shot.

I brought my 150 W.S. Quantum flash in close from camera left.  How close – about 4 feet away from the bride’s face.  If you look closely, you may still see some remnants of the flash hiding within the tree on the left.  Reminder, if you are going to include your gear in a shot, be sure to put it in a “Photoshopable” area of the image.

Why did I need the flash so close?  Easy answer – I needed a very small aperture to darken the sky.  Remember, I could only push the shutter speed so fast and still see the flash sync in this image.  Once I reached the flash sync speed limit, all I had left was aperture and that usually means a very small aperture under extremely bright lighting conditions like we experienced at this location on this day.

Anyway, we were able to pull it off and capture a great image to boot. I especially like the sun peeking through the trees ;~)

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 8-16mm lens at 10mm, F16 @ 1/400 second (cheating the sync), ISO 200.  Enjoy!  -David

The One That Got Away: Mostly Because Of Subject Placement; Jason Groupp Sets New Flash Record!

Good Morning Everybody,

What a day yesterday turn out to be – whew! Our IPS’s connectivity dropped to a snail’s pace -60B/sec, yes 60B/sec – 60 bits of info per second!!!!  I was pulling my hair out trying to get the blog posted.

On top of that, Vimeo also had a hiccup or two as well. I asked Jennifer to try to get it posted before she left for the day.  I switched to my Verizon My-Fi card to get to the internet and Vimeo finally got back on track about 5:30 p.m.

But the day ended on quite an up note.  We caught up with our friends, Cindy and Ralph Romaguera – Ralph’s a mentor at the After Dark happenings in Cincy this week – and got a chance to visit a bit before Ralph had to go back to work.

And speaking of After Dark, Jason Groupp, also one of the mentors set the the world record for most flashes used to take a photograph!  [link] 

Jason wired, radioed, cajoled 300 small flashes to fire together to set the all time record. The bystanders blinded by the super nova burst of flash was only temporary and luckily their sight had returned within the hour – just kidding ;~)

Then it was off to the play to see Beehive, a very popular musical featuring the songs of the 60’s.  Hey, I’m a child of the 60’s and I was lovin’ it.  The best part – the 4 song Janis Joplin compilation at the end of the play – Piece Of My Heart, Try (Just A Little Bit Harder), Ball and Chain, and Bobby Magee – that’s when music was music ;~)

The One That Got Away: Mostly Because Of Subject Placement

I was reviewing images for today’s post and couldn’t find just one that stood out for me to discuss.  In fact I found many that could fill the bill.

In looking at many of the class’s images it dawned on me that many times the image could have been improved just by being a bit more careful with subject placement.  Many times I was seeing distracting elements in the background. These could have easily been avoided by moving the subject a little to the left or the right or even changing the camera position just slightly up or down.  Let select a few images and show you what I’m talking about.

Photo #1:

Image placement is not too bad in this example but it could still be improved upon.  On the positive side I think the maker has a nice sense of space created around the couple.  The focal length of the lens and the camera distance to the subject yielded a nice balance of the size of the arch with the relative size of the subjects in the foreground.

In addition, they are centered in the arch which works in this composition as well.  The flash and ambient are balanced giving the couple the attention they deserve.

My minor complaint about this image is in the subject placement.  Look at the cross sticking out of the bride’s head.  Once you notice it, it really is a major distraction to the image.  All the maker needed to do to fix it was to lower his/her camera just a few more inches.  That would have hid the distracting element behind the bride’s head.

Let me point out that you’ve got to be VERY careful in lowering the camera position – lower it too much and you place the subject’s heads up into the very bright arches above.  That would have been even a worse situation.

So you can see, it’s only a matter of inches that can make or break a shot.  Keep your eye on the background and be sure you have an “all clear” behind the subject’s heads before you press the shutter button.

Photo #2 Series:

OK, now let’s have some fun.  Let’s look at this next image.  I think we have the same problem with image placement.

At first glance it may have seemed like a good idea to place the bride in front of the stain glass window behind her head.  You could argue that the window was leading the viewer’s eye to the subject.  I get a different feeling.  I feel that the window is growing out of her head.

What happens if we move the bride around a bit on this background.  Let’s try the second position below.

OK, in this position we, at least don’t have the window growing out of her head.  Actually I think this position is an improvement on the initial placement.  But what happens if we move her head even more to the left and bring her closer to the camera.

Moving her to the left let’s us place her head within the larger space of the wall behind her.  I’m thinking this is the best placement for our subject.  Take a look at the image below – what do you think?

Now I think the image is beginning to come together.  Let’s give it a tweak or two in Lightroom 3 and see what we get.  Check out the last image below.

What do you think?  I think a lot better – the bride is framed nicely against the back wall.  I toned down the brighter areas in the background to remove them as distractions.  A little better crop also allowed me to reposition the bride into nodal point # 1.  All the lines seen in the foundation of the building lead to our bride as does the corner of the building.  The tree also gives us a nice canopy over the bride and adds a touch of Springtime to our image.

I hope this progression of images has been helpful today.  I’ve tried to show you the iteration my mind goes through when composing an image.  It’s always a tweak here and a tweak there before you get to press the shutter button.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’m going to run down to After Dark one more time today and say my good-byes to my buddies.  We have a few instructors coming over for dinner this evening. On top of that, I’ve got clients coming by this afternoon to review their images.  Yep, another busy day here at David Ziser Photography.

How about I see you tomorrow for a business building Business Day Thursday post. Tomorrow’s topic – “Do You Over Promise and Under Deliver”?

See ya’ then,  David

"Chairman Of The Board"

"Chairman Of The Board"
©David A. Ziser

This executive portrait was made last week during one of my shooting sessions with the class.  We were just wandering around the hotel and found this pretty cool hallway on the second floor.  The diagonal windows and leading lines gave me the perfect backdrop for this portrait of Peter, one the the wranglers for the week.

I pulled a chair in to use as a prop for him to rest his elbow.  With the other hand in his pocket, the nice loop lighting on his face, and the strong background, he looked as if he just walked out of the boardroom.

Lighting was simple – I just brought my Z-Ray in from camera right, adjusted it’s working distance to balance with the ambient light.  Adding a slightly darker gradient with LR3 to the bottom right side of the image brings viewer attention easily to our subject.

Camera specs: Canon 7D camera fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 50mm, F5.6  @ 1/80 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy! –David

Technique Tuesday: Magical Black & White Conversions – Saving the Under/Over Exposed Image

Good Morning Everybody,

In reading over all the comments that have been posted the last few days, I want to begin today’s post by offering a great big “THANK YOU” to all of you who attended my Texas School class held in Dallas last week.  Thank you for all your kind comments and remarks you’ve been posting here at DPT.

It was a great time with a great group of people, and that includes class members, wranglers, and staff.  I hope our paths cross again in the not too distant future.

After Dark Update:

Yesterday I headed down to the big After Dark event being held at the Netherland Hilton Hotel, in downtown Cincinnati. There were about 300 folks from all over the US enjoying the myriad of educational festivities.

I got a chance to meet Joel Grimes, an amazing photographer and Photoshop artist. If you haven’t seen any of Joel’s work, be prepared to be “blown away” with his outstanding images right here.  He’s been featured over at the Strobist site and is presenting at Photoshop World in September.  We got a chance to visit briefly – he was showing a small group his latest, greatest “pole cam.” Again, be sure to check out his work right here.

I wondered around for a few hours yesterday and also got a chance to meet Dave Junion, the genius behind After Dark.  Dave is an extremely talented photographer hailing from Wisconsin.  I’ll tell ya’, we had a good time just joking around for a bit.  In fact I MAY even be doing a “bridal shoot” Wednesday evening with a boa constrictor – that’s if I can wrestle it away from New York fashion photographer, Lindsay Adler, who’s planning a fashion shoot with the same snake.  Like I said, it’s a little “crazy” at the Netherland Hilton Hotel this week.

Magical Black & White Conversions Part 2: Saving the Under/Over Exposed Image

Hey gang, I’m pretty excited about this week’s Technique Tuesday. Last week I began to get carried away with the length of the tutorial and decided to break it into two parts.  I covered the steps I take to get the B&W images I like for my wedding photography. One of the things I covered was how to stylize your images for maximum viewing impact. You can catch that post right here.

This week we’re gong to spend some time on saving the image. Yep, every now and then we all take an image or two that just misses it in the exposure department – me included.

The thing is that some of these images would still be great additions to the wedding coverage if we could somehow correct the errors of our ways.  That’s the topic for this week’s tutorial – basically, how to save an under exposed or over exposed image and still get a saleable result.  Why not hit the PLAY button and see how I do it.  And, enjoy the show.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’m heading back down to After Dark this afternoon to see what’s happening and check out a few more of the programs.

Have a great rest of the day and I’ll see you tomorrow for another episode of “The One That Got Away”.

See ya’ then,  David

p.s. Sorry about the late posting today.  Not only did we have connectivity problems at our end today, Vimeo managed a few hiccups in the process too. Don’t you love technology ;~)

"Fashion Forward"

"Fashion Forward"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image I captured during one of my teaching sessions at Texas School last week.  I was trying to demonstrate to the class how, that while the super wide angle lens could be your friend, it could also come back to “bite” you, compositionally speaking, that is.

I positioned our bride in about the worst part of the frame, the bottom right corner.  I was getting some distortion, but on the other hand, I was loving my composition.  I was able to manage/minimize quite a bit of the subject’s distortion in Lightroom 3.

Look how the bride is framed up in the right-bottom part of the frame by all the lines in the ceiling. I really liked how the wide angle lens was stretching all the lines in favor of the composition. I guess I could have cropped more of the left side of the image, but I don’t mind that large part of the ceiling offering a counterweight to the visual balance of the frame.

This is definitely an image that may not suit everyone’s aesthetic tastes but I still like the fashion feel of the image.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with Sigma 8-16mm lens at 8mm, F5.6 @ 1/40 second, ISO 1600.  Enjoy!  -David

Quick Hit Monday: Future Of Blogging; Photographic Inspiration; Photo Tips; Photoshop/Lightroom Tutorials; and A Few Freebies

Good Afternoon Everybody,

I hope everyone had a great weekend.  We landed just in time to watch the running of the 137th Kentucky Derby.  LaDawn and I quickly picked our 3 favorites – six in all – none of them made it to Win, Place, or Show.  That sort of explains why we don’t go to the races ;~)

It’s kind of interesting – over all the years I’ve been shooting weddings in the Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati area, I’ve almost always had a wedding on race weekend.  But down in Lexington, KY where the Derby is run, time stands still  – that means nothing else happens EXCEPT the Kentucky Derby.

Sunday was a very relaxing Mother’s Day for the both of us, the weather was perfect and we both enjoyed brunch with LaDawn’s son and new wife in the morning and a peaceful/restful afternoon with an adult beverage later in the day.

After Dark Lands In Cincinnati, Ohio

Things are back into high gear today.  After Dark landed in town yesterday and I plan to head on down and check it out later today.  After Dark is a very unusual educational event bringing 35 instructors together for a 3 day learning and sharing opportunity on just about everything photographic.  I hear the sessions go into the wee hours of the morning – hence the name After Dark.

I noticed lots of my buds will be in town – Ralph Romaguera, Mary Mannix from Canon,  Dave Cross, just to name a few - so I plan to head on down and say HI. 

For today’s Quick Hit Monday I’ve got lots of information laden tutorial and tip heavy links for you today along with some pretty darn inspirational photography plus lots of freebies.  Enjoy!

Meeting The Man Behind LensFlare35

After classes wrapped Friday at noon at Texas School, we packed everything up, headed back to our room and caught up with Dave Warner, the force behind Lensflare35.  Dave and I have stayed in contact over the last few years – I’ve even appeared on his podcasts in the past [link1] & [link2].

We had a great lunch at Flying Fish, a wonderful little restaurant just a few blocks from the hotel, highly recommended BTW, and talked blogging and how to build exciting web content for the future.  Sadly, we both feel podcasts and many of the typical blogging scenarios have run there course these days. 

Things will be changing over the next 18-24 months.  Bloggers that move forward by generating exciting alternative ways of creating content will be the new winners in the blogsphere.  We’re both looking at how to bring those new technologies to our readers.   It was a great visit, even though I was running on “fumes” and I think it showed a bit – so SORRY Dave – but we both plan to work together and push forward with some exciting possibilities.  We’ll keep you posted.

Oh, BTW, check out some of Dave’s outstanding photography at DaveWarnerStudio.com right here.  His stylized images of Austin on Metal are just beautiful.

Monday Morning Photographic Inspiration

I always like to wake up to beautiful photography on Monday morning.  Let me point you to 3 cool websites that will light your creative fires for this week.

1. 25 Beautiful Wedding Photographs [link]
2. 10 Best Example Of Architectural Photography [link]
3. 31 Effective Examples of Rim-Lit Portraiture [link]
   Amazing Digital Painting Landscapes – 50 Examples [link]

Monday Morning Photographic Tips, Ideas, and Behind the Scenes Looks

Here’s four worthwhile tips, ideas, and a peek behind the scene at the recent royal wedding of William and Kate to help you make your photography more exciting as well as consistent.  Be sure to check out tip #1 from my buddy Denis Reggie – good advice.

1. 7 Tips for Great Wedding Pictures by Denis Reggie [link]
2. Royal Wedding Photographer Reveals Behind-the-Scenes Details [link]
3. Photography Ideas on Composition and Color [link]
4. Five Photography Tips: Chris Garrison [link]

Monday Morning Photoshop/Lightroom Tips, Tuts, and Tricks

Hey, you’ve got to stay sharp to stay ahead of the pack.  Time to go to school this Monday morning.  Here are 7 links to sharpen your Photoshop/Lightroom skills.  Enjoy!

1. HDR Photography Tutorial Part 1 [link]
2. Sharpening in Photoshop [link]
3. How To Fake a Tilt-Shift Photo in Photoshop [link]
4. Photoshop: How Much is Too Much? [link]
5. Lightroom Tip – Facebook and Flickr Commenting [link]
6. Easy Grunge Border in Photoshop [link]

Monday Morning Freebies

And just so you don’t leave today’s post empty handed, let me point you towards three freebies you can stick in your back pocket - check out the links below.

1. 30 Free Stock Photos Websites To Download Images [link].
2. 75+ Photoshop Brushes For Designers & Artists [link]
3. 50 Useful and Free Vector Photoshop Brush Sets [link]
4. High Resolution Colorful Free Textures [link]

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’ve got a client stopping by in just about an hour so I’ve got to run.  If you see me down at After Dark this afternoon, come on up and say HI.

And, don’t forget to stop back tomorrow for Technique Tuesday: Magical Black and White Conversions – Saving The Over/Under Exposed Image.

See ya’ then,  David

"Sunrise – Texas Style"

"Sunrise – Texas Style"
©David A. Ziser

We were up bright and early yesterday morning so we could be at the instructor breakfast by 7:00 a.m.  That meant a pretty early wake up call.  As we were getting ready, LaDawn called out to me that it was looking like it might be a really beautiful sunrise. 

I wiped the sleep from my eyes, grabbed the camera and recorded the sun as it made it’s early morning appearance.  The vantage point from the 15th floor of the hotel sure helped the composition.

The challenge was to keep the sun itself from “blowing out” completely but still maintain detail in the clouds.  As luck would have it, as the sun rose, it did so, not to an open sky, but rose instead into low hanging cloud cover.  The cloud cover blocked just the right amount of the sun’s bright rays for the exposure to capture it’s brilliance and still fill the sky with radiant color – Texas style.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm Lens at 190mm, F8.0 @ 1/1000 second (camera on manual), ISO 400.  Enjoy!  -David

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Hey gang, that’s going to it for today.  It’s been a long week and LaDawn and I are looking to take the rest of the day off after our class wraps around noon today. We had a great time at Texas School and sure have some wonderful memories. I’ll post a more complete week wrap up on Monday for you.

We make the trip home tomorrow and are looking forward to a few weeks at the same address ;~)  How about I plan to see everybody bright and early on Monday hailing from the great state of Kentucky.

Have a great weekend everybody.  Keep your pixels smilin’ and I’ll see you then.

-David

"Texas Rose"

"Texas Rose"
©David A. Ziser

When we headed out to shoot on Tuesday, the hotel lobby seemed like the logical choice for photographs.  The setting, the attractive chandelier all looked to make a good background for this photograph.

The challenge was, once again, the lighting.  In a wider view I noticed my Quantum flash thru my Zumbrella from camera right was lighting up the ceiling.  It was quite distracting.  We grabbed a USA Today, removed the reflector from the strobe, wrapped the newspaper around the flashtube of my Quantum flash, set the power to 1/4 power, focused the light carefully on our bride, and shot away.

Once the light was what I wanted, I ran a series of images at differing focal lengths.  This close perspective was one of my favorites.  The USA lighting technique created a cone of light that gave me a Hollywood spotlight effect on the bride – I thought it looked great.

The pose was easy, natural and relaxed, the background complimented the image nicely and Jennifer’s warm smile engages the viewer.  All in all, a nice, very elegant bridal portrait for the bride.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 100mm, f5.6 @ 1/25 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

Business Day Thursday: The Gift of Impossibility

Good Morning Everybody,

OMG – I can’t believe the start time today – 7:00 a.m.  and I’ve got to get the blog posted!  Situation:  Too much fun at Texas School, too little time to blog ;~)  All joking aside, we really do have a very early wake up call this morning.  We wrapped our shooting yesterday and then it was off to the wild and wooly trade show being held from 4:30-10:00 p.m. at the Intercontinental Hotel. Yes, free wine and beer was available until 10:00 p.m.  This is like the 3rd largest photographic trade show in the country!  We were back to the room by 10:30 p.m. and I worked on class images till 11:30 p.m. Whew – a pretty long day. Did I mention that I have the most amazing class of students? Enthusiastic, open to seeing and learning and they have been a real joy to LaDawn and I this week.

Thankfully, my Ace #1 Assistant, Nicholas Viltrakis, has come to my rescue today. Nicholas is not only my Ace #1 wedding assistant but also my second shooter.

He had just wrapped a post over at his blog and offered it for me to post as well.  Since it speaks to what I’ve been talking about this week in my class, I decided to take him up on his offer.  I love the title of his post – “The Gift Of Impossibility.”  How about I turn it over to Nickolas and let him tell you the story.  Here we go…

The “Gift of Impossibility” or Failure is not an Option

I decided to get a portrait of my ladies before they scampered off to Grandma and Grandpa B's this morning no matter what! Rain, sleet, stormy weather would not deter this photographer.

OK, there was no actual rain in this image - it's all Photoshop, stop sending me hate mail! But anyway the situation still got me thinking!  What happens if it was really raining and I really wanted to get a great image. What would I do?

Failure is not an option, whatever you call it, it's a mindset really that can make ordinary people perform extraordinary actions. In psychology it is described as follows: "Volition or will is the cognitive process by which an individual decides on and commits to a particular course of action." And over the course of my career in various situations I have felt like failure wasn't an option, but only in a few situations would the consequences have been bad enough for me to commit to prevailing at all costs.

One of the greatest lessons I have learned in volition happened to me early in my career working for David Ziser. A man of impenetrable will himself, I was photographing a wedding reception with Mr. Z, shooting the under appreciated "table shots."

There were well over 300 people at the wedding, all seated and eating dinner, some on the balcony of the great Hall of Mirrors in downtown Cincinnati. There were 40 tables or so 8 or 10 to a table. Since there were so many people I photographed the hard to reach places and as much else as I could so Mr. Ziser could focus on the key tables. Just as I had finished about half of the room David asked to see the camera. The result?

And I'll quote, "These are all too close, go shoot them again.”

Now keep in mind I've just interrupted about 180 or so people from a tasty open bar dinner among friends. Now I have to go do it again. That s@#ks! (Plus now I have to do it before they get up and go mingle. And not just the tables again, everybody has to be there!)

This, my friends, is where the concept of volition pops back into my mind. Well ok, Here we go camera. No choice. *sigh* I couldn't fail again, I'd look like a real jerk then, so I made up my mind to do whatever it took and be as persistent as possible to get the job finished.

Jokes, charm, telling them a magazine wanted a copy after they saw the first one, apologizing profusely, whatever I had to do. It's an interesting feeling that changes (in my head, at least) when there is no impossibility. If it can't "not be," then there must be a way of doing it. If I don't have the option of saying no, all I have to think about is how I can get YES to happen. :) It can be very liberating.

(get ready for my upcoming rain tutorial)

The idea goes... if this is just a mindset then why can't you just treat more situations with a "can't fail" attitude? The Volition wiki page further goes on to say: "Volitional processes can be applied consciously, and they can be automatized as habits over time."

Wouldn't that be nice?! Habituate yourself to a Can do / failure is not an option mentality! Here's the loving portrait we ended up with today just before my lovely ladies went to visit family.

Stop thinking of excuses and think of options. Harder said than done I'm afraid, but it can be done! I'm also not saying that you should apply this strategy to all situations, clearly "Grizzly Man" didn't have it right.

Just something to think about.

(No babies were harmed in the "filming" of this. I just needed an image for effect. :)

p.s.  Reposted with permission from Nicholas’s blog right here.

You can also check out Nicholas’s regular website right here.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me.  We’ve been up since 6:00 a.m. and we shoot till 9:00 p.m. this evening – it’s going to be a long day.  I hope to back tomorrow with at least an Image of the Day post.  Have a great one and I’ll see you then.

Adios, David

"Pretty Baby"

"Pretty Baby"
©David A. Ziser

Here is an image I made during yesterday's on-location shoot.  We began by shooting around the beautiful Intercontinental Hotel. The lobby area, hallways, and windows offered us several great possibilities for shooting.

The location with what appeared to offer the least of those possibilities yielded one of my favorite images from yesterday’s post.

I positioned the bride in the nondescript hallway.  The back ground looked interesting, at least after I viewed the image at the best focal length for my composition.  The challenge was to get some decent light on the subject.

The location was too tight to use Zumbrellas or any other type of lighting equipment so I decided to use my on-camera flash. But I still wanted my famous loop lighting pattern on my bride.

I found the part of the wall, that if illuminated would give me the same direction of light I needed to capture what I wanted.  I carefully pointed my on-camera Canon 580 EX II flash at that part of the wall, shielded the direct flash from the subject, and shot away.

WOW! It worked!  We got one very beautiful photograph of our very gorgeous bride.

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 18-200mm IS lens at 20mm, F5.6 @ 1/100 second, ISO 800.  Enjoy!  -David

All The One’s That Almost Got Away

Good Morning Everybody,

We had a great second day  at Texas School.  We spent most of the day on location shooting – some shooting around the hotel and finishing at a small Presbyterian Church just a few miles away.  I was really pleased with the images and will share a few of them with you throughout this post.

Last night was the big Concert in the Park.  I’ll tell you, after a long day it felt good to just sit down and relax.  The weather was perfect in the low  to mid 70’s, the band was great, and the camaraderie of the entire group was just plain fun.

Today is Image Review Day and then back out on location this afternoon.  Then you guessed it more festivities till 10 p.m. this evening.  Yep, we’re looking forward to another long, but fun day.

Time to get on with today’s post…

All The One’s That Almost Got Away

Yesterday was the day scheduled for our big on-location shoot.  I always look forward to these shoots because I get to work in a brand new location and really like trying to figure out exactly what I’m going to do. I thought yesterday would be the same as so many times before. 

That was, of course, till I checked out the website of our proposed location. Yes, it was a church, but not your regular traditional church.  It was much more like one of those BIG “sound stage” churches – all stage, big speakers, and video screens everywhere.

I’m thinking where are the pews, the cross, the stain glass windows – this is not a good thing.  Thankfully after expressing my reservations to Chastity, our class wrangler, she jumped into action to try to find us an alternate location for our shoot.

It’s always my belief that I’m working for the students in the class and and I want the shooting experience to reflect what I’ve been teaching.  That means shooting in a traditional church location.  Anyway, about an hour later, Chastity came back with “good” news – we now had two churches!  I thought we were home free.

That is till we arrived at the first church – uh oh, had we just made a lateral move instead of an upward move on our church location?  I think the entire class thought the same thing.  But hey, we’re here and I , as the instructor needed to pull something off in our new church – let’s get to work.

The church was quite small with no noticeable features that at first glace looked like we could not create any special wedding images in the space. That was, of course till I took a different tack, and switched to the super wide angle lens – my Sigma 8-16mm lens – the the place came alive with opportunities!

What was the lesson learned?  Never go into a location with an attitude of, “Oh my gosh, what a crummy looking place, what in the world am I going to do here.”  Instead going into a difficult situation with an attitude of, “This place looks interesting, let see what we can pull off – I love a challenge.” 

I’ll raise the quick question – which of these two attitudes prepares you best for creating the best result?  I think you know the answer.

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  I’m running late and we’ve got another full day.  I hope to see you tomorrow, time permitting.

Have a good one and I’ll see you then,  -David

"Maid Marian"

"Maid Marian"
©David A. Ziser

Here is another image made during my Master Class a few weeks ago. We were shooting at the historic St. Augustine Catholic Church in a very old part of the city.  The challenge was to capture a great image of the bride among the urban surrounds. 

My long lens and large aperture did a lot to disguise homes in the background.  A little more Photoshop did the trick to eliminate the rest of the buildings which were previously visible on the left of the image.

What I loved about the image was how I got the wonderful repeat of the tree line on the right.  The long lens helped to give me a nice background too.  The slight puff of wind did the rest by catching the veil perfectly and adding the soft curved lines to the image.

Lighting was a bit trickier.  I needed to light the bride from the right because of how the wind was blowing. I wanted to use a large aperture so using a flash was not an option.  I chose to use a reflecting panel, my Sun Spotz,  instead. 

I didn’t obtain quite the amount of reflected light back on the bride that I wanted but it was still enough to illuminate the subject adequately. It was the blowing veil that carried the image anyway;~)

Camera specs: Canon 7D fitted with 70-200mm IS lens at 155mm, F2.8 @ 1/4000 second, ISO 400.  Enjoy!  -David

Technique Tuesday: Magical B&W Image Enhancements

Good Morning Everybody,

We finished our first day at Texas School yesterday and a long day it was.  We began class about 8:30 p.m. and most of us instructors wrapped the teaching day 12 hours later at 8:30 p.m. No, it wasn’t time to turn in just yet – the Mardi Gras parade started at 9:00 p.m. followed by a party till about 1:00 a.m.  I’m kind of curious to see who’s going to be at class on time this morning;~)

I have to tell you – it was a hoot.  All the classes was responsible to build from a small wagon a version of a Mardi Gras floats for the parade thru the hotel lobby.  I thought our class came up with some pretty good ideas.  We draped a wedding gown and tux over a light stand. Then we lit our float from above and below with three gelled Quantum strobes which we fired rapidly with remotes.  The finishing touch was the New Orleans jazz boom box we had playing loudly under the weeding gown as we paraded through the hotel. Mardi Gras beads and feathers completed the look. Hey, I think we had the best of the floats is the parade ;~) Unfortunately this is an instance where a photograph just doesn’t tell the entire story as our float looked much better in real life – too bad I don’t have a video to show you.

Just to add to the fun, many of the instructors and students dressed the Mardi Gras theme for the party too.  That’s me with my buddies King Ralph Romaguera and Hanson Fong. Just all in good fun.

Today it’s back to class with a full day of on location shooting. So let’s get on with today’s Technique Tuesday before I run out of time.

Magical B&W Image Enhancements

There are many ways to convert an image to B&W and there are any number of tutorials on the subject.  Regardless of all the different ways one could use to obtain a good B&W image, my method is super simple and always gave me the exact result I wanted.

With the introduction of Lightroom a few years ago, B&W conversions could be handled even more easily and manipulated to your heart’s content by sliding a few color channel sliders around in the B&W panel in Lightroom.  I even did a cool tutorial on the subject right here in my post “Ansel Adams In A Box” several months ago.  After jumping to this previous link, scroll down a bit to watch the video tutorial.

When it comes to “people photography”  and that includes wedding photography, I rarely use those color sliders in the B&W panel of LR3. Instead, I prefer a different set of slider controls.  I keep it really simple and love the results I achieve.  Sometimes I like a soft ethereal result and other times I like a straight B&W image.  In this tutorial I’ll walk you through my simple steps and show you how to get some great results with your wedding images.

B&W images should be part of every wedding.  A B&W image lets you focus directly on the action and the subjects without being distracted by a multitude of colors in the scene.  With B&W images we get to enjoy the simplicity of the image itself. 

Not all images are enhanced as B&W images.  I like to say, “That when you convert an image to a B&W image, it either “sings” or it doesn’t “sing” at all – there seems to be no in-between.”  Why not hit the PLAY button below and see what I’m talking about. Enjoy!

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Hey gang, that’s it for me today.  It’s a super busy day with my class on location all day.  I hope to have a few cool images for you from today’s shoot so be sure to check back tomorrow and let’s see what I come up with.

Yes, there is another BIG school wide party again this evening.  It’s a concert in a park with a live band rocking and rolling to after midnight. It should be another great night of fun with over 1000 students and instructors in attendance.  Whew, three more days of this – I hope I survive!! ;~)

See ya’ tomorrow,  -David

"The Splendor Of The Moment"

"The Splendor Of The Moment"
©David A. Ziser

It might not be Westminster Abby, but this is certainly a magnificent setting for a wedding.  The location was, a one time, an old St. Paul’s Catholic Church that was sadly closed by the diocese several years ago.  It was renovated into what is now known as the Verdin Bell and Clock Museum Event Center.

It has become quite a popular venue for weddings in the Cincinnati, Ohio area.  You can see why from the dramatic feel of the location captured in this image. I love the soaring stain glass windows and the wonderful architectural arches and colors of the ceiling.

Part of that dramatic look was the result of the super wide optics I was using for this image.  From the back of the aisle, I framed up the shot, tilted the camera up to include as much of the ceiling as possible while still framing the “anchor” elements you see in the foreground.  I needed to keep them in the composition for the proper visual balance of the finished composition.

Some slight tweaking in Lightroom brought the bright areas of the ceiling and windows under control to finish the presentation. BTW, this is an image from the wedding of the young lady featured in last Thursday’s post [link].

Camera specs: Canon 5D Mark II fitted with Sigma 12-24mm lens at 12mm, F4.5 @ 1/40 second, ISO 6400.  Enjoy!  -David

Quick Hit Monday: Royal Wedding Print Critique; Wireless iPad Shooting Update; and Lots of Photoshop Freebies

Good Morning Everybody,

We've been spending a relaxing few days in the great state of Texas before kicking off the week bright and early at 8:30 a.m. We landed safe and sound on Friday, got settled in and caught up with a few friends but mostly relaxed over the weekend. By Saturday evening almost 1/2 of the instructors had arrived and Texas School kicked off the week long festivities with a casual get together and dinner at the hotel.  I'll tell ya', it's like the "Who's Who" of educators around here.  I said a quick Hi to my PSW co-star, Julianne Kost who was sitting with Mr. Wow, Jack Davis.

Also present was Larry Peters and son-in-law Brian Killian. Larry is one of the most successful high school senior photographers in the country.  This is his 21th year teaching at Texas School! Lighting master, Tony Corbell was also present and it was good to see him again.  Greg and Lesa Daniel, great portrait artists from Florida arrived safely as did our friends Don McGregor from Canada, Hanson Fong, Michael and Tina Timmons, just to name a few. Our good friends, Ralph and Cindy Romaguera, and Ralph’s son Ryan, were also at the dinner.  Cindy is one of the honchos at Texas School and was running around like crazy to be sure everything was running smoothly.  I linked to everyone mentioned here.  If you want to view some very inspiring photography, be sure to check out all the links.

Yesterday was registration day where the 1,050 photogs and vendors came together to meet and greet instructors, enjoy a barbeque party hosted by Full Color Labs, and then off to class at 8:00 p.m. The rest of this week will be jammed packed with learning and fun.  We are in class all day and then there's a dinner and/or party every night! So how much does all this fun and education cost the students? - about $500 for the week, and that includes all the evening meals and parties.  Factor the $105 room rate into that and you have one of the best photographic educational bargains of the century!

LaDawn and I are looking forward to the week.  I have to confess and say, I'm not looking forward to the lack of sleep that comes with teaching a week at Texas School ;~)  Although it will certainly be fun catching up with old friends and making new ones during the week.  I'll keep you posted as how the week progresses, assuming I can find time to get the blog up each day - like I said, a week with little sleep.  Hey gang, time to get on with today's Quick Hit Monday - let's get going.

Royal Wedding Photos - A Quick Critique

OK, the biggest and long awaited news event that happened over the weekend was the Royal Wedding of Prince William and his lovely bride Kate.  Over the weekend, the official wedding day photographs were released.  How did they look?  Here is the link to a nice collection of images right here. 

I liked how the story paralleled the images of Price Charles and Dianna 30 years earlier.  I think I really would have enjoyed photographing William and Kate's wedding.  They both are not only a gorgeous couple but just look like they really enjoyed the festivities and celebrations. I love the spontaneous expressions official photographer, Hugo Burnand captured.  The wedding party photograph says it all.

In addition, look at the lighting used on William and Kate's wedding.  Hugo had a nice soft directional light coming in from camera left which created a nice roundness and sense of dimension to the images.  I wonder if he was using one of my Zumbrellas in his lighting set up ;~)  Anyway, the lighting was nicely created.

Now look at the image below.  Look at the lighting in the royal wedding party image taken 30 years earlier.

The official photographer at Charles and Dianna's wedding, Patrick Lichfield, used a completely different lighting set up.  He used two large light sources, one coming in from camera left and the other from camera right in effect, cross lighting the wedding party.  I have seen other photographers use this same kind of lighting pattern much to the detriment of the final photograph.

OK, you may be asking yourself, "How does Ziser get away with criticizing the royal wedding pics of years ago?”  Hey, I’m not criticizing the wedding photos, just the lighting used to take them.  I mean, just take a look at William and Kate's wedding party image compared with Charles and Dianna's. One has depth and dimension and the other is clearly flat and two dimensional. 

So what am I saying?  Mr. Litchfield was just trying to kill all the shadows in his photograph - it seemed the "safe" approach to guarantee he obtained the shot.  But using "cross lighting" is really akin to just using on-camera flash.  The lighting in both instances is flat and non-dimensional. Mr. Burnand's lighting, on the other hand, renders rich, warm, nicely dimensional wedding party image.  What a difference the lighting makes.  Hey, I'm teaching Royal Wedding lighting all week here at Texas School.

Oh, one question I'm still wondering and that seems to be pondering the internet - I wonder if Mr. Burnand is designing an album for the newlyweds or just giving the wedding couple all the images on a DVD ;~)

Quick Update On Shooting Wirelessly into the iPad

Since me reporting on my shooting experience into the iPad at Photoshop World, a few folks have gone out and purchased the very hard to find radio transmitters for the Canon cameras and have emailed me with how to set it up. I have to tell you, set up is not for the faint of heart.  It's a 50 step process and you really have to keep your wits about you when working through all the steps. 

My buddy and right hand tech assistant, Damien Tepe, not only researched the process for several hours and got my camera up and running at Photoshop World last month, he also has formalized the entire process in an 8 page PDF with screen grabs.  My buddy and top school photographer, Ralph Romaguera, gave the procedure it's first run through on Saturday.  Ralph and his team of tech gurus spent hours figuring out the process their first time around.

Ralph and I sat down - he worked the camera and I read off the 8 pages of directions and we had him up and running in about 20 minutes.  Damien's set up procedure worked like a charm!  High fives to Mr. Tepe!  During the run through, we found just a few points that need a small bit of clarification.  I've made the notes and will forward them to Damien so we can get the finished document finalized.  I hope to have it posted at DigitalProTalk after we return from Texas School next week. 

Like I said so many times, way cool shooting into the iPad.  Here's a link back to my post with several ideas on how to make it work for you.  Be sure to read the comments too for a few more ideas.  BTW, if we hit 20 good suggestions in the "Comment" area, I give the author of the best idea a copy of my very popular “Captured By The Light” 14 hour DVD [link] set worth $59.   Please don't post your comments on Facebook - our DPT readers can't see them there.  If you want to be eligible for the big prize, they have to appear in the "Comments" section of my previous post right here.  Get those creative mind juices working as I hope we collect several additional good ideas.

And From The World Of Freebie Photoshop

I'll tell ya', this is becoming a regular part of Quick Hit Monday.  I love finding Photoshop tips and tricks I can pass on to our DPT readers.  And, there seems to be no shortage of website and blog posts offering up those little gems.  I've got a 7 more for you this week.  Here's the listing.

1. 30 Best Adobe Photoshop CS5 Video Tutorials [link]
2. 15 Photoshop Lighting Effects Tutorials [link]
3. Useful Photoshop Tutorials for Designing Abstract Backgrounds [link]
4. Top 15 Websites to Download Free PSD Files [link]
5. 30 Free High Quality Marble Textures [link]
6. How to Use Smart Objects in Photoshop [link]
7. 50+ Tools & Techniques to Remove Image Backgrounds in Photoshop [link]

All these links should keep you plenty busy on the next big rainy day - Enjoy!

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Hey gang, that's it for me today.  Class starts in just a few and I've got to run.  I hope to see you tomorrow for another fantastic Technique Tuesday episode, that is assuming the parties don't run too late this evening ;~)

See ya' then,  David