Jem & Omar

Omar & Jem were married yesterday out at the B&B Inn in Apex. I lovely ceremony and a lively reception.


Nose to the grindstone for a while. I have over 2000 files that need to be post-processed and several print orders to get working on.

Have a Happy Fourth of July everyone!

This is the old camera I've been using for the Through the Viewfinder series. I bought it at the Raleigh Fairgrounds flea market.

The photo is nothing special, but I was waiting for a client to show up and was using this subject to get the lighing right.

who got married?

Shelley and Jimmy. That's who!

While working on the images from Shelley & Jimmy's recent wedding I came across this one and started to chuckle. It's a pose I do fairly often at weddings. The results are sometimes great (such as this) and others display total confusion as the party ask's what the hell the photographer is doing.

Just keeping it light, that's all!

LeAnne & Stephen

Wow.

Where do I begin to even describe this awesome wedding. So many cool people. A very photogenic location. A family that I really enjoyed being with. A wedding celebration that was top notch.


I know this photo above is bigger than most of the computer screens looking at it, but it was a big wedding. This is just a mere glimpse at some of the photos. Not even the top 30!

I'll be posting more from the 1300 photos I took this weekend. I'm quickly building a back log for post processing my images and need to get some quality time with Photoshop over the next few days.

LeAnne, Stephen & Families? Love ya.

Mrs. Banner's kitchen

Banner Elk museum. Banner Elk, NC.
Throught the viewfinder of a Kodak Duaflex III with Nikon D300.

Botanicals through the viewfinder

While on assignment yesterday in Fayetteville, I spent my lunch at the Fayetteville Botancical Garden. I brought my Kodak Duaflex III for some through the viewfinder shots (TTV) with the hopes of capturing an old barn or farmhouse but the garden was right off the road and I didn't have much time. I figured I would give it a try on some flowers and what I could find at the garden. The Fayetteville Botanical Garden is absolutely stunning. It was very diverse and lush.

Another photographer, who's work I greatly admire, posed a question on my flickr account on what I'm thinking will work for TTV shots.

I don't have much experience with TTV and that causes me to not put much effort into the shot. Meaning, I don't plan for hours or set up the shots beforehand. The few times I have shot TTV it's always been to see what I find and hope for the best. I try to find subjects that lend themselves to the antique looked brought on by the old Kodak but I also feel that modern landscapes and portraits are worthy too. I have the TTV bug now. I want another Duaflex to try. I want to make some cool environmental portraits with it and might whip it out this weekend on a client. Heck, it might work on some type of food shoot as well. There are no rules and I plan to explore further.

pink guitar

I've got a big assignment this coming weekend and really wanted to spend some time with Hannah before I head out. We planned to go swimming but the swim team had taken over the whole pool. What to do?

Let's go back and play. Hannah got to play with her new pink guitar and had written a song just yesterday. I got to try out my Edirol R-09HR digital recorder as well as my new Alien Bee 800 studio strobe with beauty dish. We were both happy playing with our new toys.

I processed this with a develop preset I downloaded from Lightroom Killer Tips blog(Matt Kloskowski). The preset was called Sin City Light and basically desaturates a bit and boosts the contrast. I look I find myself using for adults but not kids. I think it works okay.

We put together a little show. Nothing more than us kids goofing off with cameras and guitars but I'm quite proud of it, especially to see her write a song. It's a minute long and might take a bit to download.
Link to the show...
I think Hannah was inspired by the Brandon Leffel senior portrait show I did last month. She's asked about it several times.
We have a good time playing together.

Two blog posts about my daughter in a row? Hannah has taught me more about photography than anyone I know.

Easy being a Dad

...when your daughter is darn near perfect.



Happy Father's day to all the families out there. Take care of each other.

a couple from Shelley & Jimmy's wedding

Fun couple, fun wedding and some hot weather! Everyone made the best of it and had a fun time. Shelley was always smiling!

C1

Practicing some different post processing using increased contrast and reduced saturation.

Shelley and the girls

3 girls

Brandon Leffel 2008 Senior Portrait

I was approached by a past client to shoot a senior portrait. I don't do many senior portraits although it can be a very lucrative and fun style of photography (I certainly had fun doing this one). Since she was one of my favorite clients, I accepted but on some unique terms. I wanted to make not only some great photographs but also a multimedia presentation that Brandon could put on his social networking site, email to friends and family as well as leave a unique portrait behind of this young man. Knowing that Brandon was also a musician was a catalyst behind the idea. I could use his music!

The project developed into three separate photo shoots to cover what I thought would show the real Brandon.
With the help of Brandon, his girlfriend and a buddy we headed to downtown Raleigh in the old warehouse district for a fun shoot with a gritty, urban feel. We came away with some sweet stuff!
I followed up the urban shoot with a quick family session just outside Brandon's home. I wanted to add some family photos to his presentation. I think it's an important part of a young person and I think you'll agree that it adds to the presentation rather nicely. I also spent some time with Brandon, Mike and Jordan as they jammed in his room. These photos really helped capture the musical side of Brandon and his love of art. I left my Edirol R-09 digital audio recorder behind for Brandon to record some of his bass guitar music. The last shoot was to capture some of Brandon's artwork to use as backdrops and intersperses of the presentation.

Armed with over 200 photos and the audio files I proceeded to edit them all together into a 13 minute DVD presentation using ProShow Gold. It's a rather unique portrait in my opinion and not something every high school senior would have done. But it offers a dimensional approach to someones character and opens the viewer up to a larger picture of this young man. Don't get me wrong, I like a nice (school type) portrait print but this is much, much more. I think you will agree.

Knowing that the average attention span of people online is very short, I edited a 3 minute version for Brandon to put on his MySpace page.
On to the show...
http://timbroyer.com/clients/BL08/

Big thanks go to Brandon and his family for allowing me to do something different. We very easily could have stopped after the first shoot and still came away with some cool senior portraits but that wouldn't have been very challenging now would it?

Carolina Barbecue Sandwich

Slow-cooked, chopped pork sandwich with vinegar based cole slaw on it. A true North Carolina classic. Taken as part of a portfolio exercise.

It tasted great!



Lighting info? One SB-800 to camera left in a 36" soft umbrella set at 1/8 power. White foamcore board to sandwich right for fill. Another SB-800 to camera right and lighting the back wall. It was set to 1/64 power. All fired via pocket wizards on a D300/105 VR macro with tripod.