Doreen and Dan Wedding

I had a great time on Saturday with Dan and Doreen and their wedding in Rehoboth at the Atlantic Sands. This was a small wedding only really and hour but we had a lot of fun with the photos. One of the coolest things I found when I was there was a runner that ran from the boardwalk to the wedding arch and it was made in such a way that the bride could walk on it easily in heels. And any thing that makes the bride’s life easier is always a good thing.

The wedding minister was my good buddy Leo Weigand, and he did an awesome job making sure the couple got what they wanted. After words I had beautiful weather, a lovely sky and a fun group of people to photograph. This particular wedding with it only being an hour and with my living only a mile from the wedding location, I was back home and done editing the images by the end of the night. It took all night to upload them all but after everything it was nice to have the photos captured, edited and up online all in the same day.

Back to back photo shoots at the Studio

We recently had two photo shoots back to back. One on Easter Sunday, a lovely couple from Dover, Lisa and Joe, and the other was on Monday, Dasha and Corey from the Rehoboth Beach, Lewes area.
Lisa and Joe made an interesting couple and a unique challenge. The unique and interesting part was with Joe being so tall in comparison to Lisa, and with Lisa being such a darker completion then Joe. Joe was pretty funny and goofy, in some cases it was difficult to get him serious, but he gave me a wide range of emotion that I really liked. I really got into and enjoyed photographing Lisa, with her special beauty; it is truly rare to photograph someone like her. Lisa was born in Bangladesh and has that India beauty about her. She has already invited us to fly out to her county to photograph their wedding there.

On Monday we had Dasha and Corey join us out in the studio for some fun photography. I liked shooting Dasha with her short hair and crazy Russian personality. She was bouncy and eager to try new and poses. With Corey, he was a bit shy and after while he started to open up, but I felt like he was still holding back on some of the shots. We invited him back later into the summer for another shoot, and I think he will be more comfortable with Olga and I when that day comes.

I found these days to be fun photographing in the studio, Olga and I had a chance to experiment, and I backed off from behind the camera to let her do most of the photographing. I spent most of my time working with the lighting, adjusting and trying new things. I was also in the director mode, getting the models to strike different poses and when I ran out of ideas, Olga would come up with some new ones. We had our buddy, Zach out there videotaping the Monday session of which he will splice together a fun video I’m sure for all to enjoy. On Sunday I had the video camera on a tripod and just got some video footage of Olga and I working with Lisa and Joe.

Here are some images for those two days and stay tuned for the video as its on its way.

Bridal Shoot Video

We had a fun time taking our willing couple out to Cape Henlopen for a Bridal Shoot. With time to take these photos, we got some awesome images. Thank you to Yuliya and Rob, you both were great! It was a photo shoot iIve been wanting to organize for a while now.

Hitched Web Updates

Well I’m happy to say; today was a productive day behind the computer.
Most of the work was website related things I was putting off.
So what’s new on the website?
· New better wedding gallery on the Hitched Photography website!
· Updated the High School Seniors page with package pricing and images.
· Added a Wedding Venues page for fun wedding places around the area.
There were a lot of cool new images that I ended up editing and getting ready to spread around the website.
One of the more challenging items was editing the video from the bridal shoot the other week. With more and more people checking out videos online, I’d like to keep adding more videos for clients to enjoy. So we have that to look forward to. Keep an eye on that Hitched YouTube Channel!

What are the chances?

What are the chances of there being another "Will Vickers" in this world? With my full name being William Franklin Vickers the 4th. I prefer to go by Will Vickers. And as I was in the process of Twittering, I wanted to change my Twitter name from "HitchedPhoto" to Will Vickers, I found that it was already taken. As it turns out this other Will Vickers is in the UK also doing photography. That's what I mean by way strange and come on, weird.

Anyway, check it out: http://www.wvphotography.co.uk/index.html

Yuliya and Rob - Bridal Photo Shoot

Well I have a lot to blog about and I can see I haven’t blogged in a while. After our trip to Phoenix, AZ for the Imaging USA conference, we picked up some new techniques from the TriCoast Photography guys, Mike and Cody. Well we got a great chance to implement these new skills with a fun and willing couple, Yuliya and Rob. This lovely couple was willing to allow us the time to take these great photos. This whole shoot leads me to another blog topic but also an article I’d like to write, on “Allowing the Time for Great Photos”. But before I get into all that, allow me to go share with you what we did.

We invited Cathleen with Weddings by Cathleen out to perform the ceremony; I met Cathy at a recent wedding and had a great time working together so we’ve been chatting ever since. We invited Leo from Bridal Beginnings out to shoot with us, as we like working together; I thought he could pick up a few new tips and have fun. I had our new assistant/photographer Matt with us in a training capacity and a videographer Paul J, which when we get the video edited, you’ll get to see some footage of it. And of course there was the lovely couple, Yuliya and Rob, they were so spirited and fun to work with, Thanks!

I’d also like to give a big thanks and shout out to Julie Norwood, Master Colorist & Stylist, for providing the fabulous updo for Yuliya. She did an awesome job and not once did we have any hair problems. For you brides out there looking for a really good hair stylist check Julie with Spa by the Sea at 302-227-8640 or 302-670-6757.

I’ve wanted to organize a shoot like this for some time now. I’m hoping to get a shoot going like this at least once a month for us, photographers to come together and horn our skills.

I found that I did a lot of directing as opposed to actually shooting, I was pleasantly surprised with how much my wife took over the shooting. Shortly after the ceremony Olya became the main photographer doing most of the shooting as well as getting some fantastic shots in the process. All the images in this post were images that she had captured. I was on babysitting patrol with little Drake and assisting with the equipment, when I got a chance I’d take a snap shot and worked with our lovely couple and put them in the right places.

All in all it was a great time, a fun shoot and we plan on doing it again, so if you are bride who is getting married or already married and would like to wear your beautiful dress again and get your guy out to get some photos, give us a call.

Bride’s Dress provided by Weddings by Cathleen – Check out her wonderful brides at http://www.cathleensweddinggowns.bridalsnet.com/

V Photo Style

New name, with a new design, creating a whole new look, while still doing what we love to do… Photography… only now … adding a new “style” to it.

Introducing:
“V Photo Style”

In the past it was mostly me handling the weddings and photography, everything including the post production, customer support, networking, and marketing. And last year, with me, and a team of people including my wife, Olga, we were able to keep up with the demand for our services. And as we grew as Hitched Photography, that was great for weddings, which is what we specialize in, but this year we wanted to do more seniors, more pregnancy portraits, more children’s photos, and more parties and events. With Hitched Photography being a wedding photography name we wanted something that can house all our photography abilities. And this year will be the first year my wife will be with me 100% of the way. In years past, Olga would help me with a wedding here and there, or I’d help her with a portrait session, or she’d work with an event. Now with Olga here full time, we are changing our image and creating our style as husband and wife team. We still specialize in wedding photography and our skills are only increasing with time, we’ve picked up a few new tricks and cool things for 2009 weddings, and it’s going to be a lot of fun. This year we hope to keep our weekdays busy with seniors and portrait work, at our place at the beach, or at the studio out in Georgetown, we’ve even partnered up with a few new contacts to include a horse ranch, and a couple places on the water. (More on that one later).

As we bring V Photo Style online in 2009, we’ll slowly move Hitched Photography towards the back, which will still be around, but our main name will be V Photo Style. The “V” for us is for “Very cool”… nah just kidding… its stands for “Vickers” and with the “photo style” it will be the style of photos we create together. Olga and I actually came up with the name while on our trip to Imaging USA in Phoenix, AZ, there was a speaker there, the owner of 303 Photo Design, he made a very strong point about creating a brand or “Style” and making it your own. There was also another speaker, Julia Woods who photographs with her husband and they too are a husband and wife team and I really liked the idea of having us together on a lot of big weddings as it would allow for a lot of fun photos. After watching another photography company, Photos by Vicki, after 6 years in business, she also grew and finally changed her company name to “V Gallery”. (Got to love that “V”) So after weeks of discussing this with Olga, we decided to make the change, now before it’s 10 years down the road and then changing it.

Well here’s to a great 2009, we hope that you will like the new changes. Change is good, most of the time, and it is time to change for the better.

Day 3 of Imaging USA - Last day

Day 3 of the Imaging USA and it’s the final day. It was the final day yesterday, we got in pretty late yesterday night and I was too tired to write anything. There was an awards ceremony for some people that was between 7pm and 8pm and the dinner they offered presented by Kodak was at 8:30 so we waited around for an hour and a half to get the free food. It was actually pretty nice, the first dinner on the first day had a theme, it was “under the Phoenix skies” of which we had Mexican type food. It was ok, can’t say no to free. But last night’s dinner theme was “next stop, Nashville” which is where the next imaging USA will be. And they had some good food there, all county type food like pulled pork, mashed potatoes inside potato skins, corn bread, you get the idea. That was last night and so we got in late, but let me back up and tell you about the day.
We started day with only some 4 hours of sleep and we were both pretty exhausted. Olga and I could fall asleep the night before, we had just had a great day of classes then had dinner with Autumn and Allen, and we chatted at the Olive Garden till they almost kicked us out, we were the last customers in there. The first class we had was “the Joy of Pricing” with Sarah Petty as the speaker, and wouldn’t you know it, she started us off with a slideshow of her work. We felt that this class would be a good one, because if you ask any photographer in this business, you tend to struggle with this one a lot and its what makes a great photographer. If you charge too little you end up, working too hard for too little money to support you and the business, and clients become unhappy and it spirals out of control. You end up burnt out and looking for a new job somewhere. If you charge too much and you have no justification for that high price rate, you don’t attract any clients, you sit around wondering what’s wrong, soon the rent is due, electric gets turn off, and you don’t have money for gas to go anywhere and you just fall apart. And so to find that happy medium is what we want to strive for, something that both you and the customer and agree to. One of the points she made that I had come to understand well is to not do discounts, in this line of work, the money you charge, every dollar of that goes to something, so when you take any of that away you will wobble, and the best alternative is to add value instead. Offering additional hours, extra prints, maybe even an album, and so if you aren’t already contemplating that, think about it. She too also talked about having a strong brand, with a logo and constant look and feel to everything.
Following this class, the order of the day was different then the days before. First two days was 3 classes, Expo, class then a final event, this time it was one class, expo, and 3 more classes and then final event. We did the expo thing, walking around talking to vendor, they had awesome deals, like custom backdrops, for only $100 and Wacom tablets 6x8 normally $350 for $280. And with the last day many vendors were offering deals and what not, like four 4x6 albums for $20 and the like. What is great about this expo is you get to see what new products that are out there, like the Radio popper, these pretty awesome Wacom tablets with a built in screen, cool awesome software, and the great thing is you get to pick up and touch and feel everything. So if you saw a company’s website on backdrops for example not you get to really see how big they really are.
When it comes to software, they have live demonstrations on what it can do. Normally you’d see an ad for say Success ware or Studio plus, and maybe you can download a demo from their site, but chances are you don’t know how to work it and so you dismiss it. But here at the expo, at their booth they have a big screen TV hooked up to a computer and they are demonstrating it for you.
We grabbed a quick lunch in the main eating area there, and at the rate the line was moving I knew we were going to be late for our next class, “photoshop Automation Tricks”. And can you imagine who the speaker was going to be, the main man Kevin Kubota, no less. Now I’ve used his photoshop shop actions before, and knew the name “Kubota” but to put a name to the face of the guy who came up with this concept was awesome. It’s like being into science and meeting Ben Franklin or something. Well as luck would have it, I was walking into his class late, and he’s up on the stage, and throwing what looked like fresbies, but he was giving away some of this disks and mouse pads, as I was walking by was able to try and catch one and it bounced off my hand and into some guy’s lap, I kept walking. The second time, boom it hit my hand and landed at the feet of this woman, and I was like no, that one is mine. Well when I took my seat and got settled, I was kind of too far away to see what he was doing so I had to move forward, knocking down a few people as I went. Not on purpose! He took us through what it takes to make an action of which I knew but it was a good refresher, but later he got into making droplets and scripts that I thought was awesome. And as he’s telling us, he’s like “Hold on, I know what you’re thinking, it’s not that hard, I know you can do this”. He was also quite comical and had a great personality.
The next class was on “expanding your wedding business” and you can imagine I was all excited about, with some big photographers out of New York that have been doing this for 3 generations. We were only there for 20 minutes before we left, nothing new, kind of stale. We walked into “Subtle art of family portraiture” and as we walked in the do was singing. We were like oh no… are we going to have to walk out of here too? He was going on about “la, la, la, la, la, la” you know singing high and low notes, but we gave it a chance before leaving and glad we did. He talked about how posing a family is more like writing music, where you position the heads, much like what you would do on a music scale. And it makes for a more interesting picture. If you had a row of people and their heads where all even, you’d end up with a steady song, boring. But if you position them, staggered up and down, you have something better. The speaker’s name was Drake Busath, and the dude was interesting as he was funny. Drake got into working with children and his gets tip he gave was, don’t focus on the children. Get the kids to focus on you, when you become interesting and you are standing near or behind the camera, you take better pictures. And looking at his work that’s so true! And most of the time we kind of take two types of children photos, pictures of them smiling and then pictures of them crying, because they are done and bored. Well he gets all kinds of emotions out of them by telling them interesting stories, like if Drake was working with a little girl, he would say “oh I had a pretty dress like that when I was a little girl” and the little girl would look confused. Snap take a picture. Or he’d tell a story like “how do you like your teacher at school, do they lock you in a dungeon with snakes and scary things?” and you’d have fear, snap take a picture. He uses a puppet a lot and communicates with it as if it were alive and when he wants the kid to sit up straight, he’d get all mad at the puppet and not at the child, and the kid would see, “uh Oh, the puppet’s going to get a spanking, I’d better not do what he did” and so its so cute. Or he’d talk to the flowers or the grass the child would walk on, “ok little grass fairies, don’t you go biting the little kids toes this time ok” and the child would look down in wonder like, WOW… Snap take a picture. Great speaker and a crazy singer, but well worth.
Last one of the day was “photoshop Tricks and Tips that will blow your mind” another class with dual speakers, not what I enjoy but it worked out, we learned some cool things. It was cool to see them do things in photoshop that might take 5 minutes or something, and it would only take them seconds. I’m not going to get into all they did, but if you are into photoshop, I’d recommend checking out http://www.adventuresinphotoshop.com/.
All in all we had a good time. Three days of intense learning from some of the top masters in the field for such a small about of money, is without a doubt well worth it. We both could not take a fourth day, it’s just too much. I plan on writing another email or blog entry that would encompass all of what I think would be good, some tips, and some ideas. And one thing I could pass on now is, get that sleep when doing 12 hours a day of learning, it’s pretty important.