Good Morning Everybody,

Today is our third day at Imaging USA - and we still haven't made it all the way through the trade show floor.  Hopefully we can finish the job today.

I was hoping to have more to report for you today but yesterday had me in meetings for most of the day and I didn't get a chance to take in as much of the trade-show as I’d hoped. I plan to remedy that today. Anyway, I think you will like what I've got in store for today's post.

Another reason for missing a good part of the trade show time was the fact that I was attending the ASP Fellowship Luncheon. Those holding the degree of "Fellow" - there are only 104 living members - are invited to the luncheon.  I received the honor from the Professional Photographers Association in 1988.

One becomes a "Fellow" by going through a rigorous application process with includes a submission, a portfolio, of the applicant's top 25 images produced during their career.  We had 44 attend the luncheon yesterday and it was good to catch up with many old friends.

This year we welcomed three new "Fellows" to our group. They were Barry Rankin, Michael Timmons, and Joe Campanellie.  Each had stunning images in their portfolio submissions.

I was thrilled to see my buddy, Barry Rankin, receive his "Fellowship Degree".  Barry and I have known each other for many years.  Not only is Barry

Good Morning Everybody,

Here we are - at the end of the first full week of 2010.  I hope your year is off to a great start.  I spent most of the week - Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday with some of the favorite posts from DigitalProTalk.

Friday has many times been "Inspiration Friday" around here so I  thought I would finish out the week with some really inspirational photography for you to look at.  You know part of getting a good start is being fired up enough to make it over the first "hump" of the New Year. It's good to get a little "creative traction" and get our "brain juices" flowing.

Let me point you towards 10 sites featuring some great images to do just that.  Hope you enjoy the links.  Here we go...

1 - Susan Stripling [link] - Beautiful, dramatic photography, great use of light, great expressions in her candids.

2 - Flickr's "Inspirational Wedding Pool" [link] is always a great place to pick up some good ideas for the new year.

3 - Seven more great sites [link] that I posted way back in 2008 - still a great list to refer back to and gather a little inspiration.

4 - Two more great sites right here [link] - a little different view but still wonderful

Happy New Year Everybody,

We made it - a brand new fresh year lies before us.  A new canvas yet unspoiled upon which we will paint our future.  How are you going to approach your new year?  What are your goals and your plans for success for 2010?  Too early to think about it you say. No, today is the day to begin. Start on Monday and you've already wasted 1% of the year!  Start NOW!

Don't know where to start, well, let me give you a kick start in the right direction.  Then you add to it, fine tune it to fit your business plan, make it yours, but MOST IMPORTANTLY, start today!

Ten Ways To Go From Good To Great in 2010

1. Design 10 new products for your studio.  This isn't just your job - ask your staff, ask your clients, ask fellow professionals.  But be sure you come up with 10 new, original products that will "turn your clients on" for 2010.

2. Come up with 10 ways to promote your business for 2010.  For instance, promise yourself to keep your blog up to date at least three times a week. Promise yourself to obtain a better understanding of the capabilities of Facebook and Twitter so that you can more easily spread

Good Morning Everybody,

Yesterday the Cabo Geek Squad, myself and my buddy Kent, pulled out some new camera gear and headed to the beach.  We got some great stuff – I’m planning to use some of the images, one of which is featured in today’s “Image of the Day” post above,  for another episode of Technique Tuesday which will air next week – stay tuned.

Every Thursday evening the town of San Jose del Cabo hosts an Art Walk of all the galleries in the town.  Casa Dahlia [link] was featuring the work of artist/photographer Roberta Booth [link]. That’s me with Roberta with some of her photographic art pieces in the background.

Roberta images were wonderful abstracts, like the one entitled, “Flashpoint” featured here, that seemed to be taken from smaller parts of photographs she had made. The end result was an image with a subtle and not so subtle blending of tones and colors that was very beautiful. A perfect lead in for inspiration Friday, don’t you think?

Inspiration Friday: Art For Art’s Sake

You know, occasionally I run across a web site, video, or photograph that I find very exciting and yes, inspirational.  Many times these items have nothing to do with photography. It is the shear beauty or emotional impact 

Good Afternoon Everybody,

We wrapped city #54 of my 60 city DWUC tour last night.  I can’t believe the tour is nearly over.  We have had such a good time meeting all the people all across America – thank you all for all your support and very generous enthusiast remarks.

As we were driving to Atlanta yesterday, I commented to LaDawn about what we were going to do after we wrap the tour. Her quick response was, “Sleep”. The pace has been fairly hectic, but still a lot of fun.  People are already asking about 2010 – I’ll keep you posted.

I starting this post in the Atlanta airport waiting to board a plane back to Cincy. Back home on Friday, shoot a wedding on Saturday, then back on the plane Sunday to Atlanta for Monday’s program – yep, another busy weekend!

After I land, I’m doing what we call a site survey for tomorrow’s shooting locations.  The client is wanting outdoor photographs. If the weather is willing we should be able to get some good shots.  Look for a few of them in next week’s posts.

But for now, let’s get on with today’s post.

5 Wedding Photography Sites You Don’t Want To Miss!

You know it’s been a while since I’ve done an Inspiration Friday post.  If you’ve been following the DPT blog, I’ve mentioned that I

Ok. So September kind of got away from me, photo remake wise. There are some beautiful canning jar shots in the pool that are still awaiting my comments. Despite the current lack of feedback, I hope you all learned a little about shooting transparent but reflective materials. Rather than letting October pass me by as well, I thought I’d jump right on it with the new challenge: Pie.

Pie is one of those things that seems simple, but turns out can be quite a styling and shooting nightmare. A slice standing on it’s own often requires a lot of reconstruction, or you end up with a gappy and sometimes flat mess. Not that that can’t be beautiful too. But that upstanding slice of pie that will soon be gracing magazine covers takes propping, stuffing and all sorts of fiddling.

Similarly, a whole pie, while easy to style and photograph, doesn’t give much of a hint as to what is going on inside. You have to dive in to really tempt the viewer. Take a slice out, and now you start to have something. Of course, then, you also have to start rebuilding the edges.

So, for this month’s remake, let’s see what you can do with a double-crusted fruit pie, shot top-down with a slice taken out. My pie was plum, which gave a lovely red hue, but you can use whatever fruit you’d like for your pie. But, do try to actually remake the

Sometimes, as a food photographer, you have to make really ugly food look beautiful. There are many people who are true masters of this. I wouldn’t call myself one of them. But, I do have a few tricks up my sleeve. And the main one is distraction. The thing about ugly food is quite often, it actually is really delicious. Hummus is a big beige blob, but if you swirl it around, dress it with a little oil and finishing salt and put it in a nice bowl, maybe with a chip taking a little dive in, suddenly, it becomes the appealing dip that it actually is.

Last month’s photo remake was all about taking a dish of something that is probably not all the beautiful, and making it into something that looks like you may actually want to eat it. I had a recent photo shoot that included a recipe for a molded salmon pate. I was worried about the shot going in… it sounded like it might be fairly Fluffy Mackerel Puddingesque. My worries were justified… when I unmolded the pate, it wasn’t anything you’d want to take a photo of. (Of course, I did anyway) And then, I proceeded to style it to make it look like something you’d actually want to eat (because despite its looks, it was tasty).

before styling

When you buy a lot of props, you end up with a lot of tissue paper. I like to put mine to use rather that just recycling it. Sometimes, I use tissue to look like parchment paper or wrapping around treats. Sometimes it’s a background, or an interesting surface texture. But most commonly, I use to to modify light. Although my windows in my studio are usually covered with vellum, sometimes it’s still not enough to tone down the light and minimize hot spots. For small hot spots, I like to use glass bottles to diffuse and refract the light… but if there is an overall problem, a sheet of tissue paper can work wonders… even just sort of tucked in. Because it comes in different thicknesses, there’s almost always just the right piece.

That’s what I did today when I was working on the cover shot for a cocktail book I’ve been shooting this week. Thought you might enjoy some of the setup shots and one of the (unedited) outtakes. Not exactly high-tech!