We had a wonderful day at Rose Tree Park when we met in August.  Working with old castmates is always fun – lots of goofing around and laughter, and amazing pictures in between.

We caught some great light towards the end of the shoot, and Grace gave me one of my favorite series of photos this year.  None of these are finals for her, but I think they capture the fun we had!

Youna is studying to be an opera singer at Temple University.  She has already been seen on stage in several productions.  She was lovely to meet with, and I know that she’s going to go far!

We met at a new location for both of us – Valley Forge Park.  What a fantastic place!  Lauren met me with her brother and mom, who took off to wander the park and left us to explore the visitor’s center.

I had an absolute blast shooting with Lauren, and I hope that she lands some big roles in the future!

In June I met with Ann, a local actress who needed some updated shots for upcoming auditions. She had just been in Oklahoma at the Broadway Theatre in Pitman, New Jersey. We met in Northern Liberties for the shoot – allowing for some wonderful shots of this wonderful woman!

Thanks, Ann!  Hope your auditions are going well!

We have actually spent a good deal of this summer together – we’ll both be appearing in Upper Darby Summer Stage’s Mainstage production of Thoroughly Modern Millie, and in a cabaret at the same company.  As our production approaches, we took some time out on a wonderful Friday afternoon to get Matt some updated headshots.

That’s just one of the teaser images – he hasn’t picked his finals yet.  I think they turned out great, and I hope Matt likes them too!  I know I had a lot of fun working with him, throughout this summer as a fellow cast member, and especially our hour session.  Thanks for the wonderful afternoon, Matt!

I took some photos at the performance, and am sharing them here for you. I also posted them to facebook, where I hope all the Shooters will tag each other.

I would be lying if I said I was not moved by this show.  I fell in love with the music a year or so ago, when I first heard a song called “Are you There” on an online radio station.  It was a real treat to be able to see the show, on stage; live theatre always brings a whole new dimension to the songs you hear on the soundtrack.

The show is well acted, by a fantastic group of actors.  As of this writing, the show is still running; I highly, highly recommend seeing it.  You can get more information at http://www.pgltf.org .  I hope to see it again next week.

I answered my phone, concerned; something must have happened, for him to have called me twice on this day, in a short amount of time. “Hi Sean! What’s up? Everything OK?”

“Yeah! Happy Thanksgiving! I have some good news – Shannon and I just got engaged!”

And that’s how I learned about the engagement of two of my best friends from college, not long after it happened.

And then, seven months later, I was lucky enough to spend a weekend with them in the Boston area, taking their engagement photos.

Sean and Shannon are an awesome couple – he is involved in television production, and she is involved with design. They’re funny, and fun, and so very much in love.

I went in with some ideas, and Sean and Shannon filled in the gaps – and brought me to some amazing areas, places where they had grown up, places they loved.

We spent two days doing photos, spending time with their families, and generally having fun. Thanks, Sean and Shannon, for an awesome weekend, and for being my very first Engagement session!

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, fire up Lightroom. Make sure you’re in the Library module (E), then get yourself in Grid view (G). Select a folder, of course, to make sure you can actually see some photos. Now, press J to cycle through your grid overlay view options. There are three choices, what I like to call “totally not helpful”, “standard”, and “woah”. Your mileage may vary.

Look at all that info!

Each symbol has a specific function – but there are sometimes so many symbols that it can get overwhelming. What the heck is that little arrow at the top corner, and what am I supposed to do with that information? Since I’ve been organizing my library, my files are a little out of whack, and I looked at my library and saw every single possible option in three images. Crazy stuff. I’m going to take you through them, one by one. Enjoy.

A few things to know before we begin :

1. Toggle states (when I talk about clicking to toggle something on or off) will activate the current photo and all other photos you have selected.
2. If you see me refer to a letter or number in parentheses – such as (E) – that is the keyboard shortcut for what I am talking about.
3. No, really, over time you will understand what all of these different options do.  Be patient.

For reference sake, this is “standard” overlay.

File Info

Index Number

The index number is shown in big, light numbers at the top left corner of the tile.  The photos above are index numbers 10713, 10714, and 10715.  I have a lot of photos.

File Name / Other Info

I have this turned off, but at the top of the tile you can choose to have alternate information about the photo.  Go to your View > View Options …, and in the dialogue box, under “Grid View > Compact Cell Extras”, go ahead and turn on Top Label.  Check out the different options!  Depending on what information your photo has in the metadata, you might not see anything for some of the options.  You’ll also see various options for the bottom label.  Leave these as “Rating and Label” for right now.

File Problems

File not Found

If you see a little question mark in the top right corner, that refers to “File not found”.  Click on the mark and a dialogue will pop up that will help you to find your file.

Updated Metadata

You’ll see three lines followed by an arrow or an exclamation mark in the top right corner if your metadata has gone out of sync.  I actually don’t know HOW to make this happen; it happens when the metadata on the file is different than the metadata in Lightroom.  You can save the metadata to your file if you want by clicking this icon and then pressing “save” in the dialogue box that appears.

• Metadata was changed in Lightroom and is unsaved on the file.
• Metadata was changed externally and is not synced in Lightroom.
• Error saving metadata to file.

Loading….

This one isn’t actually shown, because I couldn’t screencap it quickly enough.  If you see three little dots in the top right corner, that means that the file preview is loading.  You don’t have to do anything with this status.

Flags, Ratings, and Colors

Flagged Status

The flagged status of a photo shows up in the top left-hand corner.  Photos flagged as “Pick” (P) will have a white flag, “Reject” (X) will have a black flag with an x on it, and unflagged photos (U) will have no flag.  If you hover over the top-left corner of an unflagged photo, you will see the outline of a flag appear – click to “Pick” the photo, click again to “Reject” the photo, and again to “Unflag” the photo.

Star Rating

Star ratings are shown at the bottom left of the tile, right underneath the photo itself.  Hover to see the various star ratings, and click to select.

5 stars / 0 stars

This can be a tricky way to rate your photos – I find the graphics are often too small to fine tune my ratings.  I prefer to use the number keys (1 – 5 / 0 to remove) to add stars to my photos.

Color Label

Color labels are shown as the tile background (rather than the default gray) as well as the little color label below the photo.  The color labels can be changed by click on the little square, or by selecting a photo and pressing (6 – 9).  Yes, you’re right, not all the colors have a number!  If you are using the number keys to add color labels, you can’t apply purple.

Edit Me!

Photo has adjustments

The presence of this icon in the bottom-right corner of the photo preview is an indicator that your photo has adjustments applied to it. Click to go to the develop panel.

Crop

The presence of this icon in the bottom-right corner of the photo preview is an indicator that your photo has been cropped. Click to go to the develop panel and adjust crop.

Keywords

The presence of this icon in the bottom-right corner of the photo preview is an indicator that your photo has keywords applied to it. Click to show the Keywords pane.

Rotate

Hover over the bottom right and left corners to show the rotate handles.  Use these to rotate your photo.

Stack and Copies

Stack Handle

Two lines (let’s call them drawer handles) on the left or right of a tile indicate that the photo is the top or bottom of a stack.  All the photos that are in between these two marks are also in the stack.  If you have one photo that has a drawer handle on either side, that is a closed stack.  Go ahead and click on the drawer handle to open or close the stack.

Number in the Stack

The top photo of the stack will always have a number on it – if you are hovering over that photo, it will say “1 of x” with x being the number of photos in the stack; if you are not hovering over it, it will just say the number of photos in the stack.  As you hover over the various photos in the stack, you will see their numbers.  If you click on the numbers, the photo will move to the top of the stack.

Virtual Copy

Virtual copies of an original photo will have a little folded corner on their bottom left.  They will be next to the photo they are copies of / grouped with the other virtual copies of that photo.

Quick Collection

The circle at the top right corner of the photo is the toggle for adding a photo to the quick collection.

Don’t Like What You See?

If you want some alternate view options, go to View > View Options.  Play around with the various options in the Grid View option tab to see what works best for you and your workflow.

If you have any questions, or want to share how YOU keep your grid view and why, feel free to leave a comment!  I’d love to hear from you!