Simple and Easy

This past week end was busy, but easy. I had two kid's birthdays to photograph and a small wedding. The wedding was at the famous Don CeSar Hotel on St. Petersburg Beach. I mentioned it in a past blog entry. It's a 5-star resort hotel built back in the 20's and frequented by the rich & famous. The hotel is painted

pink and white making it stand out in contrast to the white sandy beach. This shot is obviously a night shot on the street side on the hotel. The wedding was handled by the CeSar's Intimate Wedding Coordinator Ms. Quinn Noonan. She only works with groups of 25 or less. She was also the Official for the wedding ceremony. With her dark red hair, sparkling blue eyes and the name Quinn Noonan, could she BE anymore Irish? She did a great job making the event flawless and relaxed. From the reading of the ceremony on the beach to the dinner in the hotel, everything was attended too. Carletta and Michael, both who have been married before, were relaxed and had a good time with everything. This shot of the Bride and Groom was done on the beachside of "The Don". Believe me when I say, if your looking for elegance in a dinner event or a wedding, The Don CeSar is the one of the premier spots in Central Florida.

Then came the kid's birthday parties. One on Saturday, and one on Sunday. I do appreciate parents that want to be sure that they have quality photographs of a special family event, however, I think I prefer hearing the "Electric Slide" at a wedding reception, one-more-time, over the din of screaming 6 year olds watching a man make balloon animals! Hey. at least they were all well behaved kids! Eh!...It's a living! ;} cya

New Photo Album Debut

Well I guess the one good thing about our Florida rain pattern is that it gave me a chance to keep off the motorcycle long enough to start learning how to build my wedding albums "ah la photoshop". In a past blog entry, I got on my soapbox about photographers fees. Well, this is one of those examples. Not only do I have to buy & maintain a PC, but there is the cost of the software, Adobe Photoshop is not cheap. Then comes my time. Some of these pages took me 15 minutes or so and other took 30 to 45 minutes. I'm sure I will get faster with the use of templates and experience. Some albums can be 40 pages or more. But the fact remains that I use my skills and talents to produce a good product for my client. These pages are designed and then placed into a bound album. The old days of just sliding the photograph into a matte sleeve, covered by a piece of clear plastic film, and wired into a album cover are pretty much gone.
This image is an example of a designed photo album page. I first created the background. Since I decided to make the image a Black & White photo, I used a B&W background. I sized the image to a 5 x7 so it would sit nicely in the middle of the page. This album is utilizing 10 x 10 inch pages. I added the names of the couple for that personal touch. This one didn't take to long.

Now this page, which you may recognize the couple from an earlier blog entry, took a little more time.
The sizing of the images is what takes
a while. On this one I took one of my favorites shots of the couple on the beach. Candice had such a great pose. I removed the color from the image and then reduced the opacity and "ghosted" the shot to use it as the background or wallpaper. I then resized 2 other shots and left them in color. Notice that the edges of the color shots are beveled and shadowed to give them some depth. Again, I added their names to personalize the image. This might be a good cover shot, or a page 1, or could just be somewhere else in the album.
Some labs allow you to send the images to them, marked with what page they will be. The lab then takes artistic license to "design" the book. I rather do the design myself. Sure it is time consuming and the customer pays for some of that, but it also lets them have a book that is not a cookie-cutter style. I hope that my clients enjoy this type of presentation of thier wedding images.
Looking forward to Saturday and the Winter Haven Bike Fest. cya!

Another great Florida spot.

The one great thing about having a new motorcycle and living in Florida is that there are so many great places to ride too. Some of us mounted the steel ponies on Sunday and made a 350 mile round trip ride to Cedar Key, a little community in the bend of the panhandle. It's a cross of an old Florida fishing community and tourist spot. The water front is a a mix of restaurants, pubs, shops and art galleries. What I also found was that no space is wasted. A few of the shops have second floor space that they have turned into bed n' breakfast places. The shops are varied as well. You can find art to biker leather wear. The main portion of the township is a couple of blocks away. No big chain stores here. No little chain stores either. This is a very "Mom n' Pop" community with tourism and fishing as a main stay. As a matter of fact, there is some major small neck clam farms here. I was sure to get a big order of roasted clams with garlic butter for lunch at a rustic restaurant over the water called The Seabreeze. It was cool enough that it looked like a Lighthouse, but the huge picture windows allowed a great view of the Gulf. A little added touch was watching a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins swim by. Everytime I go to a place like this, I think to myself that it's going to be hard to beat finding another cool place like this. I mean something that is home grown, not commerical like a theme park. But ya'know...I'll bet you I'll find another place soon. I guess it's just one more reason why a Florida born native as I am, stays here! see ya'll!