Southern Exposure April 2011

Janet Boschker Children in the Spring

APRIL 2011

online publication of

SEPPA

Jamie Hayes Hollywood Glam Mary Fisk-Taylor Wedding Trends Victoria Kelly Re-Frame

Cover Art “Salvation” by Lora Yeater

Chairman of the Board President

Kevin Newsome kevin@newsomesstudio.com Mary Alice Ross maryaliceross@gmail.com

1st Vice-President

Delaware

***Don Engler Peggy Parkinson ***Bob Blanken Joe Tessmer

District of Columbia

Doug Peninger ncdoug01@triadbiz.rr.com

2nd Vice-President

George Singleton george.singleton6@verizon.net

Florida

Secretary/Treasurer

Anthony Rumley anthony@anthonyrumley.com

Georgia

Print Exhibition Chair Randy McNeilly randy@mcneillyphotography.com

Executive Director Thomas McCollum seppa@bellsouth.net

Southern Exposure Southern Exposure magazine is an online publication of SEPPA and is published monthly.

Editor Doug Peninger NCDOUG01@triadbiz.rr.com 336-883-7104 Ad Sales & Business Manager Thomas McCollum seppa@bellsouth.net 888-272-3711 Article & Ad Submission 5th of each month On-Line Publication 1st of each month

***Dana Lunden Kaye Newsome

***Sally Jackson Spencer Smith ***Vanessa Ard David Corry

Maryland

***Darrell Ivy Gil Brady

Mississippi/Alabama

North Carolina

***Karen Goforth Janet Boschker

South Carolina

***Clark Berry Greg Martin

Tennessee

***Eddie Lambert Barbara White

Virginia

***Sharon Younce Robert Holman

SEPPA

2712 Marcia Drive Lawrenceville, GA 30044 888-272-3711 www.4seppa.com Acceptance of advertising does not carry with it endorsement by the publisher. Opinions expressed by Southern Exposure or any of its authors does not neccesarily reflect the positions of the Southeastern Professional Photographers Association.

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West Virginia

***Brent Kepner Christie Kepner ***state president representative

Additional information of state events within the SEPPA Affiliate can be found using the state links below. Please view their websites by clicking on the web address and you will be re-directed.

Delaware www.delawarephotographers.com

District of Columbia www.ppsgw.org

Mississippi/Alabama www.ppma.net

North Carolina www.ppofnc.com

South Carolina

Florida

www.ppofsc.com

www.fpponline.org

Georgia

www.gppa.com

Maryland www.marylandppa.com

SEPPA is a regional affiliate of Professional Photographers of America and hosts an annual District Image Judging.

To learn more about PPA, click the PPA Logo.

Tennessee www.tnppa.com

Virginia

www.vppa.org

West Virginia www.ppwv.org

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Happy April The 2011 SEPPA convention has come and gone. On the five hour drive home, I had a lot of time to contemplate and remember the wonderful experience in Athens.

A convention does not happen on its own.

It takes a team. Every single person, from print handlers, trade show personnel to the smiling faces handling registration, all are vital to the success of such an event. I thank each and every one of you for all of your time and hard work.

This month, we welcome West Virginia to the SEPPA family. Along with it, the amazing cover art created by Lora Yeater.

SEPPA is proud to have you as a member state and we look forward to serving you.

Take a few moments and look over the convention highlight photos. They are way too fun! Plan now to be with us in 2013, when we will return to Athens.

We have four incredible articles this month.

Jamie, Victoria, Janet and Mary are going to make you stop and think!

Get ready, get set, learn!

The SEPPA Board of Governors, at the 2010 meeting in Franklin, TN, approved the all new SEPPA Degree Program.

The Southeastern Photographic Fellowship is now a reality!

You can earn your new SPF Degree in two categories.

The orange ribbon will be with a concentration in print credits.

The purple ribbon be with a concentration in service to the organzation.

Both options will be completed with education and or service credits.

You may also, achieve both Degrees separately for a purple and orange ribbon.

SEPPA will post the Credit Chart and submission forms at a later date.

Be sure to check back.

All events, beginning April 1, 2010 will be eligible to submit for credit.

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Shop Inside Cover

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Pages

the

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE APRIL 2011

Showcase Millers PhotoFlex White House Custom Color

Academy Productions Little Dreamers CCI Lab

Attend 1 14 20 21 25

East Coast School The Lamarr School

Learn 8 12

Chicks who Click Super Monday with PPA

“Helter Skelter”

by Richard Ramsey

Florida School

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Victoria Kelly Re-Frame Mary Fisk - Taylor Wedding Trends Janet Boschker

Chikdren & Springtime

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Cover Artist

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Jamie Hayes Hollywood Glam

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Kevin Newsome Real Photographer

Lora Yeater

Victoria Kelly

A photographer friend called me recently to let me know he’d had enough...it was the economy, he said, that was beating him down and taking all the joy out of the career he had built so carefully over the last 30 years.

Now, mind you, there are days when I feel like my crystal ball has gone cloudy--but, as another friend of mine recently declared...”I’m just not going to participate in all the negativity!”

I’m not suggesting that you start chanting or offering up incantations to the spirits, but I AM suggesting that you spend more of your mental energy looking at the positives instead of the negatives.

My executive coach (who, in this instance, happens to be my husband) would call this a combination of positive affirmation and re-framing.

Here are some of the things that I’m doing to maintain a positive attitude in this admittedly bumpy economy:

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On the financial side of the business, I’m constantly checking the numbers...are my expenses remaining under control? Can I time my purchases for the studio a little bit better? I want to take advantage of every vendor-offered discount that I can. I dropped the subscriptions to a couple of magazines, re-assessed the cell phone plan for both the studio and my home and made a few other adjustments that don’t seem like a lot by themselves but that can add up to significant savings over the course of a year.

I’m forecasting my sales for my upcoming senior season with a little less “blue sky” than in the past. My financial planner is a fan of the economic talk shows...and while I won’t say that I enjoy them as much as I do a new episode of “Glee”, I’m paying attention to the global economy.

I’ve lessened the frequency of chatting with acquaintances who are doom and gloom.

Let’s face it...negativity just breeds more of the same. I want to surround myself with people who have positive “can do” attitudes.

Instead of waking every morning with a feeling of impending disaster, take a few moments to re-frame those thoughts...you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what a difference it will make in your outlook for the day.

I’m convinced that there will always be a market for photographers with the skill set of producing images with good lighting and posing...and in the meantime I know I’m riding the rough seas of the economic downtown with a tight ship!

So...share your light...make someone smile...and remember the saying that goes...”we do not remember days...we remember moments.”

Today, give someone a moment they will remember.

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Mary Fisk-Taylor

I have spent a lot of time this year working on our wedding marketing and trying to make some changes. As I began to examine our past efforts and consider what to keep and what to reinvent I realized that I needed a lot more information. I really needed to study wedding trends, wedding spending and the overall wedding market. I was surprised how much really great information that I was able to find on-line and found it very valuable. So, I would like to share many of the facts that I discovered while searching the web.

Theknot.com and the Wedding Channel compiled most of this information after surveying 19,000 couples that were married in 2010.

It was very encouraging to read that 1 in 5 brides surveyed are spending more than $30,000 (not including the engagement ring or honeymoon) on their weddings and 12% of them are spending more than $40,000. This is great news for wedding photographers that market and cater to the higher end bride and groom. Many professionals expect this number to increase in 2011 and absolutely blossom in 2012. So, it is important to keep those large wedding collections and options on our price lists so that when those brides call we can answer with the right products.

When the experts researched the most expensive wedding areas in the country, the southeast made the list several times. Washington DC/Northern Virginia and Southern Florida were in the top 10 most expensive places to have a wedding coming in at a greater than $33,000 average. Baltimore, Maryland was in the top 15 with the average right at $30,000. New York, New Jersey and Philadelphia topped the list closer to a $40,000 average. The following are some great facts and information that I found on the internet:

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ECONOMY The Economy’s Decreasing Impact. Less than a third (31%) of brides said the economy affected their wedding budget – a decrease from 34% in 2009. However, when it does come to lowering the wedding budget, one successful cost-cutting tactic used by brides is to trim the number of wedding guests – 141 was the average in 2010, compared with 149 in 2009. Despite the decrease in wedding guests, wedding standards weren’t affected, as the average wedding spend-per-guest remained the same as it was in 2009 – $194.

BRIDE & GROOM SNAPSHOT Couples Are Older and Cohabitating. Not only are couples older at the time of their wedding compared with previous years (29 for brides and 31 for grooms in 2010 versus 28 for brides and 30 for grooms in 2009 and 2008), but more of them are living together prior to marriage – nearly three-quarters (74%) compared with 70% in 2009 and 2008.

LOCATION More Destination Weddings. Destination weddings rose the past two years, with an increase of 20% since 2008. In fact, approximately 1 in 4 couples considered their wedding a destination wedding in 2010. This, in turn, affected the percentage of guests needing overnight accommodations – 42% compared with 36% in 2008.

The following are some statistics and breakdowns of the average wedding budget across the country. These facts and figures are a result of the survey conducted by theknot.com:

Average Wedding Statistics

Wedding Dress Spend: $1,099 Percentage of Destination Weddings: 24% Bride’s Age: 29 Groom’s Age: 31 Number of Guests: 141 Average Wedding Spend (on a per guest basis): $194 Number of Bridesmaids: 4 Number of Groomsmen: 4 Length of Engagement: 14 months Most Popular Engagement Month: December (16%)

2010 Average Wedding Budget Breakdown

Category

2010 National Average Spend

Overall Wedding (excluding honeymoon) Ceremony Site

Reception Venue Reception Band Reception DJ Photographer Videographer Wedding Gown Florist/Décor Invitations Wedding Cake Ceremony Musicians Catering (cost per head) Wedding Day Transportation Favors Rehearsal Dinner

Engagement Ring

$26,984 $1,393 $12,124 $3,081 $900 $2,320 $1,463 $1,099 $1,988 $351 $540 $503 $61 $667 $222

$1,127 $5,392

Most Popular Wedding Month: June (15%) Most Popular Wedding Color: White/Ivory (43%)

Mary Fisk Taylor mary@hayesandfisk.com 1-804-740-9307 Twitter @maryfisktaylor facebook - maryfisktaylor

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Janet Boschker

Ahhhhh……..spring is here! Now back to the real me…….the one who wants to make everything beautiful in my life. I am of course talking about my longing to get out and dig in the dirt as the weather warms and the days get longer! Yes, I love to garden and I love thinking about and planning what I will do each year to make my garden a better space to photograph children – my favorite subjects! Let me share a few things I have discovered over the years that have worked for me.

The garden is a canvas that is a work in progress…. As with anything, some things work better than others, and especially in photography.

I love having the ability to step outside and have wonderful areas to work. It’s so convenient and gives me an edge over having to go to clients’ homes where there may not be ideal locations. The starting point of course is to analyze your light and choose plants that work for the amount of sun that you get – there are many books dedicated to this subject, so I’m not going there, but will skip to the fun – texture and color. For me, I want to develop the areas that are part shade to shade, since that is where I will want to shoot.

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Of course you want to choose evergreens as anchors and to give the garden some structure. My favorites: dwarf boxwoods – great for low hedges, they are slow growing and low maintenance, suitable for establishing some nice leading lines. Dwarf gardenias – fragrant white floweres in the spring. Pay attention to the word dwarf unless you are interested in a lot of pruning., camelias - the camellias will be blooming when nothing else is in winter, along with Lenten roses – great in shady areas, Lenten roses bloom February through May and have wonderful glossy leaves that stay green all year long. Easy to grow and drought tolerant, they can be a bit pricy, but are well worth it.

In Charlotte as in most of the south, drought is something we are all too familiar with, so finding plants that are drought tolerant is pretty important for a low maintenance garden. There is a plant called the Cast Iron Plant – you may have noticed these broad leafed plants growing at the airport in the parking deck area – that’s because they literally need no attention whatsoever and will survive and thrive with little sun or water – and they are very attractive in portraits – so if you have a dry, hot, shady area, rush out to the nursery and snap them up! Acuba and aralia are good choices as well and survive on the hillside in my backyard in the shade – and they are interesting large leafed evergreens that work well in photography. When you think about shade plants, hostas and ferns are usually what come to mind. I love the variegated hostas – but not in my photographs! Too busy! I much prefer the blue gray varieties and the giant size green on green. Ferns – my favorite is the evergreen leather leaf fern – and the Queen fern is great in containers, but is an annual in our area unfortunately.

Sedums are great perennials that are very drought tolerant and come in so many varieties of varying heights from ground cover to 3 feet and taller – they bloom at different time, my favorite is called Autum joy – a bluegreen leaf that blooms in the autumn with a rusty red color.

A word about color… think about what you tell your clients in a clothing conference – warm colors come forward and compete for your attention while cool colors receed……. The same is true in the garden, so all those wonderful yellow, red and orange flowers are used sparingly – I really prefer the blues, purples and greens when I am selecting flowers – speedwell, lavender, pansies, petunias all come in wonderful variations that are there but don’t take away from the subject. Another thing to consider is to have planters that are lightweight and easily moved around to balance and add interest where you want it.

See you in the garden center!

Janet Boschker www.northlightphotography.com jbnlight@aol.com

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Lora has been truly blessed with the gift of telling a story through the lens of a camera. What began as a love of capturing her own children has turned into a true passion in 2008 when she was able to start her own photography business, Memories by Lora Yeater Photography.

Lora is a member of the Professional Photographers of West Virginia, Professional Photographers of America, American Senior Photographers (ASP), and Senior Photographers International (SPI).

She has been named West Virginia Photographer of the Year 2011, 2010, and 2008. This was a high honor for her the first time ever entering competition. She has only competed four years and was able to earn her Masters of Photography Degree in the first three years of competition. During the years of 2010 and 2011, she has scored perfect 100’s on three of her prints.

Lora has had great success in her few years of competing and plans to continue that quest in the years to come. She says “I enjoy entering competitions each year because I always strive to do my best and am able to raise the bar higher and set significant goals for myself to achieve.”

“SALVATION” About the Art Lora says, “I have always been intrigued by the West Virginia Penitentiary, this led me to want to strive to do something different. While thinking about this, I came up with the concept for ”Salvation.”

Note: Images chosen for the cover of Southern Exposure are first place, distinguished or other award winners from the annual affiliated judging.

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Jamie Hayes

This month I re-created a vintage Hollywood glamour head shot with only three lights. I had the opportunity to speak with a friend who shoots a lot of magazine editorial fashion and he told me that the only difference between lighting a standard portrait and a more fashion forward image is the type and placement of the fill light. With that in mind I give you this month’s image.

First I started with a very large fill light, relative to the size of the main light I selected for the face, positioned at a very low angle aimed up at the face. (photo1 shown with the accent light on too) I have seen this type of “under light” used in current print ads. The only challenge with using such a large fill light directly in front and under the camera was that I was not able to shoot at a low camera angle, so to give me the look of shooting from a lower camera position I had to raise the model. (thank goodness for my Hansen Fong Easy Steps, I really couldn’t live without them!)

(See the Set up photo)

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photo 1

photo 2

photo 3

I selected a small soft box for the main light to sculpt the face and create a soft but contrasty look. I also used a 5:1 light ratio and a Rembrandt lighting pattern to further enhance the contrast. (photo2) To finish the shot I placed a small contrasty strip light to her side and back at a 45 degree angle for separation and to accent her hair, breasts, and the fur stole. (photo3) For a touch of that old Hollywood warmth I lowered the shutter speed to 1/5 sec. allowing the halogen modeling light to influence and warm up the color temperature of the entire shot. I shot photo 4 to show how neutral the color temperature would be with the modeling light turned off thus effecting the overall color temperature.

The background was left over Christmas tree lights hung over a paper background tube against a black fabric background. The size of the circles of confusion were controlled by the wider aperture.

set-up

Camera: Canon 1DS Mark III Lens: Canon 35-350 L Series 3.5-5.6 Zoom Lens Exposure: 1/5 sec @ f/6.3 100 ISO RAW File Capture and jpeg (for viewing purposes only) Light Meter: Sekonic L-358 Light Modifiers: Larson 4x6, 17x17 and 9x24 soft boxes Strobe: Profoto Compact 600r

Kevin Newsome

Are you a “Real Photographer?”

Kevin is featured each month as he gives us his latest rant.

Some things may hit home, some may be surprisingly poignant. When it’s all said and done, it’s just Kevin’s opinion and he thought he should share it. We, at Southern Exposure, hope you will enjoy this month’s installment of “A Few Moments With...”. This month, “Are You a Real Photographer?”.

(Click on the title, REAL PHOTOGRAPHER, and you will be linked to the video.)

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