Kimberly Reed Photography

There is a new site online that caters to newly engaged couples with questions about wedding photography. Check it out here.

I just came across this, and thought some of you guys might be interested. This gentleman is rallying to get as many people as possible to take a picture within the same minute in time (between 2:00 and 2:01pm EDT on June 2), and he will compile them and post the results. Could be cool.
http://www.aminuteinlife.blogspot.com/

Ever wonder how many megapixels the human eye is equivilant to? No? Well, ok, to be honest i hadn’t either…but it still made for an interesting little read.
I came across the article, thanks to a posting on the pittsburgh flickr group.

Me Ra Koh has a photography blog chock full of tips for helping moms get the most out of their digital cameras to capture beautiful, natural photos of your children during those precious years where they are growing and changing so fast! Me Rah is an amazing wedding and lifestyle photographer based out of Seattle that is taking the photography world by storm. She is one of the featured speakers at the Pictage Partner Conference that I’ll be attending in May. I’m looking forward to meeting Me Rah and hearing her speak. She offers photo workshops especially for moms in her Seattle, WA home. She also just finished shooting footage for her dvd on documenting a child’s life. (and I thought I was busy!)

this is my favorite pic i took during zack arias’ onelight workshop. i’m very much a natural light shooter, so i was debating on whether or not to attend, (as the workshop is all about off-camera flash). man, am i glad i did! it was, by far, the best photography related workshop i have ever attended. it totally changed the way i’ll approach lighting from now on. if you have any interest in photography, especially weddings or editorial portraiture, you simply have to attend one of zack’s workshops. i think he has one in dc in may. make the trip. you’ll thank me later.

this shot was taken in the hallway of the hotel, with one off-camera flash on a light stand bouncing into a 60″ umbrella. flash was triggered using pocket wizards.

(our model’s name is megan, and she went to a shoot for seventeen magazine the next day. look for her in the june issue!)

I’m a huge fan. I’ve been using their beta version for several months, and just received my copy of the newly released full version in the mail. I’m sooooo in love with this program! It’s wonderful for quickly importing, sorting, doing batch edits, embedding metadata and even making slideshows. My after-wedding workflow has been cut in half! You can adjust curves, levels, and white balance, (along with a ton of other features) and it treats jpegs just like RAW files. Plus, it’s non-destructive editing, so you can tweak your jpegs to your hearts content without worrying about damaging the original file. I absolutely recommend this program to anyone that deals with a large number of digital files on a regular basis. My editing life is so much easier thanks to Lightroom. If you’re not already using it, you can download a free 30 day trial at http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshoplightroom/. The introductory price is $199 until April (i think), when it goes up to $299, so if you’re going to buy it, do it soon!

Click here for the press release. I’m pretty excited about this. I’m a Canon shooter and LOOOOOVE shooting in natural light. The advances they are making in camera bodies, combined with fast lenses (like my 70-200mm 2.8 IS), may make using a flash a thing of the past. I had my eye on the 5D but wanted to wait until new models were announced for the spring, and now I’m not sure which one to get. Here are the highlights:

• ISO 3200 with 6400 option
• Improved AF with 19 cross type sensors
• AF low light sensitivity down to -1 EV
• Burst rate up to 110 JPGs or 30 RAW images
• new 3″ screen
• reliable up to 300,000 shutter cycles
• new DIGIC III Image processors working to provide 50% less shadow noise and suberb image quality
• new Highlight tone priority option adds control of highlights

I can’t wait to see this thing in action!

For those of you that will be taking group photos for the holidays, here’s the science of getting the blink-free photo!:

Picture Perfect: How to Make Blink-Free Holiday Photos

By Corey Binns
Special to LiveScience
posted: 18 December 2006
09:22 am ET

The group holiday photo shoot is anything but a snap, especially if you want to catch everyone with their eyes open.

To help photographers get the perfect shot, an Australian scientist has calculated the number of photos that need to be taken to ensure at least one blink-free photo.

“At any given moment for a typical person, their eyes are likely to be blinking about 4 to 5 percent of the time,” said physicist Piers Barnes of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. “This is fine if you only want to take a photo of one person, but once you start adding extra people, then your chances of getting an unspoiled photo start dropping.”

To get the right calculation, Barnes’s equation takes into account the average number of times a person blinks (10 per minute), how long a blink lasts (250 milliseconds), camera shutter speed (8 milliseconds in a typical setting), and the number of people in the group.

“For groups of less than 20 people, divide the number of people in the group by 3 if the light is good or by 2 if the light is bad,” Barnes told LiveScience. “Take that number of shots and you will have a better than 95 percent chance of getting at least one good one.”

Barnes offered a few other tips:

Pose in the light. In poor lighting, the camera’s shutter speed stays open longer, giving more time for someone blink.

Keep it small. Getting a flawless photo of groups of 100 or more people is nearly impossible, according to Barnes’s calculations.

Ask your models not to blink and accept the bug-eyed consequences. After giving the command, you’ve got about 12 seconds during which the odds are better you’ll get an untainted shot.

~Happy shooting!

sorry for the lapse in blogging lately, i’ve still been feeling a little under the weather, plus we were having some hardcore computer problems. we were fortunate to have lost no important data (that’s a reminder for everyone out there to back up well, and often). still though, the computer saga was ongoing for about a month now, and was finally resolved within the last week with a brand new HP desktop, and a MacBook Pro (from which I am writing you this very blog).

I’m a Mac girl myself, and have been since my design school days almost (gasp) a decade ago. My husband, however, is a PC user, so our household accomodates both platforms. I had an old G3 Mac desktop and PowerBook that were about 6 and 7 years old that I would still use occasionally, but since they hadn’t been upgraded, my ipod pretty much had more power behind it than my poor, trusty Macs.

So I’ve been using a PC (cringe) to do most of my editing and design lately, and when it crashed and needed major overhauls three times in three months that pushed me over the edge.

Luckily, Santa came a little early this year, so we have two new computers, which translates into much greater efficiency for me. I’m gloriously reunited with a Mac (it’s like hanging out with an old friend), plus the PC has Lightscribe on it, which etches images right onto cds and dvds and makes for a super cool presentation of discs.

I’m lovin’ this!

I went to a seminar in Cleveland yesterday on wedding photography, and growing and running a photography business. Mike Colon was one of the speakers; he’s a very successful, nationally known wedding photographer. If you’ve never heard of him, I encourage you to visit his site. I can tell you firsthand that not only is he an amazing photographer, he’s a great person as well. Humble and honest, with a true desire to help other photographers succeed. i can’t tell you enough what a great impression he made. also, i met some very cool people while i was there, some of whom had also made the trek from pittsburgh. little did i realize my friend shannon from center avenue imaging was going too. what a surprise when i ran into her during the first intermission. we could have carpooled!

anyway, i learned a ton of valuable information and got lots of great resources. i’m going to start putting some of what i learned into effect right away, while some will have to be more gradual changes. overall, i came back inspired and ready to take my photography and my business to the next level.

as an added bonus, the changing leaves made for a gorgeous drive, (even though it was cold and rainy.)