After wedding pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park

Now that things have slowed down some I’m going to try and go back and blog about some of my previous weddings and events.  This couple was married the day before, and just wanted to do some portraits of the two of them.  The Myrtle Beach State Park is really a great place for pictures because of the options like the oak trees, the pier and the really nice dunes, all in the same location.  Also, it’s out of the Myrtle Beach city limits, so you don’t get in trouble for doing picture there.  The only thing is, you have to be really careful about getting on the dunes.  I still see other photographers getting in trouble with the park rangers sometimes.  I saw this one photographer recently not only up on top of the dunes and getting talked to by a park ranger, but also waist deep in the swash trying to photograph a model, which is highly contaminated with bacteria.

Back to this couple, the evening turned out to be great with some really nice colors in the sky.  I was even able to catch some of the seagulls flying by in a few shots, which is really cool of you happen to get it.  This is a good example of how you can get some really nice pictures no matter how big your wedding is, I just did this like I would do any set of family or engagement pictures and got a lot of nice shots.  I hope you enjoy some of them below.

Couple sitting on oak tree root

Couple sitting on oak tree root

Bride leaning against oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Bride leaning against oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

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Fun wedding at Kingston Plantation in North Myrtle Beach

Kingston Plantation seems to be one of my usual spots, like the Grand Dunes, that I end up going to frequently.  It’s nice when I get to work at the same location multiple times, I can really get to know all the good photo spots after a while.   It’s also nice because it’s out of the Myrtle Beach city limits so you don’t have to worry about getting fined by trying to take pictures on the beach.  This couple was a lot of fun, I got a lot of just casual, fun shots of them as well as really nice posed shots as well.  I know it’s hard to relax at a wedding, but if you can and just try to act silly and not worry about things too much it makes for a lot better photos.  I tried to pick out some shots to highlight that were more unique to this wedding.  We did a lot of normal poses of course that turned out great, but I tried to highlight some that were more candid or a bit different.  I hope you like them.

First look at the bride - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

First look at the bride - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Passing the rings among the family during the ceremony  - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Passing the rings among the family during the ceremony - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

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Really cool black and white images

A lot of people don’t have a clear understanding of how black and white images are done with modern digital cameras.  It’s not like with film where you choose to use either b&w or color film.  Even if your digital camera has a black and white setting, all it’s doing is taking a color picture inside the camera and then converting it to black and white.  With the nicer cameras you take your pictures in a raw color format and then adjust and do what you want with an image later on in software.  There is really no such thing as taking a black and white image anymore, so any picture you see that I have in black and white, there is always a color original to choose from.

Now if you just let the camera do the black and white conversion, or if you just use basic software that removes the color, you can end up with a pretty flat and boring image.  Doing a good black and white is a lot more than just removing the color.  I think a big difference between a good and bad photographer is the investment you make in really good equipment and software.

I’ve always used actions in Photoshop that would allow for soft and glowing, sharp and high contrast, and other types of b&w image conversions.  Recently I just starting using new software called Nik’s  Silver Efex Pro 2.  This really takes the black and white conversions to a whole new level. I’m just getting started using this software, but I’m already getting results I love.   As I work with it I’m sure I will get better, keep an eye out here and on my Facebook page for more variety in black and white styles.  I will post a few of these black and white images below, I hope you enjoy them.

Groomsmen in black and white - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Groomsmen in black and white - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Entering the reception - Grande Dunes - Ocean Club

Entering the reception - Grande Dunes - Ocean Club

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Really cute family and senior pictures at the Myrtle Beach State Park

I just wanted to put up a quick post.  I’ve been loving some of my family pictures recently. Sometimes I will get a really big family with a lot of grumpy two year olds, you know how that can be at times.  But lately I’ve had some of my favorite family pictures in a long time.  I also want to apologize for the delay in getting some family proofs ready for viewing, I’m really going to be working on getting them all up this next week.

This month has just been really busy, I’m actually making a decision to cut back some to make sure I can keep up with the clients I already have, if you do write me and I’m booked I can give you some good suggestions of photographers in the area to try.   On a week I have weddings I’m keeping it down to about 3 or 4 family sessions during the week.  I’m not going to become a business where I send out photographers to do the work for me, keeping things small seems to be working well for me.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures, if you do please comment below.

Senior portrait with the sunset reflecting on the water - Myrtle Beach State Park

Senior portrait with the sunset reflecting on the water - Myrtle Beach State Park

Fun adult family pictures in an old tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Fun adult family pictures in an old tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

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Random things during the busy summer and the wedding documentary gallery

I’ve been meaning to put up a new blog post for a while.  Myrtle Beach is just in it’s busiest time right now, and I’m always backed up with work, which is a good thing but it makes it hard to do extra things like posting to the blog.  It also doesn’t help I got strep throat and now that I’m off my antibiotic it seems to be coming back, and I almost never get sick. So instead of trying to concentrate on one subject I decided to just put up a few random pictures I’ve really liked over the past month.

One new thing you will notice on the website, I’ve put up a new gallery called wedding documentary.  The idea for this is to put up more candid pictures that I might not put in a gallery otherwise.  I always have lots of pictures I really like, but I just don’t think they are suitable to put in as my main examples of my work.  The idea for this gallery is a place for these more raw, less perfect and touched up images.  I’m going to try to stick to pictures that are truly candid and unexpected, or sometimes perhaps a really silly picture even if the client knows I’m taking it that wouldn’t make it into the gallery otherwise.

I’ve also been experimenting with the new Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3 software.  I used the bleach bypass filter for the first image below, it’s a cool effect.  I’ve just got to get used to working this software into some images in my workflow and figuring out what I like.  Below I’m going to put some examples that are in the new wedding documentary gallery, as well as just a few other random shots I liked.  As always if you enjoy some of these pictures please click the like button below.

Groomsmen waiting on the second floor - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Groomsmen waiting on the second floor - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Bridal party in the sunset - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Bridal party in the sunset - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

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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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