I soon found myself going to the photoshop section and found an article about vignetting. You can read it here. Something I’ve seen becoming almost too popular lately. I do it too!

Be sure to check it out and if you ever come back looking for it, you can find it on my blogroll.

-H

Us photographers have a lot going on most of the time. We are out and about shooting, in the studio, processing our images and meeting with clients. As a wedding photographer, one of my main concerns is how and when to communicate with my clients. There’s a lot more besides cameras and money. Trust me.

Although I have my beloved iPhone on me 24/7 and I’m able to check my websites and emails most of the time, sometimes I just don’t have the time to get to everything and everyone.  So I blog about my current and future projects and sometimes what my schedule looks like for the next couple of weeks. This way my clients or whoever is following my work, are able to kind of “catch up” with what I’m doing. This doesn’t mean that this is my favorite way to comunicate with my clients because it’s simply not. It’s just a way of saying “I’m busy and this is why but I haven’t forgotten about you“.

Does it help my precense on the web?

Absolutely! But this is not my main objective with it. Although good marketing for a wedding photographer is always a must.

 Before I started blogging, it was just my flash website. While it’s cool to have a online portfolio, it’s not THAT cool to be just that, a photographer with an online portfolio. Unless you’re a famous photographer and everybody knows you and your work, you can’t go wrong with a blog.

I hated that my website was like one of those websites from big companies. You go there and you’re just shopping but you don’t know who’s behind the website. Who put it together? My blog created a path between my online portfolio and me, the photographer, therefore creating a more solid communication between my clients and myself. The guy who hopefully will be taking your photos.  And clients who haven’t talked to me yet can get a glimpse of who I am before they pick up the phone and call or start writing that email.

All in all, I blog because I like to share with my clients, family and friends what I do.

A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot with Mandy for a Knockout Haircuts campaign. She won the Ms. Knockout USA 2009 contest and guess what? Yes, she deserved a photo shoot to celebrate her achievement and to be featured on the KOH website. Congrats to Mandy! Visit Knockout’s website and get to know her better. Enjoy.

-Herson

Congrats to the newly weds, Jonathon and Deborah Wygant. The couple tied the knot in Myrtle Beach, SC this past month. I drove down to South Carolina from Virginia Beach to get there and encounter horrible weather. Well, at least for wedding purposes. It was my first time visiting Myrtle Beach and let me tell you it looks a lot like Virginia Beach. No wonder they’re always comparing the two. I really enjoyed my stay regardless of the weather and the dreaded 12 hour round-trip from and to Virginia Beach. Heck, that’s part of my job, isn’t it? : )

Wedding season is almost over so there’s not a whole lot going on as a wedding photographer in Virginia right now so about a week ago I went to Mt. Trashmore to do a shoot for a model. We had little time to set up and get going. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting pretty quick and we wanted to get the beautiful orange/red sky. So we did and we also used it to our advantage. We used the warm golden color as a rim light and we used one Nikon SB-800 to get her other side and finally, an Alien Bees with a shoot thru umbrella as our key light.

If I remember correctly, settings were as follows: ISO 200, 1/250, f/8 and all the photos were shot with a Nikkor 80-200mm 2.8 and triggered the Alien Bee via Pocket Wizards. The SB-800 was triggered optically with the AB.

So there you have it. I have a lot coming within the next few weeks so check back for more!

-Herson