Yes, good tools are important to any professional.   But I like to think that good tools are only as good as the professional who uses them.   You could hand me Tiger Woods’ golf clubs and I’d still be terrible at the game.  Likewise, I imagine Tiger would shoot a great game even with some cheap clubs.

So when people ask me what  camera I use I tell them about my Canon 5D Mark II and how I’m lusting after the Mark III.  And I may tell them about the back-up 5D and 7D that I also carry.  But then I always add the my absolute favorite camera is a little Canon G11.  It’s a point and shoot camera that sells for about $500.  It’s the one that goes everywhere with me and the one I use most of the time.  Naturally, it’s a good quality point and shoot camera that allows me to shoot in the RAW format.  For the sake of full disclosure, I need to say that I often add a cheap wide-angle attachment to the front of the camera.  I bought it from Amazon for about $40.  And I use Photoshop to edit the photos.

It has it’s limitations over a DSLR, such as a much smaller sensor which limits my ability to shoot short depth of field images and the fact the the shutter lags behind and I can’t usually shoot several shots in a row to capture action.  But it makes great pictures when used properly.

I often wonder if people can even tell the difference between the photos I make with the camera (the G11)  and the ones made with my more expensive camera, which, by-the-way, cost four or fives times as much.  For my personal enjoyment and for our family photos I just love having this camera.  It’s small enough to go with me everywhere and it is good enough to make exceptional photos.  What I’m trying to say is don’t get bogged down my thinking you have to have a top of the line camera and don’t blame your bad photos on the camera.  The most important part of making photos in the photographer — YOU.  Take time to see the photos before you click, compose the image in the viewfinder and squeeze the shot.  Learn the capabilities of whatever camera you have and go for it.

To better illustrate my point about how good a point and shoot camera can be, I’ve put up a gallery of some of the photos I’ve made with my little camera.  Now, go out and make some photos.

Nowadays we take hundreds of pictures of every event and look at them instantly on the back of the camera.  Then we share them in just a few minutes on facebook and, if we want prints, upload them and drive to the store where they are waiting to be picked up.  Things have changed!  And mostly for the better.  I love photographs and I love looking at them.

But, sometimes I wonder if the older memories might have more value because they are so rare.  Gold is rare and valuable, but the Bible says that gold will be so plentiful in heaven that it will be used to pave the streets.

On the other hand I’m worried that if our photos today only live on facebook and our hard drives they will be lost forever when facebook is replaced by the next fad and the hard  drives crash.  Both will happen.   It makes me think of how cherished the box of photographs is that we keep in the guest room closet.  This plastic box might as well be a pirates treasure chest.  It holds the stories of generations of my and my wife’s family.  Not only that, these are the originals, printed by unknown craftsmen years ago.  I have scanned and copied them all, but will not ever give up these original treasures.  The great thing about being able to digitize, or scan, the old photos is that I can share them with all the family.  In fact, every image and negative I have inherited has been scanned and placed on a photo sharing website where any family member can see, download or print them.

What about all the digital images I am making these days?  As you can imagine I make photos of something almost everyday.  Often the pictures are for other people, either someone’s family portraits, wedding photos or sometimes for a corporate client.  Naturally, these, like any business documents, are carefully cataloged and backed up in more that one place just in case of some sort of equipment failure.

But then there the ones that are treasures to our family.  I make lots and lots of pictures of my grandchildren and document almost every event in our lives.  Although I am almost as negligent as anyone of not having prints made, I am pretty good about making double back-ups of every picture.  It sounds like a monumental task but it’s not as difficult as one might think.  Nowadays external hard drives are cheap and easy to use.  A one terabyte external drive and be purchased for under one hundred dollars.  I have two just for family photos.  They both have the same pictures on them because the chance that they will both crash on the same day is virtually nil.  It takes a bit of time and planning to back everything up twice, but this is our family history and memories and far too valuable to be lost.

The other day I was thinking about the house where we live now.  It’s not very large and has on open concept design.  Basically the main floor consist of the bed rooms and baths and one large room for everything else.   One of the things about it that I really enjoy is that we live about three-quarters up a pretty high hill and that we have no neighbors behind us.  In fact, our bathroom window is about four by four feet and is clear glass.  It’s not a problem though.  Even if someone were in our back yard the window is so high no one could see in.  But we have the great benefit of being able to see out.  Some might say the view isn’t much, but I love looking at the woods behind our house.  Once we saw a young raccoon that had climbed a tree so he could gaze across at our deck to see if we had anything good to eat.

Most of the year our view is that of a green curtain of leaves and vegetation.   We watch the trees dance in the wind when a storm is approaching or catch glimpses of the birds flying through openings in the leafy curtain.

It’s winter now and there is a completely different look.  You have to remember Alabama winters are pretty mild so we’ve rarely seen snow or ice on the limbs.  In fact what we see, thought bare limbs, still show a lot of green.  In our warm and humid climate limbs often become covered with a green moss.  There is always life to see through this bathroom window and I’m so glad it’s clear and not some sort of frosted or stained glass.

It won’t be long before we see the leaves return and bring the honeysuckle vines back with them.

Down the hall…  In case you are unaware, our studio is just one of the studios at Artists on the Bluff – an eclectic group of artist with studios in a nearly 90 year old school in Hoover, Alabama.

The first one is me.  Today is my 61st birthday. I’m slightly out of focus.  Not sure if it’s just my age or the fact I had to focus on the light then go stand by it with the camera set to timer.

Then I couldn’t resist turning Ryan’s photo into something a bit more artistic and edgy.  The photo below has been hand colored and had an edge added to it.

The way I see it my job is to record your very special day in a way that is creative and artistic, then give you something tangible that is destined to be a treasured heirloom for not just you, but for your children and grandchildren.

So, what about the CD? Not a bad idea, unless that’s all you get. Naturally they say that all the images are high-resolution and edited. High-resolution maybe, but edited, I doubt it. Usually this means that the images have been tweaked a little. With the quantity of images modern digital photographers make at an all-day wedding it would be a monumental task to actually edit every image to its full potential. In our studio editing means, color correcting (we shoot everything in a format called RAW, which allows for a great deal more correction that JPEG does). Editing also means that we crop, dodge and burn the image so that it looks as close to perfect as possible. We remove dark shadows under the eyes and shine from the face. It often means we have to tone down the highlights in the wedding dress so the detail the bride took so much pride in is still visible.

So what do you do with the CD? Most people have good intentions and say they can print the images themselves and create their own album. The sad fact is most people never get around to making the prints nor the album. The CD is put away in some drawer where it may either get scratched or simply become unreadable over the years.

Then what’s the better way? Every wedding deserves a high-quality album. That’s where the best of the best images are archived in an artful way to tell the story of the most important day of a couple’s life –the chronicle of the formation of their family. It’s more than a box of pictures or a scrapbook a bunch of 4×6 prints taped to a page. A wedding album is a beautiful book that goes on the coffee table for the first year or so, then on the bookshelf for the rest of your life. It will be taken out on special anniversaries and laughed at by your teenage children. And, some day, it will become a treasure to your descendants.
A wedding album should be designed by someone with an eye for art. This is also where the fine editing comes in. In our studio we do tweak all the images we show our couples but the ones chosen for the album are given special treatment – these need to be perfect. Then the album should be printed and assembled by a professional company to ensure that it will last a lifetime. Most high-end album manufactures only sell to professional photographers.

Shoot and burn? It is the cheap way out, but is that what you deserve?

So, recently an opportunity was dropped in my lap that I just had to jump at. A group, Artists on the Bluff, are working with the city of Hoover and the Hoover School system to turn the old Bluff Park elementary school, the oldest building in Hoover, into a place where artists can work, teach and show their art. Each artists has the use of one of the old classrooms, an area of about 600 square feet, to use as his or her studio. Plus the common areas of the old building are being turned into galleries where we will be able to show and sell our work. This is just the sort of place I’ve always wanted to be – surrounded by creative people.

Our space is coming together nicely. We have set up shop there and are already photographing clients in our studio as well as at the old log cabin the historical society has located near the rear of the building. Did I mention that the Hoover Historical Society is also in the same building?

Another thing you know if you know me is that I will talk cameras and photography all day long with whoever will join in. I love sharing what I know and teaching the basics of photography and Photoshop. At Artists on the Bluff we are encouraged to offer classes about our crafts. Since it is a former school house the building is tailor-made just for that. A few rooms are being set aside as classrooms for our use. You will be hearing from me soon about classes and if you have any suggestions about what you think I can teach, let me know.

Can you tell I’m excited about this?

]]> http://bluemoonstudios.net/blog/?feed=rss2&p=281 0 http://bluemoonstudios.net/blog/?p=272 http://bluemoonstudios.net/blog/?p=272#comments Wed, 22 Jun 2011 13:57:23 +0000 admin http://bluemoonstudios.net/blog/?p=272 Continue reading →]]> Adam and I have been friends for a while.  Actually, we’ve been friends with the whole family for a while.  I met Adam, an awesome musician, singer, performer and song writer, when came as worship leader of our church.  We immediately hit if off, kindred spirits of a sort.  I need to keep mentioning that it’s not just Adam, but his family that Joy and I fell in love with.  In fact, Damyan, their oldest, worked with me as a photo assistant for about year before they moved to Nashville.

Adam is great subject for photos.  He is an interesting guy who looks great, but so does Amanda.  And I’ve jumped at every opportunity I’ve had to make his photos. (See the blog post of him at WDJC radio)   A while back we went to a field under a big old tree and made some great photos.  I am so proud that his record company has chosen to use one of these photos for the banner of his website and as the cover shot for his soon-to-be-released CD.

You need to check out Adam and his music and buy this new CD.  You are going to be blown away.  Visit his website!

What a great opportunity for a photographer, a cool venue, beautiful dresses and a cute and willing model.