Actionize with Dave Johnson!

(I uploaded this to my blog from my phone while attending
our PUG, last night, and then pasted it here.)

Staja Studios hosted Dave Johnson from Nat'l Camera. He went over
actions and work flow.

It was so cool to see all the fresh faces last
night! Our group is growing and it's just
awesome! Thanks everyone for attending last
night, I hope you gained a ton of information
from Dave. He loves to help problem solve and
trouble shoot so when he gave out is phone
numbers last night that is his invitation to
have him come along side when you are in a jam.

Thank you so, so much Dave for taking the time
to share your time-saving ideas and worksheets.

Check back for the pdf link....

Sandy (Sam) Puc'

I got the pleasure of working the NILMDTS
booth at Sam's "Bellies & Babies" tour
last night at the Airport Hilton.

I saved a seat for Jason Thone and Heather
Lombardo in the front row and never did I
look at my watch! You know what I mean...
when's this gonna be over...when's the next
break...I gotta get home....NONE of that.
I loved every minute.

Now this was strickly, Bellies & Babies
as the brochure states....
Sam shared from the business aspect & the
initial phone calls down to her marketing
materials, schedules and of course posing,
lighting and baby wrangling tips! :)

Great time and I even got a couple of shots
during the live shoot...no cameras were
allowed but, what the heck...
I really brought it along to get a shot
with Sam.






This gal gets up at 4:14 every morning,
She shoots 10 sessions a day, employs like
24 people and has 4 children of her own.
She is amazingly talented and shared everything.
Jason took great notes and I'm sure he can
share at our next meeting some of his thoughts
from the evening...Sorry Stacey couldn't make it.

Victor Sizemore.

WOW.
If you missed it last night, I'm sorry.
Victor Sizemore did a fabulous job of
inviting us into his world of wedding
photography. Didn't start that long
ago and has built himself a pretty nice
collection of weddings near and far.

His work is tasteful and fun, his ethics
are spot on, and yes, his boots were
sexy!

Victor is a family man and makes time
for that as well.
He travels a ton and gets the job done.

We were lucky to have him schedule
this speaking engagement for our TCPPA
(Thanks Amy Zellmer) and I hope he comes
back for more in the future.

I won a pack of "Totally Rad" actions
for being the only one in the audience
with a Mark III (yay me!) and I'm looking
forward to playing with them.

Victor also go into the basics of
Lightroom. That was cool. I'm not
using mine just yet but I will now!

Many of us PUGgers that were
in attendance want to get together
soon in a group and discuss what works
best for us and what actions and presets
we like best..a show and tell, if you will.
Let's get that on the books!

Hope you all can make it to tonight's PUG!
We'll be going over some WPPI stuff.

Liz Banfield...

Sorry for the delay in posting my wrap for
our PUG meeting Tuesday evening 10/9/07.

Liz Banfield graciously accepted our invitation
to come and speak to the group regarding
getting your work published as well as sharing
her background and bits of her personal life.



Liz came in, sat down and ran through her program that
she will be sharing with tons of other photographers
attending the photoplus expo so she said
that it was good for her to come see us first as
she wasn't certain how she was going to organize
her thoughts and images.

Liz was laid back and really just explained that
we should all start to shoot our weddings to the
caliber that editors would want to place in their
magazines...i mean not that we don't all now do
that but that we should be submitting weddings for
publication whenever we can. like for me, and maybe
you too, i just really wanted a to shoot for the bride
and be certain that she was thrilled with my work.
it never really occurred to me to go after publishing.
Liz says locate the photo editor's name and address on
the inside of magazines and just go for it!
simple enough, right?
let's do what we can soon and then report back to
the group when we hear back from some of these
editors and cheer one another on...even if ours does
not get selected. we are a very talented group
of individuals with different life goals but the
same professional ones...get hired, do great work and
get more great work from that and so on...grow as
photographers and share our God given talents with
those around us.

another way to support one another within our own group
is to attend showings of our PUGmates whenever we can!
here's one of the first...erin johnson
erin passed out invites last night but if you could not
attend...here's the information. see you there!

Bruce Dorn

First, I'd like to thank Bjorn and David for sitting with me
even tho' I still smelled like a campfire from the night before!
I was standing in the lobby waiting to be allowed in the
auditorium when I spotted the guys...fellow PUGers...
then Stacey called me. "Hey Jason and I are so bummed
we can't be there for the Bruce Dorn program, can you take notes
for us?" and I was like, "Bruce Dorn?" who's Bruce Dorn?"
You see, I purchased this ticket so long ago and paper clipped
it to my calendar as to not forget to go and nowhere on this
ticket does it say anything about the speaker..just that it
is "IDC presents: Digital Photography Edge". clearly, I hadn't
a clue but Stacey steered me straight...the 3 of us went in
and grabbed a seat in the front row.

So, the big news, and I know you won't even believe me,
is that there as been a HUGE flood of interest in FILM coming
back into the market. Apparently brides have gotten savvy and
have discovered that the photographers that used to shoot film
have an edge over those that have only shot digital!
i know, crazy, right?

Well, okay..you all just failed my bull~sh*t test! :P

okay, moving on....just wanted to see if i could get you!~


Here is some points that i saw fit to write down...

3-things that they look for in lighting:
1)Quality of light
2)Direction of light
3) and the least important but considered is Intensity

When putting together an album they make certain that they
have covered the wedding day like a "3 Act Play"~
*****Preparation, Ceremony, Celebration*****

Bruce loves to couple natural light with artificial for a
more well rounded image.

He also loves to tell the couples to "almost kiss".
Bruce says this, more often than not, creates more for them
than they imagined. I know I'm going to try it next wedding!

Bruce suggests exploring commercial photography and
attract more types of clients. He strongly feels that
you can not just say you do one thing or another in
this business cuz you'll market yourself right out of it.
Interesting.

Bruce brings to the still camera quite a bit of cinematic
style photography from the Hollywood days (where he met
his wife, Maura).
He likes to look at light as an actual character in
the image...I think we all knew that but never really
looked at it that way, am I right?
Use a lot of back light with a bounce...(that's a no
brainer!) to get rim light and fill with minimal
equipment.

Another suggestion Bruce shares is one of being aware
of your surroundings by simply keeping your left eye
open when shooting (I do that a lot, do you?).
Train your left eye to be comfortable open whether
with a wide angle or a zoom while shooting.

Movies he recommends watching for just lighting ideas
are "The girl with the Pearl Earring" (Scarlet Johanson)
and "Pride and Prejudice" for posing ideas
also Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo & Juliet" (Leo DeCaprio)-ugh!

Okay, one last cool thing...
shoot one "pro~bono" wedding a year for, say, that client
that maybe just can't quite afford you...then let them
know that you get all creativity! I like that idea!

Wouldn't it be fun if we, as a group, could call on
one another to shoot a pro~bono wedding and use the
images for whatever we wanted and create an album
without any constraints!?? Who's in with me??!

See you all Tuesday night.