Wow! What a whirlwind week! I just got back to Denver today after 5 days in San Antonio, Texas and I am wiped out. I belong to a group called the Digital Wedding Forum and attended the annual convention for the first time. I’ve got to say it was incredible! The convention consisted of everything from seminars to tradeshows to serious partying. I was like a sponge, bringing in as much knowledge as possible in the time I was there. Being around so many amazing photographers was an awesome experience and seeing so much great talent and creativity come together was a thing of beauty. I got to know some of my favorite photographers on a personal level and had some fun adventures that lasted into the early morning hours. This was one of those situations where you felt like you were missing something if you ever stopped to go to sleep or even the bathroom! I attended some really informative seminars and came away completely inspired. I believe that in order to remain on top of your game as a wedding/ portrait photographer, you have to never stop learning and pushing yourself. The convention was an expensive trip but I invest a lot of money into professional education so I can always continue to develop as a photographer and provide the best experience imaginable for my clients. I can’t wait for next year’s convention! It’s already been announced and it is going to be New Orleans. Woohoo! On the first day of the convention, a group of us attendees arranged to have a couple of local models to go out and photograph on the San Antonio riverwalk. We each took turns posing and photographing the models and moved between locations. It was a lot of fun and I loved the images I came away with. We played with some off camera lighting techniques to get some different looks. Below are some of my favorites from the shootout. Let me know what you think in the comments.
For the image on the left, I was going for a real fashion feel with the lighting and pose. The image is very fashion catwalk to me. For the one on the right, I was hanging over a ledge up a level from the subject.
We were walking under this bridge and immediately realized we needed to take some images there. The water was just calm enough to give a nice reflection. The image of Skye on the right was achieved with a remote light pointing at her from behind to light up her dress and hair. I think it gives a really cool surreal feel to the image like she is an angel or something.
This last image was taken with a tilt-shift lens to create the defocused effect. A tilt-shift lens allows you to create a very-fine plane of focus.
Here’s my buddy Steve hanging over the same banister I mentioned earlier. Us photographers will really do anything to get interesting photographs. 😀
