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The Strobist Meet-up in Biddeford, ME was a great. The space at North Dam Mill was fantastic and the event was well attended. The models were fun (especially Joanna) and the photographers were really cool.

More photos on my Flckr page.

I’d like to say thanks to Joanna, Tim and especially Gary from Chasing The Sun Photography for hosting the event.

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Chris Marquardt will bring his “Tips from the Top Floor” workshop to Portland, ME in from August 28-31. This is a four day workshop on Studio and Portrait photography.

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I had the honor of shooting the wedding announcement photos from my sister and her fiancé. I have recently bought a bunch of studio-style equipment which made possible what would have been absolutely impossible before. I’m still not very good at using the equipment, but thankfully I was able to pull off a few decent shots with their patience and trust.

After the portrait session, I took some time to process the RAW images. I also played around with some presentation options, especially insets into the bigger photograph.

Most of the work was on the exposure, cropping and playing with the filters in the black and white conversions. For the kissing portrait, I cropped it close and made it grainier for the photo CD that I gave them.

Here is the final photo that they went with for the announcements.

Thanks to Deni and Scott for the opportunity.

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“Say cheese!” isn’t just cliché, it’s often an annoucement of surrender from the camera-holder. The chance to capture a personal portrait has been squandered by asking everyone to act unnaturally and just smile (invariably while blinking).

When you have the camera in your hand, you should be looking for opportunities to capture some aspect of what you see. To really capture a person, try taking a photo without interrupting them. Try to capture a sense of what it is that makes that person interesting. Try getting a portrait of them doing what they do naturally. Just try to get a snap of them doing whatever they are doing.

If your kids are playing or some members of your family are having an interesting conversation, take the photo without interrupting them. Try to capture interaction. Take photos of hands. Take photos of what they see. You’ll get very interesting and intimate results. You’ll also have captured a moment in their life. Think of it as a kind of street photography.

Also, when your subject is absorbed in an activity, it’s a great opportunity to work on composition. You can move around, zoom and adjust settings and take photo after photo. Then, when everything looks just right, yell “Say cheese!”

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