Time - more valuable than money

A few people have mentioned to me that they would love to see more photos on the blog. I'm working on it. Problem is that all photos go through the office computer (the one with the most power). And, I write my blog usually first thing in the morning on the Imac. So, I think I'll start bringing my portable hard drive home. It will allow me to upload a few images to the server and work on files at home.

I love technology.

Had an interesting idea today.

On the second page of the site - http://www.excellencephoto.com/site/

I'm going to add 3 photograph that I want people to rate. The one with the highest rating will win a prize. No sure what yet, but I'll make it something cool.

My morning rant - Not about photography

Since I was 11 I've been a WW2 historical buff. I read a book on D day and became enamored with the courage and sacrific of man during war.

Now yesterday morning the lawyers for the 17 accused terrorists requested that their ckients be treated better. Complained their clients were only allowed 5 minutes to eat, kept away for 5 days p and restricted assesss to their lawyerd.

Like most people my first reaction was - screw them. However after 3 men at guantonamo prison killed themselves I started to change my mind.

The problem I have with the US, and Canada. Is that by not disclosing full info to defendent lawyers, misstreating prisoners, holding people for years without charges is that it goes against the fundamental rights of man . Once countries start to abandon the ideals of freedom and democracy they are no better than the murders who kill in the name of god.

You see that is the problem today. If we (US and Canada and Briton) cannot he ideals and values that exceed that of our enemies than how can we argue that our way is better? In WW2 the honour and pride of American, Canadian and Britsh soldiers was legendary. Today there are indications that a platoon wiped out a village of people - just because.

We need to treat our captives as we would hope our enemies would treat our brother if they were taken. Think about it.

Thats my rant.

Oh Canada!

Turns out that TorontoHomeMovies.com has to change in a big way. We've been studying SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and have the same content on 5 sites actually is worse for us than one site with different city links.

So the new site will be called http://www.canadahomemovies.com

We aready registered the name and now need to build the page from scratch. The problem is google. They use a very complicated formula twhen determining search parameters. Certain things make the site rank high than others.


WOW I am loving this Imac. Last night Isaac showed me how to use the multimedia centre. Actually he grabed the remote and started pushing the buttons and itunes starting in this cool interface. Now I use the Imac as an entertainment centre in the dining room. Oh what fun.


I'm sooooo behind on presentations. I have 4 weddings (3 from this weekend) I will be uploading today and tomorrow. Wait to you see these images. They kick butt.

Only 12 days to Florida - yaaa.

What a long day - but a fun one!!!

I met a couple who shot their wedding nearly 8 years ago. Imagine how many things have passed since then. September 11th, google taing over the world, cell phones wee the size of lunch boxes.

Time truely flies. I gotta go to sleep I'm misspelling everything. Started at 5am and its now 1:46. Anyhow - get the new slidesows up from Marianna and Natasha and of course mine sometime tomorrow.

Bad thing about meeting that couple is I forgot their name. I am usuall pretty good with names but in this case I went blank. It was cool that both her and his came up to me to ask for business cards for friends that are getting married.

Ohh almost forgot - May 2007 is nearly booked we only have one date available May 19 2007. So if you know someone that is getting married please ask them to visit us. We are going to try book the either ¥ear of 2007 by Spetember 30t this year. My goal is sell out all 2007 so I can concentrate on Portraits.

Night - :) morning

The most stressful part of a wedding is the packing

This weekend we have 3 weddings> I have been packing since Tuesday. Unbelievable.

You see the way we work is that when we go to weddings it's on our day off. We expect to arrive with all the equipment in the exact place it is supposed to be. Tested. Batteries charged. Bolts tighten.

It's Murphy's law

In the past when packing was rushed - that was usually the time that something went wrong. Either a battery died, or a back jammed. You name it, it can happen.

So few years ago - I was sitting on the beach in Florida in March and I had a brilliant idea - stress before chill later.

Every single detail for each wedding is planned for. Back up lights, bulbs, extension cords, tripods, camera, video cameras everything!!

Then I got even smarter. We pack most of the idea as we leave each previous wedding and the rests on Thursday. This way if I have to go and pick up from the store anything I have 2 days to do it. This week though we are packing for 3 weddings so I started on Wednesday.

Thank God Saturday is tomorrow so I can relax!


Count down to Miami. 15 days. I have a meeting with a photographer that speciazilies in Digital Art books. Hope it's something cool. All to often what looks great on the web is actually not that great in person. That is the reason I insist on meeting every bride and groom before they book. You won't believe how many people try book us over the internet never having ben to the studio. I think it is because they don't want to lose the date.

It's official film is dead :(

 

As most of you know I love shooting film. But after a many months(years) of pondering and debating it has become clear that shooting film at weddings serves my customer wrong.



In the past the argument always has been that the quality of digital did not meet the standards of film. Well that is simple not true anymore. With our 16.7 & 12 megapixel canons we can easiliy print up to 30x40 with NO difference. It helps that we are Adobe Photoshop CS2 experts.

Click here to see a slideshow that was scanned from a film proof then

Click here to see another couple shot digitally

The final straw for me was when I learned that my lab (the people who develop our film) switched to scanning our negatives and printing from the scan. This happened early last year. It was a sign of things to come.

We are the consummate professionals. In fact, Marianna, Natasha and I are probable a little crazy when it comes to provide the best quality available. We recently attended a bridal show in Ft Lauderdale, Florida. It was really cool being on the other side of the desk. Anyhow, I visited 7 different photographers. Not one of them had packages less than 4000 US to start.

The quality was absolutely terrible!!! We are sooooooooooooo lucky to have amazing labs here in Toronto. The photographic images taken looked great. Emotional, well composed funky and unique. But compared to the print quality we produce, I was actually upset! How could these guys provide such terrible images to their couples?

So we are shooting all weddings on high end professional digital cameras from now on.

But wait there’s more!!!!

Some of you may still want some film to be taken. No worries no question, just let me know before your wedding and we will shoot a few rolls along side the digital cameras.

Now my five reasons I absolutely love digital

1. The lenses are all autofocus. You see I where glasses, so when I focus with the film camera it takes a few seconds for me to focus then refocus to make sure its dead on. With our pro series lenses every shot is bang on sharp no matter how fast the bride or groom is running.


2. For the past 8 years I have been studying Adobe Photoshop. As a member of NAPP, I have honed my skills and that of our team to the point where we can basically do anything. When I shoot with film we have to take the extra  step of scanning the film, removing the dust that usually accompanies the scan. When we shoot high resolution digital files we save time. And having to explain the $35 scanning fee.


3. It way less obtrusive. Have you ever seen the photographer with the huge ugly tripod standing in the middle of the aisle as the Bride and her father walk down the aisle. Nuff said.


4. Storage and safety. We are fanatics about workflow. Workflow is the methodology of how you produce the same complicated event over and over. So when we shoot digital our main concern after taking kick ass photos is preserving them. On the day of the wedding with film each film is wrapped up and stored in our camera bag until Monday when we bring them to the lab to be developed. In the back of my mind I am always worried until I see the proofs a week later. Then the negatives have to be stored carefully so that they an be used for ordering enlargements in the future. With digital we create a total of 4 back ups 3 on the day of the wedding. If the lab loses a CD no biggie we burn another.


5. Digital Art, Imagination Art Album, and Fine tuning. You see I have always believed going back to my performance days (search the blog achieves for my days with the Cadets of Bergen county) that for me to be truly happy as an artist I need to push the boundaries. Like Jackson Pollack or Cindy Sherman I cannot accept that every wedding can be taken the exact same way. There are too many variables.

 

Digital Art allows me to take an image, and using Photoshop rework it into my vision. (We never charge for this ever. And I would love your input if you have any ideas)

Imagination Art Album is a secret project that I will let you in on when I’m ready. Until then sorry.

Fine tuning is what happen today with Christina. She had an image that was taken by Marianna that was a close up. She loved the photo and wanted it as her final 30x40 portrait. But her arm had a few red splotches on the upper part where the waxing go a little out of hand. In the old days it would have cost over $145 to remove the red by having a retouch artist paint on the negative. Because it was shot digitally I was to fix it in front of her. In 45 second. For free.

So to close off the really long post (sorry guys) – You can see that just like screw caps replaced can openers, digital cable boxes replace complicated VCRs, ipods replaced walkmans, and DVDs replaced VHS tape – Film is dead.

Wednesday - week half over - only 3 days to the weekend

So I finally have the mac working jus the way I like it. And I'm loving it.

Hey what a good saying! I'm loving it! Seriously McDonalds is amazing. Not the food but the marketing.

Think about it. How many of you could make a better Hamburger than McDonalds? Hopefully most of you.

How many of you could design a better marketing plan? Not many of us. I took the monkeys (Sammy and Isaac) a couple of days ago and the place was absolutely packed. Lines 6 deep for 4 cashiers. Yikes.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now that the season is in full gear I need all of you to complete the wedding day schedule form. Even if you dont have all the complete info. PLEASE do what you can.

By giving us enough notice we are able to research the locations, google map each location and go through the times.

Leaving things to the last minute is a recipe for stress.

Guys!!! If you notice a problem on the site PLEASE email me. I have 6 guys that can instantly fix any problems. One couple just called this morning to let me know the link to their wedding photos is wrong - After 2 months!

Listen to Germany rap - really wierd but cool

Who is the boss?

On your wedding day you are actually delgating alot of the responsilities to the companies your hire. For example; at the church the priest is the boss. He is the person you have decided will direct the ceremony in such a way as to be a wonderful memory and legally bid you together.

At the park you defer to the photographer to document your day and create memories.

The DJ not the reception hall manager/captain is responsible for the party.

That being the case, why do brides and grooms sometimes try to take over? Is it because they don't really trust the decision they made? Or could be the Bride just wants to be apart of every single event?

Now this is only my opinion based on nearly 10 years of experience. The brides and grooms that ultimately have the most amazing weddings are the ones that plan in advance, then monitor. Make you preferences know when you book, and remind a few weeks before the special day. Then sit back and have fun!!!

The past few years we have rarely had couples surprise us as we ask alot of questions and in reality our whole methodology is completely different.

You see we believe that a relationship approach to our wedding couples is the key to our continued success.

Lets compare Relationship approach to Transaction approach.

A relationship is like a romance, each person is trying to work together. There is a feeling of US not them. Each is trying to get a sense of what the other is feeling. The emphasis on preserving the mutual commitment.

Rather than seeking the immediate short term gratification and reward, romance relies on making investment into the relationship in order to obtain much larger future long term benefits.

In other words, we work with you for the future goal of gaining RAVE reviews and seeing you again at one of your future family members wedding or event.

I've nearly got the imac running the way I want. Just need to get photoshop installed so I can quickly edit the photos I want to upload.

So her hair is messed up by the wind? Jackson Pollack would think it's perfect

Jackson Pollock was a very famous painter famous for creating paintings using the drip method. Read the bio below for more info.

His work emphasized the free and spontaneous flow of the brush in a dynamic composition producing intricate webs of paint with rhythmic repetition.

Kinda like how we capture events as they happen thoughout your wedding day and once in a while add certain enhancements (digital art, sublte posing) to create and mould the final work of art.


I want to apologise for taking so long to write. It has been absolutely crazy around here for the past 5 days. Orders going out, coming in, shooting every single day now. Can't wait for the end of the month when we get to visit Florida again.

We finished another Yogen Fruz site. This one called Bresslers. And have been adding more locations to TorontoHomeMovies.com . You can now visit us at www.canadahomemovies.com . The reason we added CHM.com is for search engine optimisation. We are trying to corner the web for 8mm, super 8, 16mm and VHS to DVD transfers.

Bought an IMAC. very cool. I'm in the process of configuring into my workflow so that I can just bring my portable drive with all my 2006, 2007 photos (4th back up to office comp, DVDs and original CDs.) This way I can blog in the morning and include more photos. Sammy and Isaac convinced me to buy it while we were visiting the Apple store at Yorkdale. Marianna was at an appointment and I had the kids. So I thought we could walk around the mall. We ended up at the store for 2 hours while they played very cool kids games. That was all the rationalization I needed.

Only took me 4 days to talk Marianna into it. :)






Jackson Pollock (1912-1956),Born 1912 in Cody, Wyoming,Paul Jackson Pollock is accredited with developing the original style of abstract expressionism contributed to American artists. He worked with house paint, large brushes, and canvas big enough to cover an entire wall. His movement emphasized the free and spontaneous flow of the brush in a dynamic composition producing intricate webs of paint with rhythmic repetition that are distinctly Pollock. Studying under Thomas Benton at the arts Students League, he also traveled widely throughout the United States and was greatly influenced by the murals of Jose Clemete Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueros. During the early 1940?s Pollock?s work shows the influence of Picasso including, Natural, Insane, Surrealist Art.Peggy Guggenheim in the Art of This Century gallery in New York, 1943, held Pollock?s first solo. In Paris, 1950, he was the solo artist to open the Studio Paul Facchetti. His work was widely known and exhibited in the United States and abroad.

crazy world!!!

PLEASE READ

On March 12th, 2006, Jessica Petroff a 42 y/o female

Ontario Canada stopped at her local SHELL pay- at- the- pump
gas station to obtain fuel for her car.

Once having filled the tank full and having paid the amount
due, she heard over the speaker the attendant inside requesting her
to come into the station. He told her something happened with
her card and that she would need to come inside to pay.

The lady was confused as her card transaction indicated that
the debit was succesful, complete and approved.

She relayed that to the
attendant and was getting ready to
leave but the attendant, once again insited and urged her to come
inside to pay or she could be in trouble.

She proceeded to go inside and started arguing with the
attendant about his threat.

He told her to calm down and listen carefully: He said that
while she was pumping gas, a guy was viewed on the station's theft
mirrors slipping into her back seat on the opposite side of
her automobile and assured her that he had already called the
authorities.

She became frightened and looked out in time to see her car
door open and a male slipping out. North American Police are
currently reporting a new gang initiation ritual: New Gang members
are encouraged to>return to their gang bunkers with a female and or her
car.

One way they do this is to crawl into female's cars while
they're pump gas or purchase groceries during night or late afternoon.

Members are also known to slip into unattended cars and kidnap
females.
Police in and around Markham, Newmarket, Toronto, Bradford,
aurora, Brampton, eastern Ontario, Hull, Gatineau, Pontiac,
Lasalle, Lachine, Kirkland, Pointe-Claire and other areas of
Quebec have registered a rise in this crime.

PLEASE REMAIN VIGILANT and forward this email to female online
friends !
Pass this information onto other females: young and
old. Be careful going to and from your car at night.

This is Real ~ We encourage you to verify with the
local police dept. of those communities and cities

1. ALWAYS LOCK YOUR CAR DOORS, EVEN IF YOU'RE GONE FOR JUST A
SECOND.

2. CHECK BACKSEAT AREA OF YOUR CAR WHEN APPROACHING IT FOR RE-ENTRY,
AND CHECK THE BACK BEFORE GETTING IN.

3. ALWAYS BE AWARE OF YOUR SURROUNDINGS IN YOUR GENERAL
VICINITY, PARTICULARLY AT NIGHT