For those of you in Upstate NY:

Studio-Classic Photography is doing a digital Photography Seminar at the Community Library (110 Union Street, Cobleskill, NY) at 11:00AM on Saturday, March 6th.

- The lesson will first go over various technical aspects of a digital camera and finish with a section describing photography composition information.
- The Seminar is free and all are welcome.
- The Seminar will follow the outline from the Digital Lesson at www.Studio-Classic.com.

Well, winter is upon us and outdoor shooting is pretty much over. I am now turning my attention to indoor studio shots. We’re getting lots of calls from high school seniors wanting senior portrait packages as well as families wanting photos taken. Since photography is only a part-time job for us, we shoot our indoor photography right at our private residence. I have an old three head continuous lighting studio system that could use an upgrade. Since our photo shoots are in our home, we need to be able to set up and break down the studio very rapidly.

There seems to be three very important questions to ask with regards to the kind of lighting studio you want to work with.

1.) How much power? – Currently I am using around 300 continuous watts – and while it seemed adequate with my old Minolta (film camera), it doesn’t seem to be enough for the Nikon D300 (digital camera). I’m thinking that about 600 watts should be enough for my small studio.

2.) Continuous or Strobe? Where continuous has some real advantages in ease of use compared to strobes, there are some draw backs as well.

               - Most continuous is warm – really warm.

               - Cool continuous seems to be pretty expensive.

- Continuous needs to have the option to vary the power. Some are, but again they are more expensive. (Even though you can physically move a light further from the subject to reduce its power – you will also change the quality of the light)

- Strobes typically are variable in power.

- Strobes are harder to use. A light meter is useful.

- To prevent having a synch chord attached to your camera, a radio remote should be purchased that uses your hot shoe to fire.

3.) Umbrellas, Soft Boxes or Both. As far as I can tell, a Soft Box – especially a large one - helps with getting light around the subject. An umbrella seems to be more about the quality of light. (Maybe someone out there can help out with the distinction between these two.)

In the end… I am leaning towards Strobes. I like the JTL light kits, Alien Bees and Wescott. After I finally decide what to get – then I will also need to look hard at new backdrops. – Anyone out there have any suggestions?

Definitely an exhausting weekend for us, but well worth it!

We worked most of Saturday preparing for Sunday’s event - only taking a break to attend Renee’s company Christmas party for a few hours that evening. We pulled our current bridal show display out of storage and made decisions on what should be dropped, changed or upgraded. We drafted up a new “Winter Wonderland” coupon to offer 10% off our wedding packages, upgraded our tri-fold wedding packages brochure and pulled up our business card template… then set about printing out enough of each to hand out at the show! We choose highlights from our most recent weddings to “upgrade” our table display pictures as well as creating some additional display pictures for the lobby of the Crowne Plaza. After selecting and cropping to correct size, we printed those out and framed them up. Our preparations were finally completed around 3am!

Sunday morning came way too quick! Time to pack the truck with all of our hard work from the previous day, grab a bite to eat and drive into Albany! We arrived with about an hour to unload and set up our table & display. The 2^nd Annual Detailed Bridal Event was held in a large and spacious area of the Crowne Plaza with over 80 vendors exhibiting! Two days prior to the event, 76 brides had pre-registered. However, the actual turnout was tremendous with over 100 brides showing up that day along with fiancés, friends and family members! This is one show we definitely will want to do on an annual basis!

One of our 2010 wedding clients stopped by our booth to see us. It was nice to see her and of course we weren’t disappointed that she was actively “advertising” on our behalf. (Thanks, Rebecca!) We handed out all of the wedding package brochures that had been printed and talked to a record number of interested brides that day. Also, the little that I looked around helped me to see that our work is really competitive, and I know our prices are really good as well.  We expect to book quite a few weddings from this show.

I suspect a bridal show is a pretty overwhelming event for the bride-to-be, and have a hunch that most brides treat it as more of a fact-finding mission. Consequently, we really won’t know exactly how well we did at this particular show until much later. However, when people hire us we always ask how they found Studio Classic Photography.

All in all – we expect to do the show next year as well. It was a good place to advertise and we ended up having fun. We finished the evening by eating at an Italian restaurant in Albany and then working hard to stay awake long enough to drive home! Another successful bridal show completed. On the horizon… the Foothills Performing Arts Center Bridal Expo 2010 in Oneonta on January 10, 2010.

On Dec 6th 2009, starting at noon, the 2^nd Annual Detailed Bridal Event will be held at The Crowne Plaza in downtown Albany NY. Studio Classic Photography will be one of the many vendors that will be there offering a glimpse of what they can do for the potential bride and groom. For a vendor, getting ready for a bridal show event can take many hours of behind-the-scenes preparation.
Crowne Plaza Bridal Show

When you walk by Studio Classic, what can you expect to see?

We will have a laptop running a slide show on a large monitor. The slide show will contain a collection of images from our 2009 wedding and engagement photo shoots.  This slideshow will basically catalog our shooting style and help potential clients to get a feel for our artistic style and photo shooting techniques. We build the slideshow to last longer then we expect a potential client to stand and watch. This gives ample opportunity to view our work without repetition.

We’ll have many framed prints sitting out on our table as well as some oversized prints, canvas and Thin Wrap products displayed on easels.  On the table you’ll be able to leaf through a couple of finished 10x10 wedding albums in addition to a scrapbook containing miscellaneous images. We will have brochures outlining products, business cards and flyers to help promote our products and packages. We may also set up a sign-in-form for a gift giveaway.  And, of course, a flower arrangement and a bowl of candy are distinct signals that say, “Welcome!”

However, the most important thing we’ll bring to The Crowne Plaza on Sunday is: ourselves. Wedding photography is definitely a "people" job. If you’re not good with people - this isn’t a line of work you should pursue. First, potential clients may like your work, but you are the one that sells your photography. Second, your actual pictures of a client will show how you feel about them. As a photographer, I like working with people and the images I take reflect that. On Sunday, I won’t be schmoozing to win clients, but I will be confident and able to describe what Studio Classic photography is all about.

Lastly, I’ll also bring my Nikon D300. I think it’s a good idea to be able to show a potential client the camera you shoot with. Many photographers don’t bring their cameras to a bridal show – I’m not really sure I understand that…

Every event is different. This is our first time at this particular show and we are very excited about it. I’ll write more after the event to impart any lessons learned and, of course, to let you know how it went!

To All:

The purpose of this blog is explore the art of taking photos. It will encompass both technical and artistic topics.

- Consider the following photo. It was created by merging 5 photos taken with a d300 and an 18-200 Nikon vr lens. The photos were dynamically adjusted by 1/3 f-stops through the normal range and merged into a single image with Photmatix HDR software. The image was then downsized to 15% of its original size using multiImageResizer.net.