Today’s tips and tricks photography blog is all about how to get where you want to be in five years and the most crucial steps you can take to get there. Anyone who knows me (Zach) has probably heard me say, “Where you are in five years is dependent on two things; the People you meet and Books that you read.”   Since we have put that truth into practice it has made the world of difference in our business.

Reading books about business is something that you can do from the privacy of your home and something that you can do any time as long as you MAKE time to do it. It is pretty simple to do if you commit to it, and Jody and I can both say that the books we have read have completely changed and helped create our business into what it is today.

The people you meet is a whole other story though! In order to meet people that will help encourage, push you and empower you to make your business better, you have to actually get out of your office or home and go and meet them. It can be difficult sometimes to find great community in the photography world and many times we just end up spending most of our “meeting people” time in the way of checking out other people’s blogs and going on forums. Those are great, and you can learn a ton of things, but nothing will ever replace actual time with other people having real communication and getting to know people on a personal level. The amazing people that we have met in this industry and the wealth of knowledge that they have freely given has been key in our business.

So, where are all these people and how can YOU connect to them?

Partner Con 2010 is one way!

There is one photography conference that Jody and I have been to, and out of WPPI, PPA, PDN and the other cool photographer conferences out there, the one that we have gotten the most out of, that we made the most friends at and truly was the biggest blessing on our business was Pictage’s PartnerCon in New Orleans.

This 3 day conference is unlike most of the others because it is small (limited to only 500 photographers!), intimate and full of not only amazing content, but amazing people. It is run by one of the most amazing CEO’s that we have ever had the priveledge of knowing, Jim Collins and his team.  If you could say one thing about Jim and his amazing staff at Pictage, it is that they absolutely LOVE photographers and want nothing more than to see them succeed. Jim has a servants heart and a huge desire to create something that will help make your business all that you want it to be.

PartnerCon is only $249 for members of Pictage or ShootQ and $349 for non-members.  This is a STEAL and even includes your meals!!! They price this thing to basically cover costs and do this entire event because they truly love photographers. Jody and I don’t work for Pictage and get nothing out of telling you about it other than the joy of knowing that if you come, it will rock your businesses face off!

Check out the conference web page by clicking the image above or by clicking HERE.

PartnerCon is awesome because it features classes as well as workshops from a stellar lineup of photographers!  We  are honored to have been selected again this year to be a part of PartnerCon and this year we are pumped to be leading a shooting workshop from 2-4pm on Wednesday, November 10th!  The workshop is named “Killer On Location Lighting for the Modern bride and groom.”  :)  There are a ton of other awesome sessions and workshops to check out so click HERE to see all the speaker and shooting workshops!

We will be shooting on the streets around the French Quarter and this will be a content rich workshop you won’t want to miss! (The workshops are a nominal fee of approximately $30 and all proceeds will go towards the cost of Pictage Charity Events.  So awesome!).  To see the list of workshops offered and the full schedule of events, click HERE.

Here are a few highlights from last year… :)

We drove down to NOLA last year with David Molnar, and team photographers, Kristine and Jessica Rai.

Spoke after the amazing and kind, Joe Buissink…

We were a part of Jeff & Erin Youngren‘s shooting workshop…

… not as participants, but as models.  Reliving our wedding… but in New Orleans! :)

We had SO much fun and made so many friends!

Seriously, if you need to regain motivation, be inspired, and learn more, you HAVE to come to PartnerCon – it will change your business.  We promise.

We now leave you with this PartnerCon 2009 highlight film by Ron Dawson of Dare Dreamer Media

Are you coming to PartnerCon?  Let us know if we’ll be seeing your lovely mugs there!!

Last week we had the honor of shooting Hailey’s senior photos and she was a pro!  We have actually known Hailey for quite a few years and it’s hard to imagine that she is a senior now!!  Hailey is an incredibly sweet person and we really wanted to capture that in our images of her!!

Zach getting an ab workout as he shoots Hailey from a low perspective…. ha ha…

And my angle.  I end up with a little less dirt on me than Zach at the end of our shoots ;o)  Love Hailey’s jeans!!

And one of our favorite shots.

Hailey, you are beautiful and we are sooo excited for what God has  in store for you!

Oh. My. Gosh. This is so wrong on so many levels that we just had to show it here. If you have yet to see this, you are missing out on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness by laughing at funny dancing babies.

Enjoy this video and do something for us: GET UP AND DANCE YOUR PANTS OFF!

You have all seen our IN-CAMERA Shooting & Post workshop video done by the fab 2Duce2 Videography team, but now it is time to reveal to you the brand spankin’ new IN-CAMERA Light workshop video!

Get a little glimpse into our Light workshops…

If this is inspiring you to attend the IN-CAMERA Light workshop, the Nashville class is sold out, but if we get 3 more people on the waiting list, we will open it up to another group of 6.  There is still space in the Omaha class and San Francisco workshop class.  For detailed class descriptions as well as dates and pricing, visit the IN-CAMERA workshop website.

IN-CAMERA Workshop Testimonials:

“This is the best investment I could have made in my business. I’m so thrilled I did it early on in my business.”

“Loved it, Love it, Loved it!  Learned so much it blows my mind!”

“This is the most beneficial class to learn how to improve my photography.  It was broken down in a way we could easily understand and apply it.”

“This is truly one of the best workshops I have ever attended!”

“This workshop is going to change the way I shoot receptions”

“This weekend started with me knowing absolutely nothing, now I’m honestly full equipped to rock it!”

“Great learning experience.  What I learned will save me a lot of time”

“I learned here more than anywhere else”

On a scale of 1-5, How would you rate this experience overall: “26,432.84 Think that says it all.”

“Excellent, excellent, excellent!!! This will give me so much more time with my husband and kids.  Thank-you!!!”

“The information and hands-on shooting was amazing!”

“I learned exactly what I came here for.”

“I’d do it all over again.”

“All I can say is thank-you.  You guys are awesome.”

“This class was amazing!”

“Great, personal instruction!”

“Thank you again for the awesome learning opportunity and experience!!”

“Not only did I walk away with invaluable information from you two, but I also gained some wonderful friendships”

We have yet another wedding to bring to you from Gray Photography shot by Jessica Rai!

Eddie and Penny had a beautiful, early afternoon wedding and we loved all of the thought and details at they put into their memorable day.  Read a little bit from Jessica on her take of the day!

Penny & Eddie’s wedding day was absolutely unforgettable & not just because of the beautiful dresses, flowers, tuxes or details but because of the love between this amazing couple! It was such an honor to photograph their wedding. Penny is the sweetest person I have ever met and during the ceremony I even started tearing up behind my camera when I heard their voices tremble when they said ” I do” :)    Photographing couples like this and witnessing such amazing love is why I love what I do, thank you Penny & Eddie for allowing me to be apart of your big day!!

-Jessica Rai

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Congratulations to you both!!!!!!!  Thanks for letting us all be a part of your special day

The Fabulous Friends and Wedding Vendors who helped make this day happen:

We shot the most awesome (and HOT) wedding for Ryan and Sarah this past weekend and had an absolute blast with them!

These guys are truly an amazing couple and we are sooo glad that they found us! We love these guys and are glad that we got to be a part of their big day.

We can’t wait to show you all the photos from the wedding, but until then, here are a few teaser shots!

To view their online gallery once the images are ready, CLICK HERE to sign their virtual guestbook.

Today’s Tips and Tricks blog is about the newest addition to the family here at the Gray house. After lots of nudging from me (Zach) to my lovely but unfortunately penny pinching but financially smart wife ;),  we finally broke down and bought this bad boy about a month or so ago.  Welcome to the Gray family, my little 85mm sweetie pie. No, I have not let her into bed with us.

Pretty!

After being a zoom shooter for a long time because of how practical they are, Jody and I have really started seeing how much it can add to your look if you invest in a lens like this. Today we want to show you some of the pluses and minuses of shooting with an 85mmL 1.2. We love this lens a ton and have noticed its strengths, and also want talk about the possible problems one can encounter while using it.

The Good:

This lens has the most beautiful color and really great looking bokeh (which is how the blur looks that the lens produces). The lens also focuses really well (although the speed of the focusing is fairly slow compared to many other lenses) and is very accurate, especially considering that the lens opens up so big on the inside and is as heavy as it is.  Check out some background blur and color on this puppy!

All these are shot at f/1.2

The colors are so rich and everything looks so crisp and smooth. Also you notice that the background has a very nice blur that is textured very nicely.

This lens is also really great for cutting your subject out of a shot because the depth of field at 1.2 is soooo shallow. This can be a really good thing, or a really bad thing depending on the story your telling and the camera your using.

It also helps make your subjects skin look smoother since it is slightly out of focus.

The Bad:

So the problem you can run into with this lens when shooting at 1.2, is that you have to be very careful on how and on what you focus. You’ll notice in the shot above, that there are three eyes in focus (which is fine) but any time someone is looking at the camera, you always want the eyes to be in focus. It works in this shot since the bride is the focal point and we do have the right eye of the groom in focus, but you really have to watch that closely when shooting.

The other problem you can have is that you have to be super careful when you focus on something and then recompose your shot, because what you initially focused on will now be out of focus. That means that you have to rely on all of your other focus points in your camera, and depending on what camera you have, that can be a major problem. My biggest complaint with Canon is that the only cameras that have really good focusing on all the focus points is the 1D  series bodies. The Canon 5D series (which is what we use) only have one focus point (the center one) that uses vertical and horizontal lines of contrast to focus. All the rest of the focus points (the ones you actually need most of the time to shoot creatively) only use one line of contrast and are therefore very weak and are hit and miss when trying to focus even if you are in bright light. So either become a Nikon shooter or send emails to Canon until they produce a mid-level camera that has some serious focusing power!

The last thing to be careful of with shooting shallow depth of field, is there seems to be a tendency to love the look so much, that you end up shooting EVERYTHING at 1.2. While it looks neato to shoot that way, if you are a wedding photographer, you need to keep in mind that you are telling a story of the wedding day. If you shoot every single shot at 1.2 and the bride walk down the isle and you frame her half way down and then have mom in the foreground tearing up in the front row, then you will miss the story. One of them will be so out of focus that you will not see the entire story unfolding in your images. That shot may need to be taken at f/8 even though it does not have that super shallow depth that you love. You need to know when to shoot shallow and when to shoot with depth to help tell the story properly. Something to think about, especially for those photojournalist shooters out there.

This lens can also shoot some cool details, but you can’t focus any closer than 37.4 inches so don’t plan on getting too close to anything.

This lens is also really great for group shots, but you have to get WAY back to get em. When you can though it does look really great.

This lens also creates a very intimate feeling and is great for those up-close moments between the bride and groom.

This lens is really awesome for portraits and the length of the lens being at 85mm is considered one of the traditional portrait lengths. Any length over 50mm starts to compress an image and make your shots feel like they are all about your subject, and around 85mm is where you sort of hit the sweet spot. Lots of shooters use the 50mm 1.2 for shooting portraits maybe because it is light and focuses faster, but that lens really is not a portrait lens. That lens makes everything look much more natural (like what your eye sees) and this 85mm lens makes everything more compressed and is much better suited for portrait shots.

Well, we hope that you have enjoyed our little journey with our new baby!

Is there something that you want us to blog about in our Tips and Tricks? Is there a question you want us to talk about? Send us an email at tips@grayphotograph.com and we may just blog about it!

For those of you who may have missed it, we are now officially a part of PhotoVision and the first issue that we are featured in comes out THIS month!  A few years back we couldn’t have imagined that one day we would be a part of the DVDs that we were watching.  Crazy.

Want us and 8 other photographers to come into your living room and share all of our business and shooting goodness? (And that’s just for THIS month!).

Now is your chance!  If you’re not subscribed already to PhotoVision, this is a great chance to get in on the killer deal outlined below and get 6 DVDs a year with hours of great information!

Join us this month as PhotoVision begins the journey of following us at a wedding.  Listen to what we’re thinking – the whats, wheres, whys, and hows :)  And also in this issue you will get a look into how we utilize social media for our business!

Check out a teaser to see what you will be getting in the next issue of PhotoVision and what you have been missing out on- www.photovision2010.com/nextissue.

Below are the other photographers featured in this next issue with 9 educational segments! Subscribe HERE with Promo Code GRAY to save $110!.

And that’s only in one issue – PhotoVision brings you 6 issues a year!

We have a set of these videos that we hav

A SPECIAL PROMO CODE DISCOUNT:
As a featured speaker, we have a promo code, GRAY, to share.  This code for our fab blog readers will allow you to get PhotoVision 2010 for $39 a year instead of the full price of $149.   Receiving 15 hours of content on 6 DVDs, one mailed every other month – it doesn’t get any better than that. What a deal! Simply enter the promo code: GRAY when you register.

For those of you who may not be super familiar with PhotoVision, essentially it is a resource for photographers to learn from other leading photographers.   It give its viewers an intimate look at industry leading pros’ studios ranging from how they shoot, edit, market, sales, and PhotoVision even takes you on location with real shoots and even real weddings.

Not a subscriber yet? Subscribe HERE.

Your Frequently Asked Questions Answered:
Your special promo rate of $39 also applies when you renew your subscription for 2011!!
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