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.

One of the benefits to using a quick collection is the ability to add photos from multiple folders.  Want to send your aunt some of the best photos from your trip, but also want to add a nice one of your family from Thanksgiving?  Quick Collections will allow you to select just the photos you want.

Thanks for watching, and to get more lightroom tips, follow the Lightroom Tip of the Day on twitter at @lightroomtips.

[vimeo width="440" height="330"]http://www.vimeo.com/3003894[/vimeo]

First, start out with an empty catalog.  Save your catalog where-ever it makes sense for you to do so – I keep mine in the “Pictures” folder on my mac, under a folder called “Lightroom”.

Next, pop in your memory card or plug in your camera.  I don’t have my memory card or camera handy, so I will be importing files from a folder on my computer.  I actually have lightroom set up so that when I insert my memory card, the “Import” dialogue launches – so, know that you CAN set it up to do this.

Choose “Import files from disk” if you’re importing from your hard drive, or “Import files from device” if you’re importing from a camera or memory card.

After choosing your folder, the import dialogue will show.  Play around with the different options till you get something that works for you – you’ll see that there is a list of dates (or, in this case, one date) in a check-list – this makes it easy if you have some old photos on a card that you know you’ve already imported, you can just uncheck that date.

From here you can choose to put in some develop settings which will be applied to every photo, or some keywords or a metadata set.  You can also choose the size of the initial previews – the larger the preview (going full-size, 1:1) will mean a longer import and a larger cache size of previews, but less time to load each photo if you’re needing to go full size instead of smaller previews for editing.  I would suggest sticking with minimal and if you notice an annoying lag when you’re trying to proof your photos, you can change it from there.  I typically only go 1:1 (full size) if I’m doing a batch of photos from a client shoot, where I’ll proof them at full size to see if they are sharp – saves me a little bit of time.

You can also select “show previews”, so if you know that you took seven pictures with your lens cap on and don’t want to import them at all, you can see little thumbnails and check the ones you do / don’t want to import.  This is a cool feature.

After the photos are imported, you will see them in the library.  You’ll start to see photos right away – from here you can do any editing you want, or go into the Develop tab to do some more in-depth editing.  Edits in Lightroom are non-destructive, so you can always go back to the import version of the photo as long as you don’t delete it.

Right click on any photos / group of photos you would like to export, and choose “export”.  You can also do this from the “File” menu.

Like the import dialogue, the export dialogue has lots of different options.  Most are pretty self-explainatory – you can choose a folder to export to, as well as options to “Add to this Catalog” and “Stack with the Original”.  You can do whatever you would like, here – depends on your own methods and what works best for you.

This weekend I will create a short video tutorial that goes a little more in-depth on this topic.  I hope this serves as a basic introduction – enjoy!-

I find that one of the hardest things to do is figuring out which photos will go best in the online portfolio.  I know that I need to do some more sessions, particularly with guys – almost all my headshots are of girls.  And I’m looking forward to my friends engagment shoot in the spring, to put more information there.

This week I plan to send out a facebook message to all my friends who are actors / into theatre to see if they would like to get their headshots updated and let them know about what I’m currently offering.

Also, aside from photography, I was approached to do a freelance web design gig for someone I know, based off my work on my theatre group’s website (http://www.stbernadetteplayers.org).  I don’t typically do web design, but I’m always up for a challenge, and now that I’ve learned so much more about WordPress I feel confident in using it for some simple designs – which is (hopefully) what this client is looking for.  I should be having a meeting with him in the next week or so.

What do you do to market yourself and your skills?

At 8:45, we lost power.

Frantically, my brother pulled out the flashlights, and while I searched the candle cabinet for anything that had a wick / could be set on fire, our friends started dialing people who were still on the way to bring lanterns or batteries or candles.

And then we continued partying. You’ll note the beer bottle candle holder in the picture above. I’ll take credit for that – I know, incredibly intelligent (or resourceful). The stick candles were actually best at lighting up the space, and we had a limited number of candlesticks, so we made do in a pinch.

We also lit the gas fireplaces, which helped to keep the house warm. My little brother combined parties with us this year, and his friends were mostly hanging down our basement – the fireplace was definitely necessary down there. It took a quick phone conference with my father and the help of my little brother’s friend to get it going (the pilot light had gone out) but it worked.

Our yearly treats (stromboli and little hot-dogs) were cooked on the grill outside, and a guest with an atomic clock on his iPhone counted us down to midnight instead of Dick Clark (who, I heard, is looking worse each year). We all toasted the new year by candlelight, sang “Auld Lang Syne” – or, at least, attempted to – and generally commenced in a lot of merriment.

And then, twenty minutes after midnight, the lights went back on. I’m not sure which was louder, our cheers at midnight or our cheers when the lights returned.

2008 was a good year. I got quite a bit of photography business, and I think I grew a lot in my photography. I had my first client that was not a friend; I got my first photograph “published” (more about that later). I re-started this blog, created a (better) website for myself and for my church players, and continued development of the website for my dance studio. I saw friends get engaged, get married, get pregnant (not the same group!). I visited my best friend in Cambridge and toured Venice and Florence with her, crashed a formal dinner that she was at and met Bill Gates Sr, and got pleasantly drunk off port while playing Risk with a group of Cambridge Scholars in the student retiring room after high dinner.

I worked on some fantastically awesome projects for the Admissions Office at Saint Joseph’s, and went to Puerto Rico for a business trip (yeah, what?!). Then I applied for and got a new job in the middle of the year, and absolutely love what I do now with the Center for Food Marketing.

I dropped a graduate school program and started a new one, online, through my work – ah, the benefits of working in higher education. It took three turns, but I think I’ve finally found a program that fits me!

Continued dance lessons, started voice lessons, and landed my first (minor) role in our Summer Theatre program. I also, more recently, was cast in my first LEAD role in my parish players.

Overall, it was a year of many changes, some good, some bad. I was blessed to bring in the new year with some very dear friends, and to know that I will see many more dear friends soon.

Here’s to 2009 (and being 25!) – bring it on!

I’m really getting used to using flash inside – I started off using my faux-bounce (another entry), but found that just bouncing behind me worked best and quickest.  The first time I did that, my friend asked “You know, the flash is pointing the wrong way…”.  The wrong way works, though.

This photo turned out just how I wanted it to – we had to do two takes, but it worked in the end.  I might reprocess this, but the subject is a very talented editor, so I’ll probably give him a clean version of it to photoshop to his heart’s content.  Gotta love friends who put up with your incessant photography. 

I haven’t reached the point where I can save a badly lit photo, but I thought I would share with you my current process for editing a photo.

The first photo is “SOOC” – I shoot in RAW so technically this is straight from RAW… but close enough. RAW allows for more flexibility in editing, so I try to always shoot in RAW; however, there is some altering of the photo in the processing to JPG that is inherent in RAW. At least, I think there is.

Top left photo is the SOOC+crop – this step comes first, typically, and then tweaked before export. For headshots, I grab every photo in lightroom and adjust the aspect ratio to 8×10 before I do anything else. Then, I’ll go through and individually edit each photo’s crop and straightning.

Top right photo is SOOC+crop+lightroom adjustments. This varys wildly depending on the photo. I either use my own tweaking or I’ll use a preset and go from there. For this photo I used a preset and tweaked from there.

The bottom two photos are after final photoshop tweaking. Sharpening the eyes, dodge the eye whites, brush out stray hairs, tweak the levels, and then convert to b/w for a b/w version (I use a setting for this, because I am lazy and the person who made the setting is amazingly talented and really, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel).

So, that’s kind of how I go through processing a photo. Not every photo makes it to the photoshop step; not every photo even makes it to the cropping step. But for all my final photos, this is pretty much the process.

http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/onblack.php?id=2056810170&size=large

In return, I will get a copy of the book, signed by the authors, and an invitation to the book release (which, I think they’re in California, so unless my picture is like… the cover shot, unlikely I will go).

I shot back with the following questions:
First, how will my photo be used?  Will it be in the book itself?  Color?  Black and white?  Will it be edited / where in the book are you thinking of using it / how do you plan to use it?

Will I be given credit in the book?

This is the second time I have been asked to publish a photo.  The first time is already underway, and it was for a photo I actually like less than this one, and I got paid (albeit only a little bit).  I don’t know how I feel about not getting paid – but at the same time, being published in a book is still pretty novel.

Will update when I have more information.

What would you do?

Today after work I had the privilege of re-shooting headshots for a friend of mine. I took an original set on Friday, but the late afternoon light was not working in my favor – I think it was me working against the light rather than working with it.

Here is an edited version of one of the photos from today. I’m really happy with how the shoot went – this was taken at around 5:30, with some lovely light, under trees. I never considered shooting in the shade before I read about how the light is easier to work with – now I really have to say, it’s the way to go.

One of the hardest things to learn, for me, is how to get people to pose, and relax in front of the camera. I’ve been shooting people I know up to this point, which allows for some fun banter back and forth. When the subject is comfortable in the pose, the expressions are much more natural – a lesson I learned today.

In other news, the Phillies are in the World Series for the first time since I was 9. I was born in December of 1983 – the last time a Philadelphia team won a championship I was not yet born. So, let’s go Phils!