These batteries rock my face off

Posted on February 23, 2009

I have a lot of photographers that read my blog, so I’m going to start mixing in some geeky photography stuff just for fun, and to help out anyone that may actually benefit from my incoherent ramblings. Here’s a little gear tidbit for you all.

Nobody likes going through a gazillion AA batteries for their flashes over the course of a year. Many buy rechargeable batteries to save some dough, and usually they perform better than regular ol’ alkalines. The thing is, not all rechargeable batteries are created equal.

Enter Powerex. My friend Joe C. told me about these, after I had tried everyother major brand under the sun, and was never happy. These bad boys recycle faster than a california tree-hugger driving a prius, and I can shoot almost all day on one set. Definitely on two. Plus they last well over 1000 charges. And with the Powerex Pro 8-battery charger you can fully charge them in 1-hour, less if they aren’t fully drained. You can also soft-charge (or deep-cycle) every now and then in only 2-hours, which improves their capacity.

The down side is they cost a little over 3 bucks a pop, meaning $25 for an 8-pack (but hey, they come with a cool plastic case), and the charger can cost as much as $70. Tooooooootaly worth it though. Try the Adam Nyholt Powerex 30-day challenge. If you aren’t satisfied I GUARANTEE that I’ll take those batteries off your hands, free of charge.

Perry and PJ’s Wedding

Posted on February 19, 2009

Perry and PJ were married at the gorgeous St. Paul’s church in the museum district. Then they threw an awesome party just a short walk away at the fabulous Hotel Zaza. (We also did their FANTASTIC engagement session in one of the Zaza suites. That place rocks!)

Hanging out with Perry and PJ all day you get the feeling that they’re a fun-loving couple who are totally into each other, and judging by the energy at their wedding, have lots of people that love them. It was a great time! Blake shot this wedding with me, and Danny stopped by during the reception just to have some fun shooting with us.

Check out some of their wedding images below, and scroll to the bottom to catch their slideshow!

Thanks, Perry and PJ, for an awesome time!

Vegas, Baby!

Posted on February 16, 2009

We’re in Vegas for the WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International) convention. So far we are having a great time! I lost my driver’s liscense while traveliing, so right now I can’t drink, gamble, or buy anything with my AMEX (because they card you for everything here), but that’s ok, I’ve got my Sugar Momma to buy me drinks And my good friend Chris, who is house-sitting for us, is overnighting me my passport so at least I’ll be able to get home!

We’ve been able to meet up with some Houston Photographers, and meet a few new people as well. Today was just a time to settle in and relax– tomorrow the real work begins. My goals are to have a good time and solidify my relationships with my Houston peeps, but more importantly to make some new contacts with talented photographers from around the country. I’m also hoping to pick up a few new tricks from some of the classes and come home with ideas for sweet new products for my clients! I didn’t take my camera out with me today, but I did snap a few shots of my room at the MGM Signature.

Pretty sweet, huh? Big king size bed, full size sofa, full kitchen, huge bathroom, big LCD TV, the works. It is a little further of a walk through the tunnels to the convention center, but totally worth it. I definitely recommend this place.

So I know I kind of lamed-out with regards to photos on this post. I promise I’ll get some more in the coming days. I just don’t want to look like a dork toting around my D3 with me everywhere, but I AM at a PHOTOGRAPHERS convention, right???

So quick poll: should I carry around my camera? Dorky or not?

Graeme’s Bridals

Posted on February 14, 2009

Graeme worked it out for an incredible bridal session at the St. Regis. Super-glamorous bride + a super-classy place like the St. Regis = AWESOMETOWN!

My Faaaaavorite

Props to Graeme for tuffin it out in the smelly kitchen!

Great session, Graeme! Can’t wait until Feb. 28th!

Marlo and Justin’s Engagements

Posted on February 13, 2009

Marlo and Justin rocked out a great engagement session in the warehouse district. The weather was GORGEOUS and these two worked it out! We followed up with some incredible fajitas and margaritas at Mama Ninfa’s afterwards. Thanks for a great shoot guys!

LOVE THIS.

Don’t try sitting in the middle of a busy intersection at rush hour unless supervised by a trained professional.

Intimate pose + solar flare + chain link fence = HOT!

My FAAAVORITE.

Lindsey and Jeramy’s Wedding

Posted on February 11, 2009

Lindsey and Jeramy were married in Conroe and had their wedding at the always wonderful Woodlands Resort. Jennifer from the resort coordinated the reception and did a fantastic job! Lindsey and Jeramy decided to break tradition and see each other before the wedding, which I think is a great idea! They were able to spend some time together before the wedding, which helped calm their nerves, and we were able to knock out most of the formal portraits, which I LOVE. Check out some of the shots below, and don’t forget their SLIDESHOW at the bottom of the page.

When the first saw each other

Sweet!

Their band ROCKED! I completely forgot their name though

Claudia and Edgar’s Wedding

Posted on February 10, 2009

Well, here’s my last wedding of 2008! Claudia and Edgar are one of the most laid back and cool couples I have ever worked with. It was my first time to shoot at the new Co-Cathedral downtown, and WOW that place is gorgeous. LOTS of light, lots of warm colors, and lots of room to move around to get really cool shots. Anyway, here are some shots from Claudia and Edgar’s big day. And don’t forget to check out their SLIDESHOW.

Jocelyn’s Bridals

Posted on February 9, 2009

Here are a few picks from Jocelyn’s great bridal session downtown. She was so much fun to work with, and we got some great shots! I also have to give her mad props for her choice of prints. I take a lot of different types of poses on a shoot– some a little more traditional for mom, and some, well, not so traditional. 90% of the time the bride and/or MOB (mother of the bride) pick one of the more traditional poses to display at the wedding. Not Jocelyn! She had 4 prints made, and they were all shots I would have picked myself! Some of them are in this post! A word of advice to brides: pick the photos that you first fall in love with, not those that you think other people will like. You’ll be much happier, and your guests will love them as well!

So gorgeous!

My favorite!

My second favorite!

Some of the people in line just didn’t get it…

Thanks for a great shoot, Jocelyn!

Goodbye Cable, Hello Apple TV

Posted on February 8, 2009

It started off with the simple need to easily display slideshows on my TV so I could have proofing sessions with my clients. We had just moved in to the house, got the living room set up, and were preparing for our first such proofing session (two on the same day, actually). I was experimenting with hooking up my laptop to the TV and was just not happy with the way the photos looked– no matter how much calibrating I did. Finally, the night before our proofing sessions I thought, “what a great excuse to buy an Apple TV!” I sent Kacie out to the Apple Store just before closing, as I finished some things around the house. When she got back I hooked it up, and a few clicks later it was syncing with iTunes on my mac. I selected to run a slideshow of some of my wedding photos and they looked gorgeous! No calibration necessary.

After a few weeks of playing with the Apple TV and buying episodes of Bones that the DVR missed because it wasn’t hooked up, we had a revelation. We only keep up with, at the most, 10 shows a year. If we bought the season pass on iTunes (in HD, of course) for each of these shows, assuming they all cost $70 each (which is higher than they actually would cost), that would come out to $700/year. We currently spend $90/month for digital cable, which comes out to $1080 year. That’s a savings of over 300 bucks! Plus, we can watch each show when we want with no commercials (and no fast-forwarding through commercials), the quality is better than cable or satellite, and we can get all the shows on premium channels like HBO without paying extra (which was not included in the $90/month for Comcast).

Now, we don’t watch local news or live sports, so this works out well for us since neither is available on iTunes. However, with a cheap TV antenna I can get over-the-air HD of all the local channels for free (and in better quality than Comcast, since it is not compressed), so we do have access to news and sports if we want. We found this to be a win-win situation, so….

We canceled our cable service. It was a very gratifying feeling. It’s only been a week since we went cold-turkey, but it’s going well so far! I’ll let you know how we feel 6 months from now.

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