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Oh yeah…engagement sessions!

Things have been super busy over the past six months…and during that time it was weddings to the max! But there were also some engagement sessions as well. As I shot Kelly and Brian’s wedding on Saturday I reminded them why we did the engagement session. So here are a couple reasons I have my couples make an engagement session a part of their experience with me. First, I get to know you as a couple and why you love each other. My degrees in Psychology definitely come in handy!

Second, I get to learn what your limits are for photography. So back to Kelly and Brian’s wedding, as we are going through their formals, Kelly mentions to me that she wanted it pretty simple…nothing too silly…and I reminded her that we talked about that during the engagement session…so I wasn’t going there with them anyway.

Lastly, and most importantly, you get used to me taking a ton of pictures of you. Now, I have done weddings where there was no engagement session, and things went okay. But the engagement session is more than just some great pictures…it is building the relationship so your wedding day images totally ROCK!

So starting with the most recent…Jane and Alex are getting married next April at DuPont Country Club. And I watched Jane go from a high school freshmen to engaged woman through our church. It makes me feel old to be shooting the first of the youth group kids that my wife and I spent many hours with on trips, Sunday nights, and retreats. So Jane, Alex, and I went over to Longwood Gardens and grabbed these images…enjoy.

Alex was a ton of fun and totally goofy which prompted this fun picture…Alex stalking Jane…kinda like Tarzan stalking Jane!

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Dr. Oz at MANNA

Friday I volunteered my services to MANNA, a Philadelphia non-profit, who was honoring Dr. Mehmet Oz (yes of the Oprah fame). My fellow Philly8 photographer, Mark Gardner, was also along and we had a great time. For those that don’t know, MANNA prepares and packages over 3,300 medically appropriate meals each weekday for individuals and families living with a life-threatening illness such as cancer, diabetes or HIV/AIDS – in total, delivering over 65,000 meals a month. Pretty awesome organization and no wonder they were honoring Dr. Oz.

It was a packed house with all sorts of Philadelphia philanthropists in attendance. The event was sponsored by CBS 3, Loews Philadelphia, SWANK Audio Visual, and the Dr. Oz Show with flower arrangements donated by Carl Alan Floral Designs. The emcee was CBS 3′s Susan Barnett. Here are a few images from the day.

Not exactly sure what she was thanking Dr. Oz for, but she was very passionate about thanking him and it was a nice moment.

Click for more images from the event View full post »

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Canon 7D Review

Well this is not a technical review by any means, but as a professional photographer, mainly shooting weddings and events, here are my thoughts. My 7D arrived yesterday from B&H Photo, along with the 100 2.8 IS L lens. The only comment on the lens is that, as I expected, it is SLOW focusing from near to infinity, but that was expected. So back to the 7D…I literally had about 10 minutes to play with it before jumping in to shoot at a non-profit event. So I only set some very basic menu, but not custom functions, settings. In fact I had to disable all of the AF point selections options because I didn’t have time to read the manual to know how to select the different modes!

My setup was the 7D with the 70-200 2.8 IS as well as the 17-55 2.8 IS EF-S lens. Most shots were with the 70-200 and capturing guests of the event mingling and having fun. It was at the Loews Philadelphia Regency ballroom where light is good in the foyer (large floor to ceiling windows) but only slightly better than an average wedding reception in the ballroom. I am presently waiting for DPP to process the RAW files into TIFF so I can normally process in Lightroom as usual, so no images right now. However, when looking at them in DPP they all looked like what I am used to from my 5D II, and 1D III.

So here are my observations about actually using the 7D in the real world and not taking pictures of pets, color cards, or a bookshelf…

UPDATE 5: I have now second shot a wedding, and shot one of my own weddings with this awesome camera. From the second shooting wedding…the photographer I was shooting for, Dave Zaveloff, said when looking at all the images, including his Nikon D700, and Canon 1D III and 5D II, that his second favorite looking images were the 7D, after his D700 of course, but he is biased! Anyway, the AF has performed flawlessly, the WB is great and consistent, and the noise is looking good at high ISOs for me. Only issue I have is that sRAW is not supported yet in Lightroom. My 1D III is SOLD and not looking back at all. Just wished this AF was in the 5D II!

More below after the click…including images…View full post »

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