Another Week and Another Challenge

To recap from last week and to share the results of that, I did a portrait composition challenge. It was to find my model's personality and find a way to photograph that trait. As well, it was also a great way for me to talk to models, be comfortable giving them directions, and to have some go-to shots that I could use if we both drew blanks. I would say I didn't become overly chatting with the models I met, but I did grow leaps and bounds in giving them directions. This was a huge breakthrough for me and I felt the changes I had made were paying off. In the end, it was a huge success and I did get all 1,000 pictures captured for the week!

This week's challenge is..... getting stuff done! I wish I could think of a challenge I could pull off, but I'm behind on a lot of things and I've got a lot of meet-ups planned this week. So, I think the challenge will just be simply shooting 1,000 pictures. Nothing fancy. I still need to do business cards and logo. It's so imperative now that I've gotta take time to focus on it. As well, another challenge coming up is making a transition to Lightroom 3 by Adobe. I gave Aperture 3 a try and now its trail is over and a lot of photographers have been migrating over to Lightroom. I figured I'd see what the hype was about before I dropped the $200 for what one of them costs. I'll probably make a few blogs about how that transition is going.

Courtesy of Adobe. Copyright Adobe 2011

Stay tuned,
   Two Fish

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A Whirlwind of Crazy

So when we last left off, I was amidst the Hooters Swimsuit Contest finale in Kennesaw,GA(here). It ended up being a blast. I definitely got more keepers than last contest. It was hot and humid though, which took a toll on me and the equipment. I literally cooked my flash batteries and had to change them mid strut of one of the girls. Also, with what I learned from last time I got a great spot which allowed me to manually set my flash and therefore get faster recharges. It was that fast recharge that fried the batteries and almost the flash. What I didn't know was that I had some fellow APG'ers down the tent from me.

Brian (Dr. Woots) and Kevin V. were down shooting at the other end of the runway, but I wouldn't find this out and talk to the them about it until Sunday. Sunday was when we all met up at Rob Knight's C3 studios to have a North Atlanta Flickr(here) meet-up. Olivia, Ashley, and Miranda were all awesome models and did amazing jumping back and forth between the studio and outside. Ashley probably was the most enthusiastic about being outside because at one point she was up a tree laying around while we all took pictures.

Finally, last night, all the APG'ers that could met up at Elliot Street Pub(here) and it was anything but laying around. Lots of awesome models and awesome photographers came out to snap all the way until 11:30 PM. Raana, Payam, Kimmy, and new-comer Tre all rocked it in their fancy duds on top of cars, riding on a Vespa, and just standing proud. We were also fortunate enough to have a passer-by, Bill, and his brand-new, blue Dodge Charger in a few of the later pictures. Sadly, I had stopped shooting by them and was just walking around talking to people.

All of these photoshoots also put a huge strain on my post processing. In all, about 1500 pictures had to be processed for web, Facebook, and print use. I shoot in RAW which is a big file but also very easy to make a lot of adjustments to. So the process was time-consuming but also some what quick compared to non-RAW processing. I've finally been able to push through it all and finally get around to blogging!

This post has been more of a summary of things that have been happening, but I'll be working on each specific event as well as the usual weekly stuff like how business is doing and the 1,000 Picture challenge.

Thanks for reading,
   Two Fish

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Once Again It's the Night Before

The nerves are a lot calmer this time around when it comes to shooting the Hooters Swimsuit Contest. Focus and prepared, I've got the bag ready. The camera and lens are clean. The battery charging in the wall. It's just a waiting game. Thankfully, I have had lots to do to keep me busy this week. Though my goal is to do 1,000 pictures of portrait composition, I didn't do a lot of picture taking this week knowing I had the Hooters shoot to do. In the mean time, I've been trying to get a few things on the list marked off--namely the logo and business cards.

The business cards and logo design has been hard to come by. The more and more I promote, the more I need the business cards to retain the initial contact. The best suggestion that's been made it getting a small batch of  plain cards with just my name and contact info. However, I want my business card to say something about my business, not some plain jane thing. Reluctantly I have decided not to do one at all than do something half rate. This is both a blessing and a curse. But I move along.

Speaking of the promoting, I have been knocking that out of the park. Made more contacts and have built some good relationships. If I do well maintaining these relationships I can end up with some amazing opportunities. So, if I have to spin a positive on not having business cards, this would be it. I even made an advertising page for assisting other photographers and the services I can do. No bites yet, but that won't stop me from networking with it.

Lastly, I have been doing a lot of post production. It's not the same as taking pictures, but the post production has allowed me to keep rolling out new pictures this week while nothing is coming in on the memory cards. I even made a new portrait portfolio that is up and running on flickr(here). This new portfolio should open up more opportunities to shoot not only the obvious portrait, but advertise for high school senior pictures as well as professional head shots. I will continue to shoot models at the APG meetings to further this portfolio. Nevertheless, I'm glad to finally have a portfolio of something I've very interested in exploring further. It's only up from here.


I guess to summarize it--it's been a productive week in the office, even if that office is at a table in Hooters of Cumberland. Looking forward to the day tomorrow and trying to use the nerves this time as fuel to do better than the last. In the end, this should be amazing publicity. I hope that I'll be able to do photo shoots for the girls aspiring to model not only for Hooters Inc. but for their own personal endeavors. Maybe if I get lucky, I can get some publicity for having pictures IN the Cumberland store. Until next time!

Thanks for following along,
   Two Fish

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