All images shot with Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 and Nikkor 70-200 /f2.8 VR

Everything shot with Nikon D700, Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8, Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR and few with the Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8

Jerry Ghionis, the Maestro of the world’s wedding photography was speaking :) If you’ve never seen his “From Ordinary to Extraordinary” series - you’re missing out big time! Beg, borrow or steal but find the series - it’s truly amazing. Ice Society is awesome (although a bit on the expensive side) - tremendous source of inspiration. During his presentation Jerry shared tricks and tips on how to pose “Less than perfect couples”. He’d grab people from the audience (couples) and show how to create dozens of poses out of a single one. He “shot” 15 completely different poses of the bride and four of her brides maids in under 3 minutes! And those girls were NOT his models, they were photographers from the audience! Creative use of available light, especially shadows - always shooting from the shadowed side. Pose your subject with their face turned to the light and then shoot from the shadowed side - amazing difference (slimmer looks). Covering larger arms of a bride by groom’s arms. Covering up bigger brides (or maids) with veils, door frames and again, using shadows *all the time*!!! This technique blew my mind. I’ve been “flashing” all my bridal pictures! This technique is something I will be experimenting with A LOT now.

Oh yeah, here is the auditorium 20mins before Jerry’s presentation began… it’s full!! I believe that room’s capacity was around 2000 people.

After Jerry’s class I finished my exploration of the trade show (ended up with 10lbs of booklets and promotional material :) and happened to catch most of the Dane Sanders’ class, the bulk of which was in the leadership - get out there, invest into yourself and market, market, market!

Finally, my WPPI convention ended with Gene Higa. He talked about how he started and how he got where he is now. Concentrated predominantly on destination weddings. Cool start with a video and live Elvis participation - something different. He also stressed continuously about needing to be unique and finding your own niche. Could not agree with him more.

I didn’t go to the awards presentation that night (it’s not like I could win any, right?). Instead I had a good meal for a change, rested and played a little poker tournament at the hotel where I was staying. Few beers and California crowd arriving for the clothing convention starting the following day made the evening quite enjoyable. I was the third one getting knocked out even though I felt it wasn’t fair: Was dealt 8 and 2, limped in, flopped two pair, pushed half a stack in trying to narrow down the field, got an all-in call, matched. The guy opens up a pair. I’m way ahead. Cool, sensing some $$! Turn…. Darn!!! He catches higher “two pair” and of course the river is no help to me. I ended up on a short stack and played Russian roulette on the next hand by pushing “all in” without looking at my cards. Blinds would have killed me on this very round anyways. And that was it folks :-)

Quick shower, McDonalds for breakfast and off I go to my first class.

Bambi Cantrell talked a little about everything - marketing, dealing with clients, thinking creatively and of course posing. She actually demonstrated how to pose a man, a woman and a couple. Half/quarter turn to the light source, hands away from the body, etc. Communicating well with your subject was another tip - when she’d want to pose somebody at a certain angle to the light source, instead of continuously repeating “turn a little more, a little more, the other way, etc…” she’d get in front of the subject who would immediately turn towards her (because it’s natural to turn to somebody you’re talking to) which would automatically put them into position :) She talked about importance of buying good lenses too (fast primes mainly).

Trade show and more albums….

Lunch….

Yervant - oh boy, where do I start :) First of all, even though we arrived to the class almost 45 mins in advance - we weren’t let in until only 10mins prior to the presentation. Apparently Yervant was prepping a “wow” show, and “wow” it was :) His class started with a slide show playing on two big screens accompanied with the music performed by an amazing Russian violinist *live* (see picture by Sandavi Photo)! Not sure if it was a smart move… I paid absolutely no attention to the slide show :) Enjoyed his presentation nevertheless. He also introduced several international photographers (couple of them were from Russia), shared a lot of his work (lots of images from all over the world), showed the process of creating his amazing “dancing under umbrellas” shot which made the cover of the “Rangefinder” and concluded once again with a breathtaking performance of Svetlana.

Jeff & Julia Woods (next class) threw *tons* of information at us! How they started, what their prices were, what kind of work they were doing, what kind of studio they set up, how they improved, how they tried different strategies, how they changed their pricing, where they are now, what sells and what doesn’t, what are the trends, etc,etc,etc. They promised to post their entire presentation online so keep checking their Blog!

Late night class (8-10pm) was by Julieanne Kost - Lightroom workflow. Wow. What can I say. I’ve always been happy with Capture NX but that might change real soon. I’ve never attended a software workshop which was so much fun!! She’s simply unbelievable, especially considering that most of us were up since 6am that day, hungry and ready to pass out - she kept us all on our toes!! She grabbed few images from the Sunday’s mock wedding and walked us thru the entire process of bringing them in, cataloging, rating, adjusting, developing, converting, exporting, etc,etc,etc

I made it to my hotel barely alive… what a long day… fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow….

Jim Garner’s “The Art of Story Shooting” - very impressive concept which I’ve been thinking about lately myself. Struggling with posing people to where they would look natural (not even talking about fashion/glamour, just natural for starters), I’ve been thinking that there has to be a way to prompt people to do things (move) which would result in them going through the motions that are natural to human bodies. Therefore, by shooting them while in those motions I’d be achieving natural looking captures :) One of the interesting points Jim has made in that aspect was the fact that not only did he try to prompt those motions, but also he made those moves to be meaningful instead of pretended/fake. In other words, instead of telling the bride - pretend you’re checking your dress he would say “fix your dress please on the back” and while she was adjusting it - snap! :) Or instead of telling bride and groom to cross the road while taking pictures of them doing it, he’d send their limo three-four blocks ahead and make them walk to get there, while taking shots of everything they’d encounter on such little (yet realistic) journey :)

After Jims class I hit the trade show floors. Once again I continued exploring album vendors and also was lucky to catch Jerry Ghionis speaking at the Microsoft booth. He showed one of his recent albums and talked about how some of the images featured in it were captured. I liked his night shots of the bride where he dragged the shutter to 1 second and user rear curtain sync to flash. By doing that, he transformed what could have been 100% black background into an artsy brownish looking fill… I’ll try to replicate that one day and show you what I mean :) Of course everything else in his photography is simply stunning… Composition, use of video light, reflections (he would pour water on a table just to shoot the bride in the reflections :)

Anyways, two and half hours of the trade show, quick lunch and I’m running to the next class to be there at least 40-45 mins in advance :)

First afternoon class that day was JB & Deette Sallee. I wasn’t taking notes in any of the classes during this convention, so I might not remember everything about every speaker, however what I remembered from Sallee’s class was their creative use of lighting. The concept that I will try to explore more and possibly adopt in my personal shooting is to use different degrees of lighting for your main subject vs the background. Slight underexposure of the background for example and yet compensating your main subject with enough artificial light creates amazing images with truly 3D feel to them. Check out their blog, they have lots of samples. They also talked about how important it is to use creative filters (in Photoshop, such as Nik effects) yet try not to over-do them.

Joe Buissink was the last speaker I attended that day. Interestingly enough, I happened to catch him speaking at the trade show and was very impressed by everything he said. He’s saying “you shoot things the way you are”… “there is a reason you shoot things this way… you do it because this is the way you are…. go home, pick some of your best images, look at them and try to understand why you shot them that way… there is something in you that made you do them exactly that way”. Very strong. Unfortunately, his class for some reason was all about tricks and inspiration of shooting film and wizardry of a dark room. This was the only class which I walked out of after about an hour or so. His work, nevertheless, is very impressive.

Because I left a bit earlier, I rushed to my hotel room, dropped off all the junk (booklets) I picked up at the trade show, changed and headed right back to MGM for the BIG Nikon night - the concert of the “Blues Traveler”. Those guys are incredibly talented, but I was struggling to stay awake after first couple of beers and by 11:30pm walked back to the hotel and crashed……

No, before I did that - I checked my alarm to make sure it’s set on AM, made sure I switched from vibrate to ring and *then* crashed… :)

Nikon D700 @24mm ISO 3200(!) 1/120, f/2.8

So, the First class was held by Robert Lino. Robert is a well known Miami based wedding photographer and his class was all about how “The small details make the big difference”. To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t very impressed by the intro (showcasing his work) he played for us at the beginning of his speech. I thought about jumping to another class at first but then decided to stick around a little longer. Once he was done explaining his studio setup and began talking about posing techniques I got intrigued. He ended up giving us few useful tips which I’m sure will help me (or anybody else who has no prior training in posing). Some of the things he covered were: using S and C curves when posing women, dealing with height differences when photographing couples, demonstrated the use of head tilts to emphasize feminine or masculine features of a person, cleverly hiding “not so good looking” people behind “better looking people” when posing groups, properly positioning the subject in light in order to make them look slimmer.

A great bonus of attending Robert’s class was the fact that… Frank Salas was speaking right after him and in the very same room, which means we all just kept our seats. What happened next was a total madness. So many people stormed into the room during the brake (wanting to see Frank’s presentation) that it was hard to even move around the auditorium - people were everywhere, sitting on the floor, standing up against the walls, hanging off the ceilings :) Unfortunately, a fire marshal showed up and ordered everyone who wasn’t properly seated to leave the room or the class would be canceled. Disappointed crowed boo’ed WPPI but cleared the area. (Although Frank did promise that he’ll try to fit in one more presentation during the week for those who couldn’t stay today). The second class began.

The Second class was held by Frank Salas. Frank touched a little bit on everything - starting from marketing, going into posing and interacting with your clients, ending with some of his favorite post processing techniques. He also demonstrated his most frequently used Nik filters as well as Viveza PS plugins. He answered questions on how he structures his pricing, talked about pros and cons of shoot-n-burn vs shooting for an album. He was definitely fun to listen to and I could relate to his work better.

After the class I rushed downstairs and grabbed a quick snack because it was close to 5pm and all I had that day was a single egg McMuffin which I ate earlier that morning. Next, Tony (we met during the second class) and I headed down to the Welcome Reception - the official WPPI 2009 kick off. This was a completely staged wedding photographed by photography legends - Bambi Cantrell, Joe Buissink, Dennis Reggie, Yervant and Jerry Ghionis! And all of us (WPPI Conference attendees) were the wedding guests - observing, learning and having fun!

The show turned out to be quite entertaining :) Bambi interviewed each shooter before they were given 10-15 mins of “camera time”. Each of the photographers shared with us their “shooting style”, commented on lenses they were going to use, angles they were planning on taking and camera settings they were about to dial in. It was interesting to learn that Joe never looks at the back of his camera (never chimps) because to this day he shoots mostly film (some digital). Or how Jerry shoots JPEG only and can shoot an entire wedding with his favorite 70-200 f/2.8 IS L. That night all of them used 5DMK2’s equipped with wifi radio transmitters. Every shot they fired was immediately sent to a centralized computer via wifi and few minutes later we saw unedited/unprocessed/straight out of the camera shots on big screens located on each side of the stage where everything was taking place. It was quite cool. Jerry as always impressed with his use of video light (while the rest of the guys were shooting available light). I liked how Jerry made a comment saying that “this sort of creative approach is what will separate us, the pros from wedding guests, especially when they’re equipped with the same camera/lens”

The entire show was played as if it was a real wedding. Bridal party pictures taking, groom with grooms men, then the ceremony itself and then shots of the bride and the groom. There was also a little slide show of Joe taking “getting ready” shots done earlier that day (also unedited/unprocessed).

Once the ceremony was over everybody broke for a quick “happy hour” (drinks/food). Second part of the show was “wedding reception” with a lot of dancing and more drinking and more shooting (everyone who had cameras pulled them out and really went at it:) Mine was in a safe at the hotel, therefore sorry - no pics :)

Around 11pm I took off because it was a long day and I was completely exhausted. I collapsed as soon as I walked into my room. That was the end of day two.

First day for me was Saturday the 14th. Platform classes didn’t start yet and I landed a bit too late to join the crowd who did Las Vegas Neon Bone Yard photo shoot. So I decided to take it easy, checked into the hotel (the convention was held at MGM Grand but I ended up staying across the street at Hooters, because it was 10 times cheaper than staying at MGM and only short 2mins walk away) and headed to explore the strip.

This was the view of MGM from Hooters:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 at 24mm, ISO 1600, f/2.8, 1/20

I first explored MGM trying to find a place where I could grab a bite. After dining at a nearby restaurant I walked to Bellagio, snapped few shots of the fountains, explored Paris casino, went by the New York New York, Tropicana and finally retreated back to Hooters because the weather wasn’t quite stimulating for explorations :) Rest of the night was spent playing poker and I walked away with an extra $100 in my pocket which almost covered the price of my admission to WPPI ;-)

In front of Paris:

Nikon D700, Nikkor 14-24mm f/2.8 at 14mm, ISO 1000, f/2.8, 1/15