Today's Pancake Session is coming at you from the Mr. in our Marantz! :)
From Justin:
One of the ongoing personal projects I have at all our weddings is to do an architectural night shot of the venue. This can be a really cool way to bring the atmosphere of the whole event in to compliment the story of the day. And it's also a great thing to be able to give the locations to help build awesome relationships with them.
Here's how we do it!
Step 1: Choose your time. This is huge for a getting a really dramatic night shot. Because if you wait too long, you'll just have a really flat, black sky. On a night with a clear sky I usually try and grab this shot about 45 minutes after sunset. The sky will be good and dark but the horizon will still have a little bit of ambient glow to it. If it's a cloudy night, I'll usually wait a little later and let the clouds pick up ambient light from the ground, like a street lamp behind the building seen in the second shot below.
Step 2: Grab your tripod, camera, wide angle lens, flash (I'll explain later) and find a good spot to camp out for a few minutes. For the tripod I would recommend something strong and sturdy, but also with a quick release plate in case you have to grab your camera and run inside for something important....like "Living on a Prayer." The ideal tripod would be something like the Gitzo GT-1541T Traveler, but if you're working on a budget you can use something more economical like my 'ole trusty tripod, the Manfrotto 190XPROB Pro Aluminum Tripod For the wide angle lens, I prefer the Carl Zeiss 25mm 2.8 on a full frame body. Or if you're looking to get a true architectural shot, you'll probably want something that can correct the vertical parallels like the Nikon 24mm.3.5 PC lens
Step 3: Because you're using a tripod, your shutter speed and ISO become much less important to the stability of the image. No need to worry about camera shake unless the wind is blowing really hard or you happen to live somewhere on the San Andreas fault line. :-) I set my camera to Manual. I usually drop my ISO as low the camera can go for the least possible amount of noise, and bring my shutter speed to 30 seconds (or longer if have a cable release that can lock the shutter open) Then I just adjust my f stop until I have a good exposure (which is going to depend on a case by case basis on how much ambient light is around, but to give you an idea it's usually around f11). I'll admit, that a lot of it is just guess and check, but the beauty of having it on the tripod is that you'll have pretty consistant results each time. Just remember that the light is changing really quickly at that point, so you'll want to move fast so you don't lose your sky. Once you have your base exposure set, now it's time to play.
Step 4: Break out your flash and set it to manual. The amount of power you use will depend on your f stop, the distance from the flash to the building, and the output power of your flash. But just to give you an idea, with my Nikon SB-900 it's usually around 1/16th power. Now here's the fun part! Open the shutter and now you've got 30 second to run around and flash the building! (Um, please keep your clothes on!) Using the test button you can now fire off your flash at the building and use that to "paint with light" and highlight part or all of the building. For the picture of Salt Water Farm Vineyard below, I chose to use the flash to light up the underside of the arch at the top of the building with about 8 pops of the flash.You want to be careful not to flash in the direction of the camera or at someone who happens to be standing there unless you want them to register in the image. Also, you'll want to keep moving unless you actually want to see yourself in the picture. (For example, in the first image below I intentionally signed it with my own silhouette at the base of the building. Can you find me? :-) One more thing, you're also going to want to cover up the display of the flash with black gaff tape so it doesn't register in the image, or you'll have a green line running through your image.
As you can imagine, this can get to be really fun when you get a few friends with flashes to help. For more painting with light architectural photography, check out where I got my start, with the RIT BIG shot project
Sugarbush Resort Warren, VT Exposure info ISO 100 15 seconds @ f16
** If you have any follow up questions on night shots, long exposures or painting with light (or any other questions for that matter!) feel free to leave them in the comment box
We get a lot of email. Like a LOT. The kind of email that gets you so buried in your inbox that it would take a St. Bernard and legion from the Swiss Army to dig you out.
It is, in short, the bane of my existence. The Medusa to my mojo. Because for every email that is slain & defeated, three more rise up to take its place. :)
BUT.
Yes, there's a but.
But....there's a lot more love than hate in my relationship with my email. Because see, it brings us closer to all of you. Beyond all the working emails and trivial day to day, we get some of the most heartfelt, genuine thoughtful, life-sharing notes from....You. And I thank you for that. From the bottom of my heart. You open up your lives to us....you aren't afraid to ask. And I love you for that. Truly. I love you. Like a lovesick crackhead. :)
So please don't stop sending. Please don't stop sharing. Just understand that it may take a little while to get back to you....while I'm out slaying dragons and email Medusas.
In the mean time, I have become a devoted student to learning tips & tricks for handling the inbox quagmire, and thought I would share them with you too!
First, I try to check email only twice a day. Sometimes I give in to the temptation and check it sooner than that, but at the very least I only respond twice a day. Otherwise, if I keep responding, Medusa tends to rear her ugly heads. All three of them. Next when I hit get mail and the messages start pouring in, once I stop cowering under my desk I go to work and get strategic. The first thing I do is sort in Mac Mail by "From." This groups everything from facebook, twitter, our blog comments, Restoration Hardware, J.Crew,etc all together with other messages of its kind so that I can bang through them quickly. I can look through all of the facebook message and delete those pretty quickly, twitter adds, J.Crew sales, etc. You can also set up Smart Folders in Mac Mail to accomplish pretty much the same thing. After that, I will search by "Subject" so that I can get back to any "client emails" first and also get rid of any long chains of "Reply All's" somebody accidentally included me in. :) Y'know since I am emphatically against the reply all in 99.9% of situations. And finally once it's all narrowed down to actual emails I need to respond to, I go by date so I can see who has been waiting the longest and what is most pressing. Anything i can't answer right that second, goes into a "To Do" folder for when I have the time to look up whatever they need. Annnnnd... that's my strategy.
And being that I am in constant search to increase my email efficiency, you can imagine the happy dance I did (I'm not gonna lie...the running man was involved!) when I saw that Millie's GITKIT had an entire chapter devoted to email management. An ENTIRE chapter! I'm not going to give any of it away, but suffice it to say that the email tips alone make this purchase so worth it. Then add on all the other chapters and it's really a no brainer!
Need more convincing? Well how about this, Millie has given us a super secret code to share with all of you that will get you free shipping on the Kit! Want to know more....just keep reading! But first, our Get It Together Winner.
And now, what you've all really been waiting for....the WINNER of the Get It Together Giveaway is.....
.......drumroll please...........
Stacy Able!!!! For her entry, " My time accounting and time management-- too much time spent on facebook and twitter trying to keep up wastes the time I should be shooting, editing, and loving my family." So true Stacy, so true!! Just shoot us an email at justin@justinmarantz with your addy and we'll send the GITKIT right out to you!
Once again a HUGE thanks to the lovable and business savvy Millie Holloman for being our guest this week and for donating the GITKIT giveaway. For all of you that entered, Millie has also been super generous in giving us a code to share with you for free shipping on your very own GITKIT. After reading it cover to cover in one afternoon, I honestly think it's one of the best investments you could make for your business. Just enter "justinmary" at checkout and you'll be all set!
Thanks Millie!! Can't wait to hug you!
Getting it Togetherly Yours
J&M
** So tell us, what are some of YOUR favorite email tips & tricks??
We have a pretty busy weekend ahead of us!! J&M are shooting in Mystic today, we're up in Vermont tomorrow and back down in good 'ole CT on Sunday so I wanted to jump in with a little short stack of tidbits on album design before I leave! Mary covered the work flow process here so I am going to tell you a little bit about my favorite features of the program we use to design them: Photojunction. The best part about Photojunction is how user friendly it is! I watched one little tutorial last year and was designing albums the same day!
One of my favorite features of the program is the ability to separate images into groups!! Usually I separate them into : Getting Ready Details, Getting Ready, Ceremony, Portraits, Reception Details, and Reception. These vary slightly by weddings, depending upon the days events. For instance, if there is a First Look, it always gets it's own folder. Catorgorizing them like this helps the design process move more quickly. I am way less likely to leave out an image that I want to use and the timeline of the day is pretty much set before I start designing!
I have a confession, I loooove album design, but some of the details of album design, can get a little tricky! :) Spacing key lines, centering images, etc is not my strong point. But! All I have to do is highlight the images and pick how large I want the key lines to be. Voila! No fuss! No muss! No matter how easy it is, there are still a whole lotta key lines in one album design. And if I had to go through and triple check every spread in every album I think it would give me quite the headache! For me, templates are a life saver!! Every page I have ever designed is saved as a template so if I want to use it again- I just pop it into the album I am currently designing and then fill it with images. Not having to reinvent the wheel is a HUGE time saver!!
Photojunction also makes it very simple to change the size of an image and to zoom in and out on an image. They have tons of preset sizes to choose from or you can just pull on an image to customize the size. There are no restrictions! The sky is the limit! :) What I really love about all of this, is how personalized your albums can get. The ability to design and customize every page is a huge asset!!
The last piece to the puzzle is exporting the album for our clients to review. It is WAY too easy! You can export right from Photojunction to AlbumExposure
Raw, unfettered, lion-hearted, caution to the wind....courage. It takes confidence and patience and perseverance too. And lest we forget...there will be tears. Whether proverbial or actual, we shed our blood, sweat and tears in pursuit of these dreams. We give our everything. And then we give more. Frustration. Failure. Fight for it and Forward. It takes all these things to chase a dream.
But the greatest of these...is love.
Because when the courage waivers and the confidence is all but gone, love remains. When frustration trumps forward, and there are more tears than you knew possible....love is the one to say get up, dust yourself off, and try it again.
Today I hope you look at your dreams with love. Because it takes love to say, "Maybe this isn't quite the picture I wish I'd taken yet, but I am the one who took it. And that counts." It takes love to say "I have so far to go and so much left to learn, but just for today I'm going to be thankful for all that I've already learned. And give honor to the miles I've already come. " It takes love to stare down fear in the face and put yourself out there. To be weak, to be vulnerable, to ask questions. To grow. It takes love to look at yourself and your dreams with compassion, and say to yourself: Fight for it and Forward.
Today I hope you live in love. Because trust me, it is the stuff that dreams are made of.
**Wanna be friends? How about BFF....forever! Just clickety-click below!
We thought we'd kick off your TGIF with a lil' pancake session on album design. Some of the questions that we get asked most really come back to album workflow: which companies do we use? Do we hire an album design company or design in-house? Do either Justin or I do the designs? Do we do a first mock up or have our clients pick the images first? Do we try to up sell? Well, here are our answers for what works for us... but I'm sure there are a million other combinations out there that are just as successful. You just have to pick the one that makes the most sense for you!
First of all, neither Justin or myself do any of the album designs. To be honest with you, I couldn't even tell you how to open Photo Junction if my life depended on it. The reason for that, is that of all the tasks it takes to run our business on a daily basis (and there are TONS!), Justin & I try to keep only the few that we really want to be experts in. And then we hand everything else off to other experts that we trust. Even though we don't do the designs ourselves, we do manage to keep our album design in house because as it turns out Julia is the guru of all things book. And she can rock an album design like nobody's business.
What's also great about that, is that having it in house helps us define a consistent style for all of our couples. And because Julia already has very similar tastes to us, her designs are always spot on. As a company, we like to keep things clean, simple and design something that will stand the test of time. Something that lets the pictures and the story do the talking.
As far as workflow, if a couple has already included an album in their package then as soon as their blog post is up, Julia will get right to work on a first mock up. At that point, I send a little note to our clients saying I'm tagging out and Julia sends one saying she's tagging in. We like to start with a first mock up of images that we pick (the blog favorites) so that we get can get a story going. But once we have that in place, Julia will work with our clients to swap any images or tweak any spreads that they want. So after Julia finishes the first mock up, I'll give it a quick look over to make sure we're on the same page (but like I said, it's always 99.9% of the way there already) and then she'll send that out to our clients in slideshow form (AlbumExposure is a great one to try!) From there on, Julia will go back & forth with our couple until they absolutely LOVE their book. Anything less than that and we're not happy. Once we get the final approval, Justin, Julia & I will give it one last look with a fine tooth comb and then Julia will place the order. Once the album comes back in (6-8 weeks later), we inspect it, let it set for a few days to acclimate to the New England weather, and then package it up and ship it out with a note basically saying it has our stamp of approval. We'll be doing a follow up post on how we package everything, so stay tuned for that! :)
One thing that we don't do with our albums is try to up sell. We wanted to keep things very simple and straightforward with our clients so they knew exactly what they were getting. So we threw out the super confusing matrix of prices based on number of pages and images that we didn't even understand let alone our clients, and came up with one flat price for each album company that we offer. That way, our couples know that with that price, they can get any size, shape, number of pages and images up to that album company's limits, and they won't be hit with any surprise charges. That was really important to us because of the kind of relationship we have with our clients, who really become friends. I know there are a lot of other studios out there who have been very successful with the up sell and it can be a great way to do the albums. But it just didn't fit with us or our personalities, so that's why we do it the way that we do. But again, it's something you'll have to look at and then pick the one that makes the most sense for you & your business!
And finally, for album companies, we offer several different books that provide very different looks because I don't think every wedding fits in one particular style of book. So we currently offer Willowbook, CoutureBook, Queensberry, and we've just added Leather Craftsmen to the line up. We got our first book in from them a few days ago, and to say that we were blown away would be the understatement of the millenium. It is gorgeous! GAWH-geous! We all sat around for a good 20 minutes just drooling over the leathery goodness.
One of the things that had us most excited to sign up with Leather Craftsmen was the option to imprint your logo on the inside cover like a little stamp of approval. HUGE thanks to Jasmine for blogging about it and letting us and the world know about this awesomeness! It is the bomb.
I really believe that a book is the best way that the story of someone's wedding is told. Discs and slideshows are fine, but it's going to be that book that families are looking through for generations to come to remember that day. And we try to never forget that it's an honor that we're the ones who get to create that for them. I hope this has helped in some small way!
Happy Friday and be sure to check back in at 5pm to see who the winner of our Design Dilemma is!! There's still time to get in your vote!
M:)
Pancake Sessions
