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My family and I spent a few weeks in Italy last summer. There's so much art there - it's impossible not to be inspired. Of course I shot tons of pictures! Here's a painting based on one of them.br /br /Once again, I painted this using Corel Painter. Though I do most of my work in Photoshop, for getting the look of oil paint, Painter still can't be beat.br /br /span style="font-size:85%;"(No, I didn't paint the entire thing this morning. Most of it, /spanspan style="font-size:85%;"I painted /spanspan style="font-size:85%;"the other night...but I finished it today.)/spanbr /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pYhtd5F751g/SaBrsYwQcwI/AAAAAAAABCg/CKFTaTCNZws/s1600-h/Venice.jpg"img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_pYhtd5F751g/SaBrsYwQcwI/AAAAAAAABCg/CKFTaTCNZws/s320/Venice.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305358771345715970" border="0" //abr /br /Here's my lay in...after about an hour of work. One of the nice things about digital painting, is you can keep the early versions of paintings. Often, the under painting is just as interesting as the final product.br /br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pYhtd5F751g/SaBv3eT5SGI/AAAAAAAABCo/xhp0j4pvkiQ/s1600-h/Venice+-+Lay+In.jpg"img style="cursor: pointer; width: 214px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pYhtd5F751g/SaBv3eT5SGI/AAAAAAAABCo/xhp0j4pvkiQ/s320/Venice+-+Lay+In.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305363359862442082" border="0" //a

A

div align="center"a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ7sI1IDlII/AAAAAAAAKFI/0Hlig1iHsU0/s1600-h/The+Touch+Of+Your+Lips.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304937047532999810" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 264px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ7sI1IDlII/AAAAAAAAKFI/0Hlig1iHsU0/s400/The+Touch+Of+Your+Lips.jpg" border="0" //aemstrongspan style="font-size:130%;""The Touch Of Your Lips"br //span/strong/em©David A. Ziser/divdiv align="center"br /We wedding photographers are always taking photographs of the bride and groom kissing. We take a few shots of them looking lovingly at each other and then a few more of them kissing. Let me give you a hint how to make it an even better shot. After you get a few images of them looking romantically at each other, encourage them to draw closer - closer -ALMOST KISSING - but not fully kissing. It's the anticipation of the kiss that heightens the emotional thrill of the shot. One note here, DON'T have them pucker as they draw closer to each other - otherwise they will look like two "a id="nyrx" title="Kissig gouramis" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kissing_gourami" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="6258"Kissing gourami/a" fish. So remember, almost kissing, no pucker, adds romance to these kind of shots. Camera Fuji S-1 fitted with 80-200mm lens at 105mm, F2.8 @ 1/70 second, ISO 320. strongemEnjoy! -David/em/strong/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalProtalk/~4/544148101" height="1" width="1"/

strongema href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ7q6Vh1l7I/AAAAAAAAKE4/diC-Gu4YI8E/s1600-h/Thank+You+-+iStock_000003393808XSmall.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304935699021404082" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 132px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ7q6Vh1l7I/AAAAAAAAKE4/diC-Gu4YI8E/s200/Thank+You+-+iStock_000003393808XSmall.jpg" border="0" //aGood Morning Everybody,br //em/strongAt least it's morning here in Las Vegas. Boy, will I be glad to get back on schedule next week. I was going to do another "The F-Stops Here" post today, but decided to hold off till next week to post it.br /br /Here's why. Last evening, I was reading a copy of Success Magazine that my buddy Bruce Hudson gave me at the WPPI trade-show. I had subscribed years ago and had always enjoyed the magazine so it was a nice surprise to see a copy again. While reading an article in the issue it reminded and struck me as to the real importance of customer service we provide our clients. Give today's post a read and let me know what you think.br /br /strongemHit the "Read More..." link for the rest of the story./em/strong span id="fullpost"br //spanspan id="fullpost"br /br /strongemspan style="color:#cc9933;"Customer Service Or Customer Appreciation?br //span/em/strongHere is a quote from the article, em"Every single person on this planet has an invisible sign on the front of them that says; Appreciate me and make me feel good."/em That quote caught my eye right away and I started wondering how well I appreciate my own clients. Was I doing a good enough job at it. Sure, I thanked them for their business when they picked up their order. Sure, I thank them for a referral when I saw...

  One of the hotter trends in wedding albums is what is called the magazine style. It is a digital photo album that is flush mount and is constructed of a hard bound cover and ridged pages. The flush mount album doesn’t have matted pages and is much like a cross between a traditional wedding album and a coffee table book. Kubota AutoAlbum V3 is a software program that assists you in

div align="center"a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ3VjhM4U7I/AAAAAAAAKEM/KwMVktLhskE/s1600-h/Night+At+The+Museum.JPG"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304630742296843186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 267px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ3VjhM4U7I/AAAAAAAAKEM/KwMVktLhskE/s400/Night+At+The+Museum.JPG" border="0" //aemstrongspan style="font-size:130%;""Night At The Museum"/span/strong/embr /©David A. Ziser /divdiv align="center"br /We occasionally have the wonderful opportunity to work a wedding at the a id="uo0d" title="Taft Museum" href="http://www.taftmuseum.org/pages/museumhistory.php" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="6639"Taft Museum/a in Cincinnati, Ohio. a id="wxve" title="William Howard Taft" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Howard_Taft" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="6679"William Howard Taft/a announced his presidency on the portico of this beautiful home. It's a more intimate venue for smaller weddings, but serves as a great background for this type of image. We always try to work this shot into the client's coverage when the wedding is held here. It's an easy shot to set up. My assistant is behind the the bride and groom holding my radio controlled Quantum. The random bounce of the light highlights the porch area and creates a nice compositional interior frame around the couple. We take several of them just looking at each other and always finish with a few of them kissing. These images are always favorites for the album. Camera specs: Canon 5D fitted with 12-24mm lens at 15mm, F5.6 @ 1/15 second, ISO 800. emstrongEnjoy! -David/strong/em/divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/DigitalProtalk/~4/543537451" height="1" width="1"/

strongemGood Afternoon Everybody,br //em/strongWe made it to Thursday and get a little break in the action today. We're sticking around a few days, mostly to wrap tour details and put the finishing touches on the book. There it is, I see it - a little light at the end of the tunnel - but heck, better busy than not.br /br /a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ3UWZua9LI/AAAAAAAAKD8/pYuhescSpFs/s1600-h/1024x768+-+Four+Photographers.jpg"img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5304629417440113842" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_B9QptPHH85Y/SZ3UWZua9LI/AAAAAAAAKD8/pYuhescSpFs/s200/1024x768+-+Four+Photographers.jpg" border="0" //aToday I've got that long promised video for you. It's taken a little while to put together but I think it came out kind of cool. I hope you like it. It features a id="jddw" title="Joe McNally" href="http://www.joemcnally.com/blog/" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="7986"Joe McNally/a, a id="j870" title="Michele Celantano" href="http://www.michelecelentano.com/" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="8003"Michele Celentano/a a id="aali" title="Hanson Fong" href="http://www.hansonfong.com/" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="8025"Hanson Fong/a, and a id="j_7x" title="Mary Fisk Taylor" href="http://www.hayesandfisk.com/" target="_blank" goog_docs_charindex="8046"Mary Fisk-Taylor/a giving presentations at various booths at the WPPI trade-show.br /br /Michele and Hanson were both presenting at the Canon booth as they are both Canon "Explorers of Light". Mary Fisk-Taylor was presenting at the Marathon booth giving some marketing ideas. Joe was giving his presentation at the Nikon booth. All presenters were gracious enough to give me their permission to post the videos. My thanks to them.br /br /You know, I think this is a good idea and is an easy way to get a quick peak at other photogs we sometimes hear about but seldom get a chance to see. Anyway, I hope...