Early Chritmas Season Portraits

I really liked the pouty face the little girl made. I ended up with about five versions of this image for the client to choose from. This selective color version was my wife's favorite. I don't think this is one I would hand on the wall, but it will make a nice Christmas card. I kinda think the little girl has a Norman Rockwellesk expression.

Christmas Season Already!

Now is the time to book sessions for the Christmas season! As with many other businesses, the Chritmas season slows down normal timelines in photography. The professional labs I work with are starting to send out updated delivery schedules (most labs are already adding at least one day to normal turn times).

I shot my first Christmas card session of the year yesterday. It was pretty nice weather and we were able to shoot outdoors. Fall colors will fade fast. I think we have an outdoor window of only a few more weeks.

Check out some of our new Christmas products here:
Christmas Products

A Viddler Small Flash Video

A nice little video detailing the use of small flashes and high speed synch.

A Tribute Video For Shaun Lunt

This video was put together by Shaun's good friend (and amazing photographer) James Christianson. The selection of music as well as photos is great. These types of projects are exceedingly difficult. To try to capture the essence of a person in a few fleeting minutes a Herculean task.

C2 does offer this type of service but it's not something that we actively market. The typical time constraints placed on us by the family means that we have to rearrange our entire schedule as well log a lot of late nights. Also, it is an emotionally draining effort. Producing something like this is rewarding, in spite of the emotional toll.

Shaun Lunt's Blog

I came across Shaun's work through a good friend of mine. Shaun died tragically June 6th of this year in a plane crash. His family still has his blog up with his amazing photographs. http://shaunlunt.typepad.com/

Photodex Software

I ranted about Photodex Producer last week. Even with all of its "issues", it's still one heck of a program. Here is a link to a senior slide show that I did http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow.html?fl=3017524&alb=140489 . The link takes you to a sharing page at Photodex (provided by them for free when you purchase the software). You might be asked to install the photodex player (an activex control), it's safe and installs quickly. Take a look at the quality of the show compared to YouTube.

It is one of the most user friendly and intuitive programs of its type I have ever used. If they could just fix the nagging little bugs it would be a world beater. As it stands right now, I would give it a 7 out of 10. I only knock it because of the continuing issues with being unstable when putting together large shows and the relatively slow speed when writing dvds.

The End-All-Do-All Canon Camera Site

The is the best site for information and reviews of Canon cameras and lens. Click the link and jump to the site http://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews .

Multi Layered Treatment

Here is an example of another multi layered Photoshop treatment we are using. I like the "pop" it gives.

The Seven Ages Of Childhood

Follow the link to a pretty piece from Marathon Press on the seven ages of childhood. http://preproduced.marathonpress.com/sevenages/ . Marathon Press is one of the vendors that the studio uses for specific products. They deliver top notch products every time. I really like the educational pieces they put out.

James Burrington's Senior Pictures

Here is a show we did for James Burington from North Eugene High School's class of 2009. I had a great time shooting with James.

High Structure

Just an example of our high structure filter in photoshop. I like the effect in black and white.

Ok, A Little More Soccer

I have got soccer on the brain this week. It's coming up to playoff time in the Klassic Division. I came across this video while uploading our team video. I sent it on to all of my players. This highlight clip is for Brittani Bartok. This girls has all kinds of talent and skills.

Soccer Fundrasing Plug

Ok, it's fundraising time again. The soccer team that I sponsor is kicking off the fall fundraising season. So here is the pitch. We are doing an online magazine sale. It's a good deal and the team gets 40% of the sale price. The magazines are discounted up to 85% off the news stand price. Our team store is at http://www.magfundraising.com//GroupPage.aspx?e=1125438 .

Riding The Skyline

Just A Rant On Photodex

I have been using Photodex for quite a while. I recently went from their ProShow Gold to the top of the line Producer. I spent 7 hours putting together a last minute show for a client made up of a bunch of images from each year her son's life and music for each year. It was a large show (568 images & 20 songs). At midnight last night I was finished and set the computer to burn the show to dvd.

I was quite surprised to wake up and find that the show had completed 26% of the burning process before freezing the computer. I rebooted, and restarted Producer. This time I decided to use the collect show files command before burring. Again everything looked great. I went to the store, expecting to return to a finished DVD. No such luck. Again, the system crapped out (this time at 40% complete.

Now I am up against a deadline. I have tried everything. I created a mpeg file, only to have it come out pixelated! I swear I am going to loose my mind. I spoke with a friend that also uses Producer, and he laughed! He said he has had the same issues anytime he creates a large file. I think I am going to have to start looking for an alternative. This has been a waste of time and effort.

North Eugene Rockers Fall 2008 Introduction Show

Just finished up team pictures for the North Eugene Rockers u14 girls soccer club. We did this slideshow to embed on the openning page of the team website. We will put together a longer show for these girls at the end of thier season and include pictures from their games.

More Of James

Luke Gregg's Slide Show

Here is the slide show for Oregon City High School's Luke Gregg. His actual slide show has a different soundtrack. He wanted a more old school feel. I swapped out the music for this promo version based on feedback from my girls.

James Burrington From North Eugene

Another 2009 senior from North Eugene High School. I got to spend a couple of hours with James shooting around town. Like most of the boys I have shot, he was a little uneasy in front of the camera at first. The quality of the photographs improved dramatically once he relaxed.

Chase Jarvis Studio

Love to have a space like this!

Luke Had To Get A Few Shots With Mom

Andy Mckee - Freaking Amazing!

This guys is amazing. I wish I had half his skill! Check out his site http://www.andymckee.com/

I Cool Bit On Lighting From A Master

Adding Depth

Here we have two versions of the same photo. The bottom image is the original image and the top is the finished product. Fairly subtle processing in Photoshop results and a much more appealing photograph. The extra time spent polishing the image was well spent.

Luke & His Sweatheart

Just Struck Me As Funny

This just struck me as funny. I took this at my team's Saturday game. This is not technically a very good picture (composition, exposure, color balance, etc), but the pose is priceless. Getting in front our team's sweeper might tend to bring out the half cringe, half prayer in any young lady. I am pretty sure it left a mark!

A Nice Bit On Decorating With Portraiture

Here is a link to a pretty cool site that talks about decorating with portraiture.

http://preproduced.marathonpress.com/decor

Lacrosse Player Portrait

Tami's Photo Shoot Slide Show

Here is the YouTube version of Tami's photo session. We produce a show like this for the seniors purchasing our top package. We quality controlled the DVD on 52 inch plasma screen and she looked amazing!

The soundtrack on the other hand, I have my doubts. Tami picked the songs and as long as she loves them; that's all that counts.

Another Shot On Campus

Down From Oregon City

Luke made the road trip to Eugene from Oregon City for his senior pictures. He is planning to attend the University of Oregon next year so I thought the Oregon campus might be a fun place to shoot. It was a ton of fun spending the afternoon with Luke, his mom, and girlfriend.

Pretty Cool Video

Pretty cool bit from Chase Jarvis a Seattle based commercial photographer.

Tami In Roses & A Word On Microsoft Windows

Here is a nice shot of Tami in the Rose Gardens. I decided to use a fairly aggressive editing approach for this shot.

Now for a word on Microsoft. The studio had a major wrench thrown into the works Wednesday. I made the mistake of turning the Microsoft automatic updates "on". According to Microsoft this would keep our system "protected". Well, not so much.

Service pack III turns out to be a nightmare! It ended up deleting important registry files. In short this wonderful addition crashed our system in the worst possible manner. After a day on the phone with Dell, it turns out the damage is so severe that the only possible fix was a reformatting of the hard drive. In essence, we lost everything on our hard drive. We even called in a local computer whizz who confirmed the diagnosis. So I spent a entire day reinstalling software, not the most productive use of my time.

On the bright side. Our back up system for out client images proved invaluable. We did not lose a single client image! We back up our data to both an external hard drive as well as dvd just for a worst case scenario like this.

The lessons here are: Always back up your data & don't use auto updates!

Tami In Blue Flowers

A Little More Dramatic Processing

Tami On The Rocks

Deep In The Flowers

A Little Closer To The Water

The Smith Family

Did a nice session at the Rose Gardens. Shooting in a public space is always an adventure. We ended up trying to work around a couple of Country Fair refugees. Not dangerous, but obnoxious. After convincing them that they were not going to be part of the family portrait, they went back to the river bank to enjoy whatever it was that they were smoking. Sure didn't smell like tobacco, but they were out of our hair.

How They Roll In Belgium

Chasing Sunset - Part II from Pieter Van Impe on Vimeo.

Molli's Slideshow

A Classic Studio Pose

From The Studio

Molli opted to do a few shots under the controlled lighting conditions of the studio. She was all about the black background.

Molli In Black & White

More From The University Of Oregon Campus

There are so many cool little niches to use for portrait work on campus. This is a little wall niche just on the other side of the pioneer woman statue. Semicircular with a nice stone bench. The biggest advantage to summer shooting on campus is the lack of people in the way.

This shot used two off camera strobe heads for lighting. The main is camera right using a shot through umbrella. The fill camera left shot through a 4 ft screen. Used 80/20 lighting ratio.

Hard Edged Look

The east wall of the Knight Library provided a deeply textured backdrop. I decided to go for aggressive photoshop treatment on this image.

Another Amazing North Eugene Senior!

Molli will be starting her senior year at North Eugene High School in a couple of days. She picked the University of Oregon campus for her senior photo shoot. What a great Choice. We got some great stuff!

Malia's Slideshow

Malia is a beautiful senior from North Eugene High School. This is the YouTube version of the slideshow DVD produced with her portrait package. She picked some pretty cool music for her show.

Ready To Ride

In The Grass

Ready To Roll!

On The Rocks

A little extra polish on this shot. I took the basic photo made adjustments to saturation, highlights, contrast etc. After getting an exposure that I wanted, I added a little radial blurring on the margins coupled with a graduated darkening. Finished it off with a little inset border.

Her Best Friend

She brought her best friend to the shoot along with her mom. I love it when the seniors bring a friend or two along. It really lightens the mood, as well as bring out the most in the subject. We got a few of them together. This one was taken on top of Skinner's Butte just after the sun set.

Another Super Senior

What a great girl to work with. She was super excited about doing her shoot! We got some amazing shots.

Deady Hall

Shelby At The River

One Of The Only Shots Without a Smile

It was really hard to keep her from smiling. Right after this shot was cracking up.

Another Shot of Malia

Another shot of Malia from North Eugene High School. She was so much fun to work with.

Selective Color

On The Tracks

Take Me To The River

Video Of The Youth Soccer Team I Help Coach

B & H Developments 2008 Tour Home Slide Show

I finished the B & H Developments 2008 Tour Home project. The home turned out great! The night shots at the end of the show are pretty cool.

A Very Happy Groom

Kaylee's Maternity Shoot

The First Dance

Sheena Heading To The Alter

Outdoor lighting on a bright afternoon presents some shooting challenges, as well as opportunities. In this shot the bride and her father moving from bright direct sun to shade created a nice effect, casting a pool of light on their faces.

Sheena, Grampa & The Money Dance

The bride with one of her Grampas starting off the "money dance".

From The Wedding Of Justin & Sheena

The bride dances with her father and the tears flow.