On Location with Profoto and Nikon in TTL
We went out along the Salt River in Arizona for our webinar on TTL lighting control with Profoto equipment. In our first shots, we had our model wear a fantastically non-traditional wedding dress by Simply Bridal. Samantha, our model, was a an absolute champ. Balancing in that form fitting dress was quite a challenge in our out of the water. We had a great time and got some fantastic images. Here are the images we used in the webinar, and you can see the full webinar online, just follow this link to Profoto’s webinar page.
For this month’s webinar for Profoto, we took our crew and a kit of Profoto B1 off camera flashes out to the lakes in the desert of Phoenix, Arizona. This time, instead of shooting Canon, we were shooting with a Nikon D800 on the Profoto Air Remote TTL for Nikon. Now Nikon users can also take advantage of the TTL abilities of the Profoto B1 lights. Join me on our Profoto webinars on September 17, 2014 for a free webinar on shooting in TTL and Auto Camera Modes.
Register now: www.profoto.com/int/webinar
Boxing at the Duce with Profoto
We spent the morning in a boxing club and event venue in downtown Phoenix, Arizona called The Duce for a complex lighting webinar for Profoto (the light shaping company). In this webinar we wanted to create a difficult lighting scenario where we had to build the lighting completely from scratch. Our boxing motif was a perfect opportunity to add a little incongruous wardrobe change, and that was a fantastically non-traditional wedding dress (provided by Simply Bridal. Although this was a stylized photoshoot, I think it proves an interesting point… that couples could do a better job at thinking outside the box when it comes to their wedding and engagement portraits. If you are a couple that is hiring a photographer or a photographer who has been hired by a couple to shoot an engagement session or a wedding portrait session, work together and encourage each other to get a little more inventive on the photo session.
Here are the favorites final images from our stylized portrait session.
You can see the entire photoshoot and a discussion about it in an hour long webinar here. Watch he brief trailer for the webinar below.
Coming up on Wednesday, August 27 at 10 am Pacific time is the latest Profoto lighting webinar with myself and the Profoto B1 off camera lights. Register online at www.profoto.com/live and tune in as we build a complex lighting scenario from scratch.
Music on this teaser is courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.
FREE Webinar for Non-Professional Photo Enthusiasts
I teach professional photographers around the world the best post-production methods to help them get their job done. But there are so many more photo enthusiasts in the world, who need help organizing, editing and sharing their images and these courses are sometimes a little too pro-centered. So I have developed an online workshop for you all! Here it is…
Starting Wednesday, June 25 through Friday, June 27, I will be teaching a webinar on photo organization, editing and sharing for non-professional photo enthusiasts. If you are a mom, dad, photo student, nature lover, or anyone who has a camera and needs help navigating the organizational nightmare of saving photos on the computer, this is a great opportunity for you. The webinar is FREE. Just go to www.creativelive.com (look on the CRAFT channel) and sign up for LIGHTROOM FOR SCRAPBOOKERS. You can watch for free starting on Wednesday at 9AM Pacific Time. You can watch this on your computer, your iPad or even your phone. The course is FREE when you watch it LIVE. You can purchase anytime access to the course for only $59.
Don’t worry, if you are not a scrapbooker, that’s OK because we are talking about photo organization, editing photos and sharing them. It’s not all about scrapbooking. It is all about photos and just happens to be the right fit for people like scrapbookers who want help wight heir photos. So join me on creativeLIVE, no matter who you are and get a super easy, basic, nuts and bolts look at a workflow for personal photography in Lightroom.
William and Erica
Here are a few of my favorite images from William and Erica’s wedding. It was a large wedding, but it felt small. The people were all so nice that it just felt like I was amongst family. That is a good indication that things are going to be wonderful.
I enjoyed working on these images, as much as I enjoyed shooting them…
Now, I don’t care who you are, this next one has to make you smile.
Erica is such an adorable person and beautiful women. She was working on some very important curls, so while she was using this plastic, portable hair drier, I had to get a picture.
These curls are apparently well over 24 hours of work, so when you see Erica’s hair in her dress, don’t think that kind of coolness comes without some skill and planning. And she pulled it off wonderfully. I find myself getting a little giddy when I see something as cool as her hair was on the wedding day. Not because I love hair, but because I love to see something unique and beautiful and super cool come into place.
So as erica was brushing out her hair, her maid of honor said. “you look like a black and white photograph.” So I immediately took a black and white. This photograph and many others are in black and white because of that statement. It changed the course of the photos of the wedding. I like that interactive nature of weddings. Letting the circumstances sway the images means that the images become something much more real and meaningful. Thanks to a cute little statement on the wedding day, I saw the entire wedding day through a deferent lens.
First off, I think William’s last name is awesome. Secondly, I can’t begin to say how grateful I am to those who are and have been a part of our armed forces. Thirdly, I love the composition of this image. So, I love this image. There is a companion image that shows the groom and the best man in this same pose and it is a very casual and supportive gesture, but I much prefer this image because it is so metaphorical.
This is the Bride’s parents back yard (and music studio). I never wanted to leave…
I spent a long time looking at the getting ready photos after selecting them considering what they should become. I am generally very good at choosing a style and direction for a photograph and just making it happen, but this set made me stop and think for a long time. The bride’s love of books (a theme that would show up in the reception hall) was on full display here. The warmth of the wood, the room, the light in the window, her hair and the presence of her grandmother (who I wanted to take home with me), all pushed me to this warm treatment with a push back into the past. I will be playing with these same images on my workshop on creativeLIVE.com in a week (March 24-26, 2014) and if you join me there, you can see the original shots. I can’t imagine them with any other treatment.
So soft and beautiful.
The portrait session became a total of five or ten minutes tops. There were a few delays on getting the dress right because a sewing kit had already left for the church. And we had to leave soon, so it was a quick run out into the snow for a few photos. And while I love the color in the image here and it makes a nice portrait, I fell in love with the black and white for my favorite shot in the series.
This black and white got my attention for a long time. I really had a lot of fun with it. Including turning on that light and creating a little extra glow from the light onto her hair, etc. I am so pleased with this one. William (the groom) should be printing this one for his office for sure.
Who doesn’t love candles?
The candles were all over the place. Like a gift from the bride and her family to me. This one is another one of my favorite images. But it required a little extra editing because there was a little something in the background, a groom, that was crowding up the image. So, sometimes, I do use photoshop… but not often. And I will show you the original on creativeLIVE.com in a week, then it will be in the archives forever, never to be seen again.
When you have a car like this, you have to use it well. Man it was cold out though… SO COLD!!!!
Erica was a trooper though. She was brave enough to take off her warm furry cape. And here I was with coats and hats and scarves (no gloves) and I was still freezing! I think it was about 10 degrees outside when we took this photo… I will say it was fun, because taking photos is fun, but the cold was not as fun.
Thank you William and Erica for trusting me with your wedding day. It was such a pleasure. God bless you both and your marriage.
Photography by Jared Platt, Platt Photography
Slideshow music courtesy of Triple Scoop Music
Location: Independence Missouri
Slideshow Powered by Animoto
Post-Production with Shoot Dot Edit
I’m LIVE on creativeLIVE.com
You won’t find me at my desk or on this blog, or on Facebook or on location somewhere shooting today. You can find me anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. I am teaching on creativeLIVE.com today and tomorrow (Feb 24 and 25) for Photoshop Week. It is LIVE and it is FREE. So don’t miss it. You can even ask questions and I will be answering them live, online. CLICK HERE and watch!