GA Focus Summer 2011

Georgia Focus Summer 2011

Georgia School Competition Winners

Content s President’s message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 HDR’s for Dummies 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Jeff Gulle, CPP

Does Good Color Really Matter? . . . . . . . . 17 Gary Poole Board Election Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Area Meeting Notes . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Jeff Gulle, CPP

Summer Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Georgia School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Competition Winners . . . . . . . . . . . . .34

P

resident’s Message

Sally Jackson, PPA Cert., GFD, GSD

“Forsake not the assembly of believers.” It says it right there in the

Many of the names on the Bible – no matter how strong and good we are as individuals, we are stronger and Crying Towel better when we get together. It’s good for us to spend time with others who are actually bring to traveling the same road we are, because chances are they’ll have similar interests mind faces for me. They’re the faces of & experiences, they’ll understand where the people who made me welcome when we’ve come from & have an idea of where I joined the GPPA twenty years ago; the we’re trying to go, and we can help each faces of people who opened their studios to me and who taught a recent photogother get over, under or around all the raphy school graduate what it meant to unexpected obstacles in the road. And step up and become a working profesevery so often, it’s even helpful to have sional photographer; the faces of people someone to ask, “This IS the right road who encouraged me to become involved we’re on, isn’t it?”

– really involved – in our association.

Those of you who attended the awards They gave me such a gift when they banquet at our convention in Athens made me care about the GPPA! back in March would have heard me speak fondly about the people who have But it’s a different world from theirs, now, isn’t it – the world of “professional phogone down our road ahead of us, those tography”? So different. It seems harder who have lead our association for the to find the time to do anything but work past several decades. Their names are and look for more work these days. It all embroidered on the Official Cryseems harder to find the wherewithal to ing Towel of the GPPA – a (currently) upgrade our tools and update our ideas. twenty-three-foot-long piece of white Gotta work, gotta focus, gotta get by. terry cloth that’s half long-running joke and half sacred artifact. To me it’s one of How did it happen that when the world the wonders of the world and a beautiful of photography exploded with so many new and wonderful options for us, the thing. effect for so many of us was to make us

want to circle the wagons or batten down the hatches? It just doesn’t seem like we could possibly afford to take off work to get together with other photographers.

So now seems like a good time to remind ourselves not to forsake the assembly of believers. Now more than ever we need to get together, learn something new, be refreshed, connect with each other – we’re all on the same road remember?

We can help each other along. Let me offer you a gift – I’d like to encourage each of you to get involved – really involved – in our association. The GPPA changes over the years as the world of photography changes, but it is constant in its ability to make us stronger and better together than any of us would be as individuals. Throw in the towel? Not on my watch, baby!

We need your Stories!

Is there a business or tech tip that you think others could learn from? Have a great marketing idea or a funny story to share? Or do you want to hear from someone about their business model or their techniques? Let us know . . . or better yet, write an article or interview someone for the Focus. If it is interesting to you, it may be interesting to others. We are in constant need of content to fill the magazine and make it a useful tool for all of us. Send submissions to kevjiminez@aol.com. Don’t forget to include images! You do receive service merits for contributing articles to the focus for publication.

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About the cover:

“Yeah, We’ve Got An App For That” was taken by Kevin Jiminez, Master Photographic Craftsman, as part of a wedding coverage. The groom and groomsmen were all engineers and not only did they all have their new iPhones but they also had an iPad with them at the wedding for entertainment between portraits. The image was taken with a Canon EOS 5DMkii, handheld, with a 70-200 f/2.8 IS II lens. The ISO was set at 800 and the exposure was 1/320th of a second at f/3.2. The image was primarily lit by a bank of windows to camera right with added light from a Canon 580ex Flash in a Denny Manufacturing 22inch round box triggered with a Radio Popper. The original RAW image was converted to a jpeg with the Canon Digital Photo Professional software, and then worked in Photoshop. The image post processing included a slight softening and vignette followed by a contrast boost and finally a warm black and white conversion. For competition the presentation was finished out with a small black stroke and placed on a white background. I have been experimenting with higher ISO’s lately when shooting weddings to take advantage of some more of the natural light in the settings in which I am working. It is a hard step to make when you came from shooting film and felt that even with medium format film, an 800 ISO yielded less than satisfactory results. I still shoot most of the portraits on the wedding day at an

ISO of 320 or lower to achieve the optimum quality images for my clients. The higher ISO’s do allow me to work with smaller light sources that can be more portable and sometimes easier to handle. Using the Canon flashes also allow shooting with high speed sync, making it easier to shoot hand held while still adding supplemental flash. No more being tied to that maximum sync speed.

You can now add flash in those brighter situations where you could not before.

High speed sync does have the draw back of diminished output from your flash and faster depletion of your batteries. Using your camera’s dedicated flash system also allows you to use TTL flash metering which can allow you to shoot a little quicker once you get use to how your camera and flash work together to determine flash output. The image won First Place in the Wedding Category, a Fuji Masterpiece Award, and Best of Show in the Wedding Category.

Editor’s Notes

Here we are with another issue of the Georgia Focus. We had a great time at the SEPPA/Georgia Convention in Athens and at the Summer Seminar in Atlanta. I have been hard at work finishing up details for this year’s school. We have a great line up so be sure to check it out.

Remember that in this time of increased competition and a tight economy that we need to continually look for ways to differentiate ourselves from everyone else out there. That is one of the main reasons some one will choose you over another photographer. One of the best ways to differentiate yourself from all the other photographers out there is through continually educating yourself and working on the quality of the work that you produce. The best ways that I can think of to improve your work are events like the Georgia School where you have more than just a couple of hours to see what some of the more successful people in our

industry are doing. You can absorb so much more information in a week long class and you have the time to work on the techniques before you leave to ensure that you are getting it. Another great way to improve what you do is to compete with your images. But more than just competing you need to see what the judges say and take those comments as ways to improve what you are doing. I have seen a difference in the images that I produce by taking what I hear in judging and print critiques and working to apply those things into the way I photograph.

Competition is not about trying to get awards.

It is about learning to make better images. Of course a few awards certainly don’t hurt.

Do you have an image you would like to see on our cover -send it to me. Include a short note about the image or write an article about how you created it. We are always looking for content, and after this issue there is another and then another . . .

Submissions can be sent to kevjiminez@aol. com.

Kevin A. Jiminez ,

M.Photog.Cr., GFD, GSD, CPP

s ’ R HD

For Dummies Part 2

By Jeff Gulle, CPP

This is the second part of HDR’s for

Dummies. If you are into Photoshop and post processing, then you will get into this. However, if you like to shoot and Photoshop is a by-product of what you do, then this might be painful. There is good news, though; we will discuss three ways of processing your images. One of them will fit your personality. The first is the most popular and has the most creative control, Photomatix Pro $99 2003. The second is just plain easier but gives you less options, NIK HDR Pro $129 2010. And the final way we all currently own if you are using Photoshop (CS 2 or higher 2005), so there will be no additional costs because we already have the capability.

Lets begin with Photomatix Pro. I select my images in Adobe Photoshop Bridge and then File-Open with-Photomatix Pro. This begins with a dialogue about confirming that you want to merge the following images into a HDR. Then confirm that the images selected are the ones you wish to process into a HDR. If your images are bracketed properly, it will bring you to options. If not, it will tell you that the images are not bracketed properly and will give you their approximate exposure indexes. If you continue without proper bracketing, don’t expect incredible results.

Your first choice under the options is align source images. If you are using a tripod, which is recommended, then you should click correcting for horizon-

tal and vertical shifts. If you are hand holding, then you should use matching features. Your next choice is reducing ghosting artifacts. Because we are combining several images into one it will look funky if there is any movement.

This choice decides to what degree this program eliminates movement. It seems like an easy choice but keep in mind if you a r e

photographing a moving object like water and you are bracketing with your shutter speed the water will look different in each exposure. Playing with these choices is recommended. Finally

you will have a choice of white balance and color primaries which you should leave as they are. It will then show you a preview of ghosting (how it is handling movement within the image). If you see an area you do not like, select it by drawing moving ants around it and control click it, which will then bring you to tone mapping.

Your image will pop up with several presets to choose from. These include black and whites to plain exposure fusion and settings that you have saved. Select one that is close to what you had imagined and click on it. You now have a choice of leaving it as it is or fine tuning your image. Your first choice is detail enhancer or tone compressor. Play with both but I recommend detail enhancer and will only discuss that version in detail today.

There are fifteen different sliders to play with, each broken down into four basic categories. The top one being tone mapping and the most important slider here is strength. It shows the amount of your settings in your photo. In other words if you crank up color and detail, you can back it off by lowering the strength. The next most important button is smoothing, which makes the photo look for normal to the right and extreme detail to the left. The remaining sections are similar to other programs and are labeled: Tone, Color and Misc. Please take the time to tweak each one to get a feel for what they do. Remember,

though, to experience what each slider can do you must change at least 25% and then reevaluate.

you get more comfortable with this process you will begin to anticipate what your final result will be.

Using NIk HDR Pro begins similarly to Photomatix by selecting your images you wish to merge in Adobe Bridge and then tools-NIK Software-Merge to HDR EFEX PRO. It will confirm that you have selected the correct images and if you want to align your images and how you want to control ghosting (movement between frames). Once again your image will open and you will have a choice of many presets by the manufacturer. Select one that is close to what you had envisioned and feel free to play with the sliders to customize your image even more. The most important adjustment you have is the HDR method halfway down your selections. You can choose the style of HDR processing from Natural to Fresco to Harsh Details and then select your percentage of strength. The more to the left you choose, the more normal it will look and to the right the more different.

Make your choice then hit OK. On all the programs many times once you find that you love your image and hit OK and it tone maps it. The ending result is not always what you previewed but slightly lighter or darker, stronger or weaker. As

Finally, we have Photoshop HDR. It begins in Bridge also with you selecting your images and clicking tools-photoshopmerge to

HDR Pro. Confirm that the source images are correct and check the box for alignment. Photoshop opens with your last settings and has nine sliders to choose from with the first box presets. One thing different from the others is that it shows you the difference in exposure from your source images so you know if you have selected the correct images and if you bracketed correctly.

Cool. Play with your sliders. Photoshop has the least amount of control of the programs and create effects not as cool as with the others. One advantage, though, is that most of us already have it

and it does the best job of dealing with movement or ghosts.

I know the processing part of HDR’s can be tedious and repetitive so Photomatix can batch process multiple images using a preset or prior settings. I do this to many images just to see how they could turn out then go back and customize the settings for that image.

Both Photomatix and NIK HDR offer free trials. Go online and download one or both and give each a spin. You never know you too could get “hooked on HDR’s”.

Jeff Gulle is an honor graduate of North Georgia Tech’s photography program and has a BA from Armstrong Atlantic State University with a concentration in Art. He is a Certified Professional Photographer and is expected to get his Photographic Craftsman degree in January 2112. Jeff began teaching at Southeastern Center for the Arts and is currently at North Georgia Tech. He has been a working photographer for over 25 years, working full time as a photographer for the State of Georgia and the city of Atlanta before being self employed. Jeff lives in the beautiful North Georgia mountains

with his wife and two kids. Jeff is currently serving as the Area Director for the Northeast Area of the Georgia Professional Photographers Association.

The Nominating Committee is pleased to announce that the following individuals have been re-elected to three year terms as Director At Large at the 2011 Membership meeting which was held during the SEPPA Convention.

Sherri Noftsinger has been a member of GPPA for 15 years and has served on the Board of Directors since 2003. She has been an active volunteer in the Association serving on various committees during the years including Print Exhibit, Registration, Decorating and Hospitality. Sherri was the Print Exhibit Chair for 3 years and is currently serving as the 2nd Vice President for GPPA. Sally McCreery Jackson owns and operates Carpe Diem Studio in Savannah, Ga. She has just recently made the major change from working in a commercial studio space to photographing in the home studio she built with the help of her husband, Bill. Sally has been a working professional photographer for over 20 years and has served the GPPA on its Board of Directors for nine of those years.

She has volunteered on most every GPPA committee and chaired more than a few. Sally is a PPA Certified Professional Photographer and has earned both the Georgia Service and Fellowship Degrees. Her formal education was at the University of Georgia where she received a BFA in Photography and Graphic Design (but she will tell you that everything she really needed to know about the art, science, philosophy, and ethics of being a true professional she learned from her peers in the GPPA.) For this reason she is happy to repay this debt by serving as Director at Large.

Lora Baxley has served on the Board of Directors for the last five years. She has volunteered on many committees over the years. She is currently the chairman of the Outreach Committee, Mentor program and Print Exhibit Committee. Lora has earned her Service Degree as well as her Fellowship Degree. She believes in the power of the GPPA to help further her knowledge in photography and grow her business. Lora and her husband own and operate Fitz-Symms Photography in Augusta, Georgia.

The Nominating Committee is also pleased to announce that Mike Bentley has been elected to serve a one year term as director At Large, filling an unexpired term, at the 2011 Membership meeting.

Mike Bentley, Cr. Photog., CPP, GSD. Mike attended his first GPPA convention in 1978 just before entering the NGT photography program. After graduating from NGT Mike went to work in Lawrenceville at Williams Routh and Associates Photography and later worked at Sea Island Photography before opening his studio in Winder in 1990. In the 90’s Mike spent 6 years on the GPPA board, three as area director and three as director at large. Mike’s studio specializes in portraits of children, seniors, families, bridal and business portraits.

Any person wishing to serve as a Director At Large in the future should make arrangements to be nominated to run for the position. Nominations may be made once the floor is opened for nominations. The person being nominated must be present to accept the nomination and have someone speak on their behalf.

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Does Good Color Really Matter?

by Gary Poole

to understand what colors we have to work with. Even though our computers oes good color really matter? You bet may be able to generate millions of colit does! As professional photographers ors, we only need to think in terms of a we should strive to deliver the very best handful of primary colors to successfully images we possibly can. I have noticed identify and adjust off-color digital files. one thing in this down economy, people Actually with only 3 colors we can create are spending money, but only on things any color that exists. Take a macro look they consider to be a good value. We at your computer screen and see what must convey to our clients that our phocolor LCD’s it has. (choose a white area) tography is well worth their investment, or they will go elsewhere.

We are all familiar with RED, GREEN and BLUE. These three colors are known I have corrected millions of images over as the additive primaries. They get that the last 35 years and have learned a few name because when you ADD these principles about color correction that I three colors together in equal amounts would like to share with you. I hope to it yields WHITE. I would like for you be able to give you a few tools to help Photo 1 you produce consistent color that will impress your clients and keep them coming back to you year after year.

D

There are many facets of successful color management that are too numerous to address in one post.

This article will be about the basics of digital image color correction. Before we can attempt to alter the native color of a digital file we need

to do a fun exercise. Stare at the dot in photo 1 for about 30 seconds without moving your eyes. Then look into the blank part of the image and you will see the opposite of these colors, or their compliments. These three colors are called the “subtractive” primary colors.

These colors are CYAN, MAGENTA and YELLOW respectively. This information is critical because these are the only colors you need to know to successfully improve any off-color image known to mankind.

These colors can be broken down into 2 categories, warm and cool. Warm colors are RED, MAGENTA and YELLOW. RED, ironically is composed of equal amounts of MAGENTA and YELLOW In fact, for that reason we don’t need RED at all just MAGENTA and YELLOW. This can seem confusing but actually makes sense when studied. Cool colors are BLUE, GREEN and CYAN. Photo 2

Also BLUE and GREEN mixed equally yields CYAN so the same applies here as with RED. Refer to photo 2 to see how the colors mix to create other colors. It would be wise if you want to do your own color correcting that you have a firm grasp of these colors. I have seen many people “guess” what color they were looking at or now with digital just use a color picker. I rarely use a color picker because a picker assumes the target area is neutral. Have you ever seen a Bride’s dress outdoors that was actually white? If you have a clear blue sky, the chances are that the bride’s dress will be a cool shade of CYAN and BLUE since white is highly reflective. If you use a color picker to force that cool blue to white, guess what color her skin will be. That’s right, the opposite of CYAN-BLUE which is REDYELLOW. While some Brides may want to look tanned, your toddler subject will look sickly with yellow skin.

Now let’s talk about proper steps to take in evaluating and adjusting color FIRST; IDENTIFY WHETHER THE IMAGE IS LIGHT OR DARK Density has a profound effect on color appearance. I was always told

when I was being trained that DENSITY RULES COLOR. Get the density right before you even think about color.

I use Adobe Lightroom for all my image correction. I have used many software tools over the years and I find Lightroom to be outstanding.

NEVER use BRIGHTNESS to control density. I usually use a combination of exposure and tone curve to get the desired density. If you are not in very good control of your exposure I would advise you to shoot in RAW as this is a lot more forgiving. Better yet, view Will’s video on Digital Exposure Control found on Shootsmartertv.com

Photo 3

Photo 4

SECOND; IDENTIFY THE COLOR YOU SEE After the density is corrected, then determine if the image is warm or cool. DO NOT be tempted to use a color picker.

Even a grey card improperly lit can fool a color picker. If you think you see a combination of let’s say GREEN and BLUE, then you would use MAGENTA and YELLOW to correct. You are using the compliments or opposites of the colors you see to correct the color in the image to be more pleasing. NEVER use all three colors to correct, as this is just creating neutral density. Refer to

photo 3 to see a CYAN-BLUE image and photo 4 to see the corrected version adding MAGENTA and YELLOW to the image. Lets now look at a RED-YELLOW image, see photo 5 and then the corrected version in photo 6 using GREEN and BLUE to correct.

While Photoshop uses all 6 primary colors in the color correction mode, Lightroom uses only 4. YELLOW and BLUE

Photo 5

Photo 6

images for best consistency.

I hope this information has been helpful to you. If you have any questions about color accuracy or color correction, please email me at: garypoole.ybc@gmail.com Thank you, Gary Poole

are called temperature, and MAGENTA and GREEN are called tint.

RED and CYAN are redundant since they are formed by using other two colors. This actually makes the correction easier as you don’t have to concern yourself with more colors to consider.

Successful color correction is a skill not a science and will take considerable time to master. By learning the primary colors and their compliments and practicing color identification, you will greatly improve your correction skills and image consistency. It would be great if we never had to correct images at all, but in reality there will always be the need to tweak

Gary was employed by Garrett-Lane for over 19 years as production supervisor and color manager. He has started my own home based file correction service called www.yourbestcolor. com. Gary is also an author for Will Crockett for shootsmarter. com. Gary has been involved with GPPA since 1977 when I won the Truman Fletcher scholarship award.

Kevin Jiminez Posing Lecture On March 11 we had Kevin Jiminez of Kevin Jiminez Photography give a seminar on posing. He started with examples of good vs better and good vs bad. Next he went through the images brought in by attendees to discuss out those areas that were handled well and to point out where there might be some room for inprovement. He discussed camera tilt, hands, head tilt, posture‌. he left no stones unturned. There were about 45 people in attendance and many brought examples to be critiqued. We had more images to examine than time. Neanne Mullis said it was a unique way of learning and it works. I learned so many new techniques and posing ideas that I am ready for a new day. The posing seminar rocked.

Kevin is our new director of the Georgia School and came up to give back to the profession and to see how it feels to teach in our Georgia School environment.

He said the facilities were incredible and the hospitality was beyond reproach. We are lucky to have such facilities available to us.

Area Meetings are free to attend for GPPA Members and are a great way to pick up on tips and techniques!

Richard Smith Speaks on Painting

On Monday April 11, 2011 Rich-

ard Smith spoke to a crowd of 65 people for the Georgia Profes-

sional Photographers Association.

It was a great mix of people. We had people who were hobbyist to working professionals. Everyone learning something different from basic lighting techniques to Photoshop shortcuts. Clarence Wulf, a GPPA member, of Toccoa said it was very enlightening to see someone who knows there way around Photoshop and Painter. Richard started the day going over basics then working in Photoshop and Painter and

finally ending with a portrait shot in front of everyone. Richard has developed a method that allows him to work quickly yet still have a very artistic final image that maintains a truly fine art look.

Stephanie Maley, of Toccoa, said I am so pumped about Painter that I am ordering it today. What you can do and what you can charge for this is amazing.

Richard Smith of www.gladecreek-

Before

Georgia School

After portraits.com has been a professional photographer and digital artist for over 35 years. He was a photographic instructor at North Georgia Technical College for 25 years, retiring in 2007. He is a life member of the Southeastern Professional Photographers Association and Georgia Professional Photographers Association. Richard was given the National Award in 1990 by the Professional Photographers of America for his dedication and service to education in the photographic industry.

For this year’s school we have put together an impressive roster of industry leaders for you to choose from. The instructors that we have put together for you are some of the top names in our business and are there because they have the ability to keep up with the changes to our industry whether they be new ways to market yourself, to new techniques or even the latest client trends. Our instructors represent the best that photography has to offer. These speakers have spent time in the trenches and have information with real value and techniques that have stood the test of time and are still commanding top dollar. This is sure to be a week that will impact your photography and your business. See you there!

School Dates Sept. 11-16th School is held on the Campus of North Georgia Technical College in Clarkesville, GA. Our host hotel it The Helendorf Inn and conference Center in Helen, GA. Be sure to make your reservations for your room and come ready to learn!

Elizabeth and Trey Homan Dream High Elizabeth Homan, CPP, Master Photographic Craftsman, API Trey Homan, CPP, Photographic Craftsman This fun, upbeat class will help your business and photography soar to the next level! Elizabeth and Trey have designed a jammed pack week that will teach you how they have structured and grown their business from a small home business into a high end Portrait and Wedding Studio that grosses just under a million dollars annually! Be prepared to work, play and laugh with the Homans during a fast paced week full of terrific ideas. This is a class that will cover everything from Family portraits, theme oriented children’s sessions, maternity and High School Seniors. Each day is going to feature a portrait session, as well as innovative marketing ideas and philosophies that highlight the type of session being demonstrated each day. You will go home not just with great ideas; but with forms, marketing materials, and newsletters that will help make your new ideas a reality almost immediately. You are sure to be inspired as you see Trey’s unique approach to entertaining children of all ages. Topics that will be discussed include: Successful Consultation approaches Price lists that reward your client for purchasing what you, as the artist, want them to Alternatives to giving away proofs Selling Wall Portraits as Art Designing Wedding Albums that display your work as art Creating family albums that sell every time Elizabeth is one of the top portrait and wedding photographers in the nation. As Texas’ youngest Master Photographer and Photographic Craftsman, she is an award-winning Portrait Artist widely known for her distinctive yet traditional Lifestyle portraiture of families and children and her story telling approach to wedding photography. What sets Elizabeth apart is her artistic perspective and approach to photography with an emphasis on creativity, portrait design, and capturing the emotions of relationships. She has won numerous awards including “best wedding album” in Texas and the Southwest eight years in a row. Elizabeth also has seven PPA loan Collection images and twentyfour General Collection images.

Trey holds a Bachelor of Music Education and Master of Music from Stephen F. Austin State University. He is a former middle school music teacher who is now usually just called Elizabeth’s husband. Trey has been working with Elizabeth since 1996 in a support role. He does everything around the studio from book keeping, digital design and artwork to basic toilet repairs and lawn maintenance. You are sure to be inspired as you see Trey’s unique approach to working with children of all ages.

Louis Tonsmeire

Light it, Love it, Shoot it!

It’s all about getting it right in the camera. From Raw to JPEG, your lights, main and fill and a few ratios thrown in for good measure. Learn portrait and wedding techniques that will make you stand out from the crowd. REALLY. This class will put you on the right track making your customers looking their best, while spending LESS time on your computers.

You can sleep again!

Louis’ Class is designed for the beginning Professional Photographer and for the seasoned pro who wants a refresher course in the basic foundations of Portraiture. Whether you want help getting the most out of your equipment or your sessions this class is for you. You will start with fundamentals and move into some of the more advanced techniques that Louis has used in his business fo the last 30 years, Louis is a past president of the Professional Photographers of America and has built a wealth of knowledge that he will share with his students.

Thomas and Mario Munoz

Step up your Wedding game!

Prepare to experience what it take to elevate your wedding game to the next level. Whether its from learning how to score in the consultation room to creating the images that wow your clients. Join Tom and Mario Munoz as they share with you their business strategies and insight in creating award winning wedding albums. No more excuses! It is time to learn how to become everything for every bride. With four generations of photographers behind them, the Munoz brothers have become one of the highest awarded wedding photography teams in the country. Come along as they share with you their techniques and passion to help you step up your wedding game.

This is an intermediate to advanced level class.

Tomas and Mario Munoz are fourth generation wedding photographers that began assisting their father at events at the age of seven. Today at the ages of twenty-six and twenty-eight, they have transformed their old-world knowledge of lightning and portraiture into an innovative contemporary style that captivates their couples today. They have also studied with photographers around the world. Both are active photographers and photograph about 60-70 events each per year. Since their early start, the Munoz brothers have received many Accolades and Awards Statewide and Nationally. Most recently at the Professional Photographers of America National Convention the Munoz brothers had six of their wedding albums accepted into the PPA Loan Collection, both receiving Platinum Photographer of Year Awards. Among those Loan Collection entries they won First and Second Place in the Album Category at the first ever PPA Grand Imaging Awards with a total five out of the Top Ten Albums.

Sandra Pearce

Dream High

Learn to creative beautiful expressive paintings from your digital images with Sandra’s instruction and guidance. The differences between traditional art and digital art are vast and varied.

There is one common link, the knowledge and skill needed to create true art, regardless of the medium. Not only does Sandra Pearce have a working knowledge of traditional and computer based art, she has experience teaching each form as well. She knows photographers already feel comfortable with the tools used in Photoshop. This enables them to concentrate on the techniques of painting instead of learning a new program.

Sandra teaches how to prepare your image for painting and guides you through the steps to capture the feelings of your subjects on canvas.

Sandra has run a successful business, Sandra Pearce Photography, in Okeechobee, Florida for 17 years. She integrates her joy for painting the images she photographs for her clients. Sandra’s passion is painting and her goal is to share her love of painting by teaching her techniques to others. Sandra has her Craftsman degree and her Master of Electronic Imaging from the Professional Photographers of America. Sandra’s Class is sponsored by BWC Lab.

Larry Peters Senior Photography Refined Larry Peters has become a household name in the profession when it comes to the subject of “Senior Portrait Photography”. He is a leader in our industry and has always been on the cutting edge of new techniques and new technology. Larry has brought Senior Portrait Photography to what it is today with contemporary photography, high contrast black and white, outdoor, and new digital ideas that not only look different, but have many sales advantages and new markets. He is a self taught, full time photographer who began his career as a high school business teacher. He was awarded the 2000 Senior Photographer of the Year award from Senior Photographers International with the highest scores in both boys and girls competition. He has authored two books on Senior Photography, speaks nationally and internationally and has several video series.

The Senior Portrait Market is more competitive than ever before. If you are a senior portrait photographer who is serious about photographing high school seniors, don’t miss a minute of this exciting class with somone who has been there and done it all.

This course will demonstrate first hand how a successful studio operates. From cutting edge photography to great marketing and sales you will goo home with the success formula to make a good living and enjoy doing it. You can afford to miss this inspiring course that feeds you valuable information from the very beginning.

Ken Sklute Ken Sklute has been honored as one of Canon’s Explorers of Light, a designation shared by only 60 photographers worldwide.

Ken has been named Photographer of the Year 27 times between Arizona, New York, and California.

Ken has accomplished his Master of Photography and Photographic Craftsman degrees from the PPA; Accolade of Photographic Mastery, Accolade of Outstanding Photographic Achievement, Accolade of Exceptional Photographic Achievement, Accolade of Highest Photographic Achievement, and the Accolade of Lifetime Photographic Excellence. In 2009, he was awarded the Photographer of the Year from the Professional Photographers of California and the Illustrative Photographer of the Year. Ken has been awarded Best in Show at the Western States Regional Print Competition, the PPA National Award, Photographer of the Year-Western States Regional Print Competition, and Photographer of the Year-Silver Level from the PPA. The Year 2005 saw Ken receive the Drag Racing Photographer of the Year from CompetitionPlus.com, Wedding Photographer of the Year, and Photojournalist of the Year from the Professional Photographers of California, as well as receiving the Heidi Mauracher Starlite award for Best Wedding Photograph. Ken has received 14 Kodak Gallery awards

and 15 Fuji Masterpiece Awards. Ken spends much of his time teaching and lecturing both Nationally and Internationally.

“It’s all in the Light!”

This program covers lighting techniques in detail.

“I work with and show window light, single flash, multiple flashes, working with various light modifiers, working with tungsten light, and of course the mixed bag of existing illumination.” Ken will share with you a wide variety of unique light sources in order to produce unique images for your portrait and wedding clients. Images will be created with ETTL Off-Camera flash, tungsten lighting, strip lights, large light sources, working with the edge of light, and multiple flashes to create a contemporary look to your existing vision. This is a hands-on class that will have you shooting all of these lighting techniques before you get back home. You will raise the bar of your photography immediately upon returning to your business!

This Program is sponsored by Canon.

Summer Convention

Those who did not attend the Sum-

mer Membership Seminar really missed out on a great experience. The seminar started with Aaron Adams speaking on Senior Portraits. Aaron photographs 215 to 230 Seniors each year with 60 to 70 percent of those being photographed from June to August. Their goal is to average $1100.00 to $1200.00 per senior.

Their senior sales typically will range from $300.00 to $5000.00 in a given year.

Aaron shared a lot of information about how they work to make the senior’s experience one they will remember and tell all their friends about. This starts with how they market to answering that first phone call all the way through how they handle client final order pick-ups. Aaron talked about the different session options that his clients have when coming in for their senior portraits and how he works with his clients during their sessions.

He went over everything from his lighting techniques for both working in the camera room and for working outdoors.

This included the light modifiers that he likes to work with in different situations.

He also talked about some of his posing techniques and how this works with his lighting to give the results that his clients are willing to spend money on.

Aaron is a good speaker and has a lot to

share. I would definitely recommend seeing him if the opportunity comes back up. Even if we think we have a great set of policies and practices, it is always good to see how others handle these tasks so that we can evaluate what we are doing and look for ways to improve.

The next speaker was Marci Sandler.

Marci spoke on the way she works her images in Photoshop to create the uniquely different products her clients have come to expect. Marci’s work is highly creative and helps her to get more out of her sessions than just the standard portrait orders. She uses her style of post production work to sell art pieces to her clients and to sell them albums of their sessions. Marci’s style of working her images ranges from simple enhancement to creating fantasy art pieces of fairies and mermaids, as well as, highly imaginative senior composites. For anyone looking for new techniques to add to the art line in their studio, this was a great program.

Finally, on Monday we had the pleasure of listening to Thomas and Mario Munoz not only speak about their philosophy and business operations, but we also watched them work with a bride and groom. The Munoz brothers are fourth generation photographers and have a

wealth of knowledge to share. The entire Munoz family is very talented, and they have been very highly awarded in comp e t it i on .

Altoget her they photograph over 100 weddings and events a year.

The Munoz boys spoke about how they meet with their potential clients and what they offer with their wedding coverage’s.

They talked about their sales philosophy and how they achieve that when presenting images to their clients. They went over how they present the client with the images and talked about their design process when it comes to client wedding albums and competition albums. Listening to the Munoz brothers talk about their business provided a lot of information to consider in running our own businesses and will hopefully lead to positive

changes for those who were there.

While the business part of their discussion was great, it was equaled by watching them work with our bride/ model for the day. Their expertise perhaps shows best when they are working with a subject. Thomas and Mario have an ability to not only be very creative but to work remarkably fast even in unfamiliar surroundings and tricky situations. If you missed them at the seminar you can still catch them at Georgia School this year. Both Thomas and Mario will be there for the entire week to share their wealth of knowledge and teach you how they create their truly inspiring images. Be sure to sign up soon, as we had eight people register before the end of the this seminar. Make plans to come to our next event. You can’t learn if you are not there!

2011 Competition Award Winners

Photographer of the Year Kevin Jiminez Dick Dickerson Award For Most Improved Case Score Jeff Gulle

Best of Show Portraits First Place Pets and Animals "Barker Lounger" Heather Smith

Best of Show Weddings Fuji Masterpiece Award Weddings First Place Wedding Candids "Yeah We've Got An App For That" Kevin Jiminez

Best of Show Commercial DistinguishedCommercial Illustrative "Homeward Bound” Jeff Gulle

Best of Show Photographic Art First Place Photographic Art Fine Art/Scenic "Autumn Glow” Kevin Jiminez

Kodak Gallery Award Illustrative Distinguished Photographic Art Fine Art Scenic "Low Country Cathedral” Cheri McCallum

First Place Commercial Illustrative "More Than A Name On The Wall” Thomas Warner

Portrait of a Teen Distinguished "Wild Dance” Kirk Baxley

Portrait of Pets and Animals Distinguished "Patiently Waiting” Anne Bass

Portrait of a Teen Distinguished "Hot Stuff” Kevin Jiminez

Portrait of Pets and Animals Distinguished "Skin and Bone” Heather Smith

Portraits of a Group Distinguished "Sunset Engagement” Branch Carter

Commercial Illustrative Distinguished "Waves of Stone” Sherri Noftsinger

Wedding Portraits Distinguished "One Broken Heart” Dennis Echols

Portrait of a Woman "Check Yourself at the Door” Jeff Gulle