As Tiff and I start filling in the rest of our calendar for the year, we thought it would be important to set aside a little bit of our efforts to do some learning and growing. Recently, there was a 5 day workshop on CreativeLIVE featuring Jasime Star, international wedding photographer. Unfortunately, we were unable to see the work shop live so we made the best of it and purchased the downloads!
After finally getting all the files downloaded for 5 days worth of over the top valuable information, Tiff and I Read more
About two weeks ago, we got together with Sam for her senior session. Sam rocked her shoot; she was so easy going and fun to work with. We were shooting on a beautiful sunny, breezy, summer morning; probably the first cool comfortable morning we had all year! A big thank you to Sam’s mom Jessy and her sister Ally for helping me carry my gear and to her brother Caden for scouting the grounds for good locations ;) Here are a few of my favorites from the session:
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A few months ago, I dropped some hours at my automotive job to pursue our ambitions within All-Star Studios. I pretty much immediately blogged about it. A good friend of mine, Jason Thiel of Kim Thiel Photography commented “It’s amazing what you can do when living intentionally.” (Or something very close to that.) We’ve been living ‘intentionally’ for over a year now; amazing things happen when you have a goal and you aim for it.
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Occasionally I get together with my brother in law Scott to talk about our ambitions. He likes stay up late and meet/visit to poke, prod, and push answers from me as far as what I’m up to. It really helps to talk things through with someone one who is supportive, and objective. Sometimes we’ll have others contributing to these meetings as well. This week my cousin Noah was over for ‘moral support’, which in this case meant buying us Burger King (voluntarily :) ), helping us eat our midnight pizza, and just being there as a good friend to help us have fun!
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Last night I was on a roll; actually, I’m still mixing All-Star Studios and my part time job… I’m usually at All-Star on Wednesdays, but yesterday I was needed elswhere. Let me start over; last night, I was up late catching up on what I missed. Knowing fully that I had to be out the door by 5:30 am, I decided I could tough it out and stay up till 1am.
I wake up this morning to hear Tiffany saying ‘Aaron, shut that thing off! Aaron! AARON!’ AHHHHH, the lovely sound of an alarm clock. It was rough getting ready this morning… get dressed in the dark, trip down the stairs, and stumble out the door… half asleep.
The funny part is, I stop at my local gas station with my hair a mess and sweatshirt hood hiding it, to pick up some lunch. (I was very prepared, I know! Haha!) So I walk in, and there’s about 10-15 other twenty something guys who look exactly like me; messy hair with hoods and hats hiding it, crusing around half asleep buying Gatorade, dounuts, sandwiches and chips.
It’s going to be a good day!
In January we ran a contest to win a photo shoot. The first prize winner is using their win credit toward a wedding package, so we decided to run a second prize. Kristen won this shoot.
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Recently I decided I wanted to start looking for talented people to work with. I’m looking for talented people who can find ways to help each other. My most recent endevor has been to find a few writers to bring some extra depth into some of our ‘non-portrait’ work by putting their own words with the photos. I don’t know where this is going yet, but I’m getting excited about this project. Because I’m not the writer today, I’m going to let the the photos, and the writers speak for themselves. Without further ado… Read more
I recently got together with Melissa for a shoot. It was her first ‘official’ model shoot with me, as I needed to test my damask background and get a shot of her texting for the ‘Contact’ page on our website. The rest of the photos were because we were on a roll! Melissa is wonderful to work with. We’re doing another shoot this weekend! More images to come!
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(Update 07/30/10 8am: We got ahold of a loaner computer to bridge our gap so we can keep running.
Update 07/31/10 1:22am: Using loaner computer, works great, will get us thru. Also, I’ve been able to extract all my old files so we’re on the right track. Now just sell that bike and I’ll own one of these smokin’ fast machines soon.)
Hello all!
Today I have a simple favor to ask! Help me sell my dirtbike and/or help us find a few decent gigs. Last night my editing computer ‘got taken out by forces of evil’ finally said ‘enough’ trying to run 3GB worth of computer programs on 1GB worth of memory. …yeah, it’s not the first time in the last 2 months either. Bottom line, we need to pay for a computer & 2 new programs… yesterday!
1999 Suzuki RM 250
Although I have abundant access to the Internet (ie why I’m writing this…), trying to fit my editing tasks onto any of our current computers is a bit like trying to stuff an elephant into a baby food jar. (Not to mention that some of the tasks like video editing that we have planned for the future would take that old system down like a tank!) And as most of you know, Tiff and I are running this thing on the old fashioned pay as you go plan.
(ad copy after the jump)
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The better shots from my senior portraits. Shot by my dad with the Kodak point n' shoot.
My first experience in photography was my own senior portraits. Growing up without an abundance of money or ‘things’, the idea of asking my parents to spend several hundred dollars on photography was upsetting to me. I said ‘I’m going to take my own senior photos, even if I have to do it with a disposable film camera’. I was graduating right around the time you could first take your camera’s SD card to Wal-Mart to get prints made. So began the evolution of photography in the digital world. Had I done the job with a disposable film camera, I wouldn’t be typing this today. My dad had a Kodak digital point n’ shoot; we got to experience first hand, the revolution that was about to/is happen throughout all photography.
My Canon 10D | The DSLR is a tool but it, alone, doesn't make you a 'good photographer.'
(The images later in this post are just some of our recent work.) I learned a few basic things: Having a DSLR camera doesn’t make you a good photographer, but using it with creative control does; like any tool, it’s limited by your knowledge of it and your own creativity. I also learned that its worth the money to pay a pro lab to make your prints; not only are your photos color/contrast correct and printed on a higher quality paper, but you don’t have to wait in line at Wal-Mart behind 6 different people of all ages each editing the red eye out of each of their 450 snap shots from their recent trip to Bora Bora.
Steve & Megan | All-Star Studios | June 11th 2010
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