Engagement portraits at Magnolia Plantation in Charleston, SC

This is my first time visiting the Magnolia Plantation.  It’s a very nice area, it reminds me a lot of Brookgreen Gardens.  Unlike Brookgreen though we were allowed to go wherever we wanted to do the pictures and spend as much time as well.  I had a lot of fun walking around for an hour or so with the couple and finding places to do shots.  The first time to an area takes a bit of experimenting and exploring around.

We had some pretty strong early afternoon sunlight which can be difficult at the beach or in an open area, but being in a nice area with plenty of trees and shade it’s not really a problem.  In fact the strong sun gives some nice Bokeh from the pinpoints of light reflecting off the trees, you can see this especially on the first image.  You can tell if someone has a really good lens not by looking at what is in focus, but by looking at the quality of the out of focus areas.

I really liked the old fence where the horses were as well, you can see a number of shots from that spot below.  The bamboo was really cool as well, but what I really wanted was evening sun showing through the Bamboo, and I couldn’t really get that, I’ll try again at this couple’s wedding in December. It should be very nice and will be later in the day so things should go even better.  Let me know in the comments if you like the pictures.

Kiss on a bridge, shot with 70-200 f2.8 - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Kiss on a bridge, shot with 70-200 f2.8 - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Kiss in front of a lake, push process black and white  - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Kiss in front of a lake, push process black and white - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

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Highlights from the first half of May

This is such a busy time of the year I can’t really post about each wedding on my blog, I just don’t have time.  But I wanted to highlight a few pictures from the last couple of weeks.  One was a wedding in Andrews, SC of the same bride featured in my previous blog post.  I’ve also included a few family and engagement portraits from the Myrtle Beach State Park.  I discovered a new spot for pictures I really like at the park, at least the way the light is right now.  It’s the drainage ditch for land runoff into the ocean.  You don’t want to get in that water, but it makes a really great background at sunset.

Another thing I’ve done at my last couple of weddings is display pictures from the ceremony on my iPad.  When I get a chance at the reception, I will load in a few pictures from earlier in the day and put them up in a slideshow.  This seems to go over really well, there was almost always a small group around the iPad looking at the pictures.  I’m going to try and start doing this from now on.

Another fun thing I’ve been doing, which I will have more pictures of later on, is working with the latest Pocket Wizard wireless flash triggers.  I’ve been good for a long time at seeing great light and making use of it.  But now I’m trying to get better at making good light myself, even under bad conditions, using multiple flashes.  The http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/ website is a great resource for really learning advanced flash techniques if you want to learn more.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

Groom leaning bride back for a kiss - Kingston Plantation

Groom leaning bride back for a kiss - Kingston Plantation

Kiss on the beach walkway faded color effect - Kingston Plantation

Kiss on the beach walkway faded color effect - Kingston Plantation

 

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Cute engagement portraits at the Myrtle Beach State Park

I haven’t posted anything to the blog in a while so I decided I better make a post so everyone doesn’t think I’ve stopped working.  Actually, I’ve been extremely busy and it has made it hard to take the time to do this, and of course I’ve been playing with my new iPad 2 a bit as well :)   Being a photographer is a good excuse to tell your wife you need an iPad.  I’ve got some really great bridal portraits I’m going to be posting soon, I just have to wait a few weeks until after the wedding to make sure the groom doesn’t see what the dress looks like.

I thought I would put up some pictures from a recent pre-engagement session as the Myrtle Beach State Park.  This is a young couple that is not actually engaged yet but wanted to do some pictures.  They started out a bit shy and uncomfortable, the guy in the pictures was actually hearing impaired, but could read lips.  I find it amazing that someone can do that, I just had to be careful to speak towards him.  I try to be really easy going and make the pictures as fun as possible, I know it’s not easy trying to be romantic with someone pointing a camera at you.  I thought the pictures ended up being really cute and fun, I hope you enjoy some of them below.  And remember, many clients are nervous about getting pictures done, but it’s really not that bad.  It can actually end up being pretty fun, I hear that from a lot of clients after their appointment.

Pre engagement pictures with a young couple - Myrtle Beach State Park

Pre engagement pictures with a young couple - Myrtle Beach State Park

Sunset light coming through the trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

Sunset light coming through the trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

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Overcast sky, soft light engagement pictures

I had another nice engagement session at the Myrtle Beach State Park for a young couple that are not getting married for a couple of years yet.  They are getting married back home so I won’t be doing their wedding.  It was a cloudy day with just a little bit of color from the sunset showing through the clouds. Actually, when the sky is cloudy, it can be one of the best times to get shots that look more like in a studio.  In a photo studio they use these big boxes over their flashes or lights called a soft box.  Basically it’s like putting a sheet in front of a light, it makes it soft and kind of disperses the light around.  That is similar to what an overcast sky does, instead of strong direct light you get a more soft and dispersed light without as harsh of shadows.

However, an overcast day can make for a pretty boring flat look to the images with eyes that are kind of dark and lifeless.  Everything is kind of a trade off trying to work outdoors, you do the best you can with what you have to work with.  One thing that helps, you will notice there is a little sparkle in the clients eyes.  This is because I’m using a some fill flash.  Flash is very important even when shooting in plenty of light outdoors. In the future I’m actually going to experiment with more off camera wireless flashes to see if I can get a more unique look to the images.

I was really happy with the way the shots turned about, I ended up with about 150 shots that I liked, so that was a really good session.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.  If you like this post, please try out my few Facebook comment system at the bottom of the post after the pictures.

Couple laying by the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple laying by the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple having fun on the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple having fun on the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

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What I’m up to around Myrtle Beach this winter

It seems like trying to keep up with this blog, I’m either too busy to have time to post, or I don’t have anything all that interesting to write about. At least the slow winter time doesn’t last too long in Myrtle Beach. Things usually start to really pick up sometime in March. I have had a few families that because of the cold wanted to do some pictures inside, and I think they turned out really nice. I have even had some couples do engagement pictures even though it was cold. I will post some pictures from these photo shoots below.

I’ve also been working with a new slideshow service called Animoto. It allows me to create really interesting slideshows unlike anything I could do with traditional software, and do it easily as well. They also give the rights to use a lot of music, so the slideshow can have music without breaking copyright like you see some websites doing. If you click on most of my photo galleries where it says “music video slideshow” you can see some of these videos. I personally don’t like when photography websites immediately start playing music, so I think this is a good compromise. My galleries can be viewed without music, and if you deliberately click for the video slideshows, you know to expect music as well.

Finally I’ve also been experimenting with doing time lapse photography. The Nikon D700 has a built in Intervalometer (See Wikipedia link for more information) so you can set it up to take pictures every second, or whatever interval you would like. My first try doing this was down at the Myrtle Beach State Park pier at sunset, it turned out acceptable but not great. I made a number of mistakes and I need some moving clouds in the sky to make it more interesting. I’ll post this first try below as well. Thanks for reading, next week I should have a post about some bridal portraits at the Brookgreen Gardens Holiday Cottage that should be really cool.

Example of Animoto photo slideshow.
My first attempt at time lapse photography, sunset from the pier at the Myrtle Beach State Park.

Couple leaning against park store wall

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Engagement portraits at the Myrtle Beach State Park

It’s getting hard to find some pictures to blog about this time of the year, I did have some brave families do pictures even in the cold over the holidays.  I had one family that wanted to do pictures indoors as well as down on the beach in the cold, which turned out nice.  Of course I could tell the guys were not too happy about it. It’s really not that bad though, I try to work quickly and just snap a lot of different shots and things really move along fast.

Now about the pictures in this post, this was a really nice couple I did engagement pictures for over the holidays at the Myrtle Beach State Park. Their wedding is going to be in another area, so sadly I won’t be doing a wedding for this couple. It was quite cold, but at least the weather was clear and there was a nice sunset.  The guy liked goofing around and I got a lot of funny shots, they seemed to stay smiling most of the time which is what is really important.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

Couple in the Sunset silhouette

Couple in the Sunset silhouette

Couple laying by the dunes

Couple laying by the dunes

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Nice smiles at the Myrtle Beach State Park

My wife and I are both terrible at smiling at the camera, most people really don’t look very natural when they try to smile, so I really feel for clients trying to get their pictures taken. I always try to shoot fast and joke about things to keep it relaxed, the worst type of picture is when someone makes you wait for the shot.  Don’t you hate it when people pull out their point and shoot camera, count to three, then still wait a few second for the shot.  That is a good recipe for getting the worst possible shot.  Still, even with a fast DSLR, most of the time my favorite shots are when the couples are looking at each other or just catching natural smiles when they happen.  This couple though just seemed to have naturally great smiles, that is why I picked to post below a number of pictures where they are looking at the camera.  They were up for anything and seemed to really enjoy the pictures, I’m looking forward to doing their wedding next year.  I hope you enjoy some of the shots below.

Cute couple in the oak trees

Couple laying by the oak trees

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Engagement pictures of the Myrtle Beach state park.

It’s been a while since I’ve done just engagement pictures without having a wedding involved. I had two couples this past week, both of them were great to work with.  I’ll post a few pictures from their sessions below, I think that I’m actually getting very good at getting couples to relax and have fun with the pictures.  I hope you enjoy them.

Kissing by the pier

Laying in the sand in front of the pier

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Happiness

Happy couple smiling at each other in the Myrtle Beach State Park

Happy couple smiling at each other in the Myrtle Beach State Park

I just really loved this shot because they look so happy. Something that always happens with sessions is the first pictures look more posed and stiff, then after a while I can usually get the couple to loosen up and have some fun with it.