Update: We don’t use Picasa much any more, now that Lightroom has provided much better sorting options.
Picasa 3 has officially been released, and Jerry Ferguson Photography had a chance to run a couple weddings through it. We agree that this is the best version yet of the popular consumer-oriented photo editing and organizational software.
A lot of wedding photographers may scoff at the idea of using Picasa in their workflow, but we make regular use of its organizational features. We haven’t yet found a tool that matches Picasa for raw speed when we are going through hundreds of photos in a rough edit to weed out the best. It is so simple to star each of the good photos, and ‘hold’ all of the bad ones so that we can move them to a ‘trash’ folder. The new Picasa Photo Viewer that is integrated with Windows explorer is a welcome addition, and allows a slick interface for viewing images from explorer. You can rotate, star, and quickly upload images without even opening Picasa. Talk about convenient.
There are a couple of other welcome features that seem to be especially well-suited for wedding photographers. One of the long-standing gripes a lot of users had with Picasa was it’s lack of a ‘clone tool’ for retouching. Well the wait is over, and Google has finally added a retouching tool similar to the one found in Adobe Lightroom. Now if they would only add a ‘vignette’ effect, Picasa would be almost perfect.
Picasa 3 had really upped the ante with it’s video support, fleshing out a few new tools to easily create movies with music up to 1080p in resolution with automatic transitions that can ’see’ faces (how awesome is that?) and enhanced support for easily uploading videos to youtube right from Picasa.
Thanks, Google!
This couple’s wedding was photographed at the Scottsdale Mondrian in Scottsdale, Arizona. Their wedding photos were unique because of the variety of the surroundings at the Mondrian. Read the rest of this entry »
Phoenix Arizona Temple
This is the original design for the Phoenix Arizona Temple. It will be redesigned to a lower height.
The Phoenix Arizona Temple has been announced. This is a new announcement in addition to the previously announced Gilbert Arizona Temple and the Gila Valley Temple announced for eastern Arizona. Read the rest of this entry »
This engagement photo was taken at Villa Siena in Gilbert, AZ. Jon and Lauren wanted some photos at the same venue that their wedding would be at, so we met in the morning and knocked out a few shots outdoors in the sweet morning light. As it got warmer and the light shifted into the not-so optimal range, we came inside and found this old leather bench tucked away in a corner.
I wanted a slightly underexposed ambient feel for a more dramatic portrait that ‘popped’, but didn’t want the shadow-side of faces to get completely lost, so I filled the shadows with a Vivitar 285 flash at 1/4 power into a shoot-though umbrella. The main light is a snooted Vivitar 283 at 1/4 power which is providing the harder-thrown light from up high camera-left. This is similar to a technique that David Hobby used on the Strobist blog. Funny thing is, I don’t think I’d seen his post yet, and figured that this was the best way to get the particular look I wanted. I guess great minds think alike.
For the photo above, we shot into an umbrella to create some nice, soft light from the left, and tossed in a touch of light from the right, behind the couple. If you need a wedding or engagement photographer in Gilbert, please let us know.
These engagement photos were taken in Tempe, Arizona – home of Arizona State University. We met on Mill Avenue, which is a great place for some casual, urban engagement photos.
I’ve always loved the way the sun reflects off buildings in the early morning hours, so that’s the look we were going for here.
In the second photo, we are in a back alley just off of Mill Avenue and we are going for a more urban moody feel:
And in the third variation, we had our couple seated and brought our strobes in closer, again, in an attempt to darken the background a couple stops. Sometimes you hit, and sometimes you miss. But even when your shot comes out a bit on the overexposed side, you can sometimes still make something of it like we did here, giving it an edgy feeling:
We photographed this model on Mill Avenue in Tempe Arizona. This happened to be her first modeling shoot ever, and she did great. I’m sure that future shoots will be even more relaxed. Read the rest of this entry »
Shadow Rock Church has a great view of the sunset over Phoenix, Arizona, making it a great spot for wedding photography. This particular wedding started a little late, so we missed the sunset by a few minutes, but the evening glow was nice.
I snuck into a seat near the back of the bland conference room at the Phoenix Airport Hilton this past Saturday not quite knowing what to expect from the latest Strobist seminar. Little did I know how much I’d learn about turning a boring conference room to into a photographic playground. Read the rest of this entry »
Strobist, the off-camera lighting phenomenon, came to Phoenix on March 15-16, 2008 at the Phoenix Airport Hilton. Read the rest of this entry »
We did senior Portraits up at Las Sendas in northeast Mesa this morning. You wouldn’t expect it in Arizona, but it was freezing cold up there. I think it was mostly the wind, which also played havoc with my umbrella and lighting. Thanks, for the good catches, Nick.
We were going for a slightly different look on these senior portraits – a sort of homage to Dave Hill.
Info: f7 @ 1/200
Sun behind subject @ 11:30
Vivitar 285, 1/4 power into umbrella camera left @ 5:00
Vivitar 283, 1/8 power camera right @ 2:30
Processing: I darkened the edges slightly and desaturated them. I also created a duplicate layer, which I cranked up the contrast to 100% on. I then dragged that layer’s opacity down to about 20% to get the slightly desaturated yet contrasty look. I know it’s not perfect, and I’m never satisfied with anything that I do, so I certainly look forward to trying to perfect this technique as just another interesting look for senior portraits.
