So, I recently took photos at a married couples Valentine’s day banquet. It was kind of like a photo booth where I was set up in a room with my backdrop and lights.

As the couples came in they would stop by my room and I would take a photo of them. Between couples coming in I would load the pics to my computer crop them down to 4×6 and put them on a USB drive so that they could be printed on a small portable photo printer. My pastor’s son Jason was there assisting me, so I had him printing photos. He was seriously a big help because halfway through the night I ran out of ink. I didn’t realize that the cartridge that came with the printer was just a starter one and so he had to run out and buy me another one. I seriously do not know what I would have done without him. I think that was the most embarrassing part of the night even though now I laugh at it.

It was definitely a learning experience for me as every shoot has been. Next time I need to make sure that my expenses are not more than my profit. I purchased the printer which was about a hundred, along with photo paper which was $20, another cartridge was $40. I spent about $75 on red, white and pink fabric to place over my backdrop just so it wouldn’t be a boring black color. All of that was something I should have thought through before making purchases.

I spent about $235 and only made $145.

I’ve been looking at wedding photos all week long. As of late, I think, eat, sleep and breathe wedding photography. In March I will be shooting my brother’s wedding and it will be my first, so I am trying to learn as much as I can. I’ve been reading articles and blogs, trying to soak in as much info as I can. I am nervous and excited, but more nervous than anything. This is a one time thing and there is no room for error when you are documenting someone’s wedding. What am I getting myself into? Haha. I’ll be ok…I hope.

I got a little bored today, so I set up one of my studio lights and did a little self-portrait shooting. I really need to get a wireless remote. It’s a little more difficult to get the camera to focus right when I’m using the timer. Here are the results.

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Even though I work in a portrait studio with children all day, I had my first independent session with a child recently. I took photos of a friend’s grandson for his 1st birthday. We had been trying to get together for his shoot for months and it finally happened. I did learn a lot from this shoot and will do things a bit differently next time. Also, I had a hard time with the lights because my Alien Bee Chinese triggers weren’t working properly.

It was more difficult than I expected especially since he was very active and pretty much ran around and off the backdrop. It was funny, but I was able to catch some really cute shots and they came out better than I expected. He’s too cute for words, has a lot of personality and is very photogenic. I’ll have to invest in some PocketWizards. Anyway here are a few of my favorite shots.

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