So last week we did the Elma High School Junior Senior Dance and Prom for about two hundred students. The school officials were great and the Students were a lot of fun to work with. We had two backgrounds to choose from, one with a theme of the dance and one was a more modern pattern and the latter was the one chosen the most by the students. We returned the following week and did the School Graduation Class of 2010 picture for the school wall and then individual portraits and fun shots. I used the Nikon wireless light system for the second time on the portrait session and I am impressed. The set up was two strobes with umbrellas on stands and a Nikon SU 8OO wireless controller using one of my D200 cameras.

Set up was simple and the system worked flawlessly for me, giving more than enough light and I had control of each flash from the camera. Recycle time was great and the students appreciated seeing the images first hand and picked the one they wanted from the shots I took. We delivered the picture packets and the year booklets to the teacher in charge of the dance for distribution to each student. All in all it was a success to me and a lot of fun also to work with a school where the students are fun and easy to be around.

We are already starting to work on next years packages for the students so they have more time to review what we offer and how much each option is. I did post the entire shoot on the secure site I maintain for students that wanted more copies of their pictures for family and friends. So far we have a shipped and completed one order from a student so that made it worth while for me.

Artistic Bull Elk

I traveled a lot because of my work and always took one camera with me on my business trips and some times it paid off with a good elk image or a great sunrise or sunset picture. This elk has been worked over in Photo shop with Little Ink Pot filters to give the chalk effect you see in the attached image. Usually I leave the elk images as shot except for some minor tweaking in contrast and a slight color correction but I needed a artistic image for a notebook cover I use a lot so this was the result. Many have commented on another site on this image but to me it is just an elk that was in the right place at the right time and of course I did take the camera. I will post a eastern WA sunset another time that was shot from my hotel room with the headlights showing in the unlit area and the sky looks like it was on fire. 

The little Ink Pot filters are great for artistic work on images and most of them are free. You can really do a change on a decent picture and get some nice results but it really helps if you start with a decent image rather than try and save a marginal image. Also some images do not lend them selves to processing and will look like your trying to salvage an image rather than applying an artistic process.