More from Abandoned

Yesterday I went to Johnstown to do some shooting for "Abandoned". The weather was terrible, but I needed to do some shooting in the city because a publication from Johnstown is going to be interviewing me next week and I needed something to talk about. While there, I found an amazing house that I'll blog about later today, but there were lots of other cool ones too.

Flaky people drive me crazy

This afternoon I was supposed to have a shoot with a local senior to do some awesome Trash Your Prom Dress photos. I blocked off most of the afternoon for her shoot and when the time came, she was nowhere to be seen. I tried to contact her and had no response. Why do people schedule a shoot and then flake like that? It drives me crazy because it means I just wasted a beautiful afternoon of sunlight and clouds waiting for someone who never showed up and I could have shot photos for another client.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing happens relatively often. Today was the "tipping point" and I decided that all sessions are going to need to be paid for in full prior to the day of the shoot. I hate doing that, but it's really the only thing that is fair to me and fair to my reliable clients.

Photo kiosks are the devil

I meant to post this blog a few weeks ago but forgot.

Photo kiosks - the kind where you put your photo CD into the machine, press a few buttons and a few seconds later it start spitting out photos - are pure evil. Seriously.

I used one of these kiosks for the first time the day before my road trip. I was printing a bunch of screenshots to use as reference photos to find film locations. The 1 hour lab was closed and I knew I wouldn't have time to wait somewhere else, so I decided to use a Kodak kiosk. Ugh.

The photo "quality" of the prints is just deplorable. The paper is thin. The colors are all off. The brightness/contrast was automatically adjusted by the computer in the kiosk, etc. etc. Oh, but I could spill grape juice on them and wipe it off and they'd be fine. (picture me rolling my eyes)

I sincerely hope none of my clients who receive their photos on disc are using these kiosks to get their photos developed. If you are - STOP DOING IT. I know the average consumer doesn't have access to a professional lab, but the photos spit out by those kiosks are beyond terrible. Please, use a 1 hour lab if you need them quickly. Better yet, use MPix or Adorama. The quality will be a million times better than that of the kiosks.

Okay, that's the end of that rant. :)

New boudoir shoot

I've shot boudoir photos for several new clients over the past few weeks, but due to the nature of the shoots most ask that I not post any on the website for privacy reasons. It's always nice when a client does give me the "thumbs up" to share their images, so I was pleased recently when Judy said I could post some of hers.

Judy was a lot of fun to work with and brought some great costumes and props to use in some of the shots. She had the photos taken as a birthday present for her boyfriend and she told me that he loved them. Here are a few of my favorite shots from her shoot.

My new(est) toy

A couple weeks ago I made one of my biggest purchased in a while. I took the plunge and bought a Nikon D300 camera and accessories. I'd initially ordered a D300 last fall, but just couldn't justify the cost when I was completely satisfied with my current cameras. But, I recently saw a deal that was too good to pass up so I went ahead and broke out my debit card.

My initial thoughts are that I like the slightly larger size of the camera and I appreciate it's sturdy build. There really isn't any perceivable difference in image quality at lower ISOs and I haven't done any low light shooting with it yet(which is where it will really shine). I'm happy with the camera and look forward to putting it to use this wedding season (which begins in about 2 weeks)!