2011 was a pretty good year for both Catchlight Studios Photography and Harmon's School of Photography. There was a good mix of wedding, portrait and commercial work, and we put on some great workshops that were well attended. We attended a few courses and workshops ourselves and enjoyed a great European vacation creating images for our own enjoyment. So in this final post of 2011, I wanted to look back over a few of our favorite images.
The first one was taken at the wedding workshop we ran in April at The Duncan House in Tavares, Florida. Our bride was lit with a PCB Einstein light in a beauty dish and the texture of her veil was enhanced in post-processing using the Tonal Contrast filter in Nik Color Efex Pro. A panoramic crop in Lightroom added to the flowing feel of the image.
In preparation for this workshop, we did a shoot at the same location with Susan's daughter, Robyn, as our 'bride'. We actually got some pretty unique images in the relaxed atmosphere of this 'pre-shoot'. In this image, I shot straight down on Robyn as she adopted a pensive pose. We again enhanced the textures in post-processing.
We did quite a number of engagement shoots, and we always like to shoot late in the day, avoiding the worst of the Florida heat, while hoping to capture a nice sunset. When we did Elizabeth and Phil's session it was cloudy and even raining a little as we loaded the car to travel to the location. We were very convinced that we would not be seeing a sunset, so we were amazed as we neared the end of the shoot to see color starting to appear in the sky. And then suddenly . . . BAM! The most vibrant sunset we have seen in a long while. Our happy couple were lit with an off-camera Quantum flash and this image was subsequently featured on Quantum's Facebook page.
The next image was captured during a Photo Safari organized by local fellow photographer Maurice Rodriguez. Our model was photographed against a cool wall in downtown Sanford (one of favorite spots for shooting seniors). The texture of the wall was enhanced using Topaz Adjust before monochrome conversion in Nik Silver Efex Pro.
Talking of seniors, we had two great sessions with brothers Trent and Shane this year. For the second of these, we went into the studio and played with a bunch of different looks and lighting - they were great sports. This image of Shane was created with three lights - two of which are providing those edgy highlights on the side of his face. The edgy feel was continued into post-processing using Topaz Detail and monochrome conversion with a Lightroom Develop Preset from Kevin Kubota.
We shot some great weddings with beautiful brides and handsome grooms. But no bride was more lovely than Erica. A wedding photographer herself, she knows the value of photography and we were honored when she asked us to capture her special day. I don't usually take my beloved 200 mm f/2.0 lens to weddings as it is large and heavy, but I knew this bride would do this magnificent lens justice and I was not wrong! All natural light for this image.
We did two shoots this year for Flashes of Hope. This wonderful organization provides professional photographs to children with cancer and their families. It is a blessing for us to be involved with them and we always come away with memorable images. Little Tyler, for example, was awesome to work with. He loved the camera, and the camera sure loved him!
In September, we became students ourselves as we attended David Ziser's week-long Master Class. We had an awesome time learning some new tricks and meeting some great people from around the country (who we keep in touch with thanks to Facebook). We captured a number of cool images, but this one stands out, not least because David subsequently featured the image on his very popular blog. We loved the vibrance of our model's dress against the monochromatic feel of the stone steps.
Susan captured the next image - a really beautiful shot of our 'bride' gazing upwards through her veil.
We had a full schedule of classes throughout the year, and we especially enjoy the 4-week Studio Lighting classes. Because we are together for 4 weeks, we get to know the students pretty well and a camaraderie develops between them. We also get some cool images of both models and students!
This image was lit with a Wescott TD5 Spiderlite and captured with the Nikon 200 mm f/2.0 lens. I love the dreamy quality that this lens gives when shot wide open.
Sometimes the students make great portrait subjects - we always make them photograph each other because it helps a lot to know what it feels like.
Not all our classes involve photographing people of course. Another popular one is our Night Photography Field Trip. In November we walked around Sanford and got a few cool shots including this one of the old pier. This was an HDR image with long exposures to get a silky appearance to the lake.
In March, Susan and I attended the huge WPPI convention in Las Vegas. It was a fun experience and we also got an opportunity to walk around this very unique city and grab a few shots.
Finally, we had a great vacation in September visiting England, Belgium and France. We especially enjoyed our couple of days in Brugges where I shot one of my favorite images of the year. This is an HDR image, but part of the post-processing involved adding a 'glow' effect which imparts a rather painterly feeling to the image.
In closing out the year, Susan and I want to wish all our family, friends, clients and students every happiness and success for 2012, and to thank everyone for their wonderful support over the last 12 months!
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