Eli's Photography Blog

2009 Kiss The Brides Expo in Northwest Arkansas

Northwest Arkansas got it’s first taste of Ralph Desuse and the Kiss The Brides team based out of Southern California. This was my second bridal fair this year. I wish I had the time to fit in more, but there’s always next year. This was my first time to do a fair in NWA. I think it went extremely well. I had a chance to talk to lots of beautiful brides to be and their entourages. I have to say, the 3.5 hour drive up to Bentonville, might have been rough, but the weather was perfect that weekend, and those roads to Fayetteville this time of the year are beautiful. Here are some photos I want to share from the bridal fair.

White curtain bridal fair entrance

This was the new entrance that they set up. The brides and families lined up here before being released to all the vendors.

Eli Murray Photography's Booth

Here was my booth. Not much different from the last bridal fair, except for the terrible carpet. I couldn’t have asked for a worse floor pattern than this to clash with my stuff, but hey, “It is what it is.” I’ve got something else big planned for the next Democrat Gazette Bridal Fair in January.

Eli Murray Photobooth

I might need to give you a little background on this one. I was just trying to make friends with some of the other vendors when I stumbled upon one of those old fashioned photo booth’s. They made me get in and take these. I even tried to get out after one and they said, “No, it takes more.” Thanks Dance Enhance. Honestly though, these are cool. I think every wedding should have one. Who doesn’t like photobooth photos?

Complete Music Booth

Okay these guys were my neighbors (Complete Music and Video) based out of Springfield MO. They were positioned right next to me. I had a small issue with furniture placement right at the beginning of the expo…but Kyle, the dude right in the middle, saved the day. I leaned over and asked for help moving my couch and jumped the the aid. This may not seem like much but it was a big help. Thanks guys!

Miles Witt Boyer Booth

This was a super great couple and very talented photographer that I also met. Miles Witt Boyer and his wife Melissa. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to work with Miles one day if I’m back in that Fayetteville area.

Cake Dive Before

Here’s the “Cake Dive”. Basically a select number of brides to be circle around a cake loaded full of prices and what for GO. I think this had some plastic rings buried in it, which represented the prize.

Cake Dive During

Action shot. It was very messy.

Cake Dive After

I grabbed this quick shot before all the girls went to clean up. See the bride on the far left…she was the lucky winner of my free engagement session I was giving away. You’ll be seeing that e-session soon. Congrats to all the winners, and thanks to all the vendors for hooking them up. Thanks for all the brides that came out to the Kiss the Brides Expo.

Wedding photography websites should be easy to use.

Personally I like the idea of an easy to use website, especially if you’re a bride looking for a wedding photographer. However, my good friends over at Shift Creative not only like this idea, they live by it. Shift insisted that if I wanted to make a site that was pleasant and easy to use for brides to be that we should do some remodeling. So just like that, today I’m proud to announce that elimurray.com has a new look. You can follow me on the social sites, check out my latest work, and interact with my blog post. I hope you guys like it. I will be blogging at least once a week. Telling you all about my life, my missions, my photos, and my happy clients. Thanks for stopping by, if I can help you out at all with family portraits or baby photos or if you know some friends that are getting married, send them my way. I’d love to meet them.

Just bought a Nikon SB-900 Speedlight

Last week my trusty old Nikon SB-600 stopped working on me. Thankfully I was just messing around the house and it didn’t do out when I needed it. That’s why it’s always a good idea to have a backup for these types of things. I took my old Speedlight back to Bedfords Camera, I had it so long that it was not covered under the warranty anymore, but they packed it up and sent it off to Nikon for repair. It looks like it will get fixed, but it may be a few weeks. So today I went back to Bedfords and picked up the new SB-900. This is a beast of a flash. I would say it is about 3 times the size of the 600. It can really throw some light, but with the control of a highly electronic and sophisticated strobe. I have not had it very long, so I’ll have to give you more information after I get to use it a bit. I got a bit of a deal on it because Bedfords didn’t have the case for it. So I figured that wasn’t that big of a deal because I will keep it in my photo bag anyway. I will have to make another trip back to Bedfords though, they only gave me the Spanish user’s manual. It might be a good time to start learning Spanish. Haha. Enjoy the Unboxing.

Oh yeah, the last shot is just my kitchen knives, I thought I would give you guys a test shot of the new SB-900.

All Day Wedding Photography

What exactly do I mean with my all day wedding photography package?

Your wedding is one of the most important and memorable days of you life. Why would someone (who’s career is taking photos) want to stop early or show up late to such an important event? Why would a wedding photographer not be around for the entire wedding? Why would you want to rush your wedding reception in order NOT to get charged an extra fee? I believe that the wedding photography industry is changing. I think that more and more photographers will begin to adopt this trend. I do realize that not all weddings are the same and that there will be plenty of exceptions. Smaller weddings that don’t last for hours, won’t have a need for a photographer all day.

I do know that a good wedding photographer’s time is valuable, and just like anything else, you get what you pay for. I am not knocking other photographers if they do not offer this, but my thoughts about “No Time Limit” wedding photography are simple.

If a bride books me for their wedding day, what else will I be doing that day? I am not going to the movies later. I won’t change my oil in my motorcycle that morning. I am completely focused on that wedding. So even if I wasn’t shooting photos for you the entire day, I might as well be. Because your wedding is all I’ll be thinking about. Just like you.

Independence Day 2009, Little Rock AR

Today was the anniversary to the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United Stated of America. Happy Fourth of July America! Happy Birthday America. I went down by the Arkansas River, downtown Little Rock by the River market to watch the fireworks with my best friend tonight. The weather was perfect. Here is the image that I took. It felt like it was a bit shorter show this year than in the past, but it was still good clean fun anyway. I always enjoy watching all the people and kids that get to see some fireworks for the first time. I saw a lot of cameras out, lot of people wanting to get a great shot of the fireworks. So I thought I would share with you guys the setting I had on my camera to give some insight into how to capture great fireworks pictures. I had my camera set on Shutter 1/3, Aperture f/2.8, Exposure Bias -1.00, Focal Length 10.5mm, and ISO 1000.

2009 Kiss The Brides Expo

I just finished wrapping up the 2009 Kiss The Brides Expo. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. I had a chance to meet a bunch of new people and show off some of my work. It’s always nice to talk face to face with brides to be, and help answer questions. You can practically see the excitement on the new engaged couple’s faces, okay maybe just on her face, but I did see plenty of willing participating men as well. Planning for a wedding can be stressful. I think if you take your time and choose professionals that you’re confident about, you can let all the stress go. If you have the right people around you, you don’t have to worry about all the details of your wedding. Relax and enjoy your big day. Let everyone else do the work.

NEW Fine Art Canvas Gallery Wraps Now Available

I am now offering 1.5 inch thick fine art “gallery style” canvas prints. Any photo of your choice can be made into a piece of art for your home or perfect for a gift. I just received my sample gallery wrap in the mail. I will have this set up at the 2009 Kiss The Brides Bridal Show here at the Verizon Arena in Little Rock. I want to show this thing off. It’s super nice. The photo is printed onto a large canvas paper and mounted on a wood frame. Even if you already had your wedding photos taken, if your photographer gave you the rights to get photos printed, you should consider printing a gallery wrap. Right now I am including a 16×20 gallery wrap with every bridal portrait session. If you would like to order any canvas gallery wrap just let me know. Enjoy!

Photoshop Actions Save Money

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the phrase time is money, but as a small business owner that phrase takes on a whole new meaning. After I photograph an all day wedding or spend two hours with a new engaged couple, my work has just begun. I still have several hours of editing, resizing, uploading, and tagging to do. I know that the amount of time that I spend on a project effects my overall profit. I also know that I am not going to rush through my photos just so that I can make more money. I am a perfectionist, probably like most other photographers, but like any good person of their trade, using the right tools can make the job much easier and save a lot of time. Adobe Photoshop is probably the number one tool that most all photographers use other than their cameras and lenses. I would like to share with you guys a simple photoshop action that I use on a regular basis that saves me a lot of time.

Let’s say that I just finished an engagement photo shoot (e-session) with a couple. I know that they will want there photos online (facebook, myspace, .mac, ect.) asap to share with all of there friend and family. My camera (Nikon D90) shoots 12.3 mega pixels. This is way too large for the web. I need to resize all of the photos and give the couple two disc, one with the originals and a disc with the smaller photos for the web.

Step 1. Make a copy of the folder with the original photos.

Step 2. Open Photoshop and locate the “Actions” window. Option+F9 on a Macintosh

Step 3. Create a new custom action. Name it and click record. Photoshop will now record all of the actions you make until you stop or pause the recording process.

Step 4. Use an test photo to set up your custom action. You should use a photo that is the native size that your camera shoots. For example, my 12.3mp camara shoots a photo that is 2848X4289. This is a vertical portrait. Open the image in Photoshop and adjust the image size. Option+Command+I on a Mac. Now you can adjust the image to your desired size.

Step 5. Save. Do not save-as. Overwrite the file, this is why we created a duplicate folder in step one.

Step 6. Close and stop the “Action” recording. Now you have created you first custom action. You can always go back an remove or make addition steps to that action by selecting the action and picking up the recording process.

Step 7. Automate Batch. This is where you can save some real time. Remember that photo that we used to create the action was just a test subject. Now let’s assume that you have a folder with 700 photos that you want to resize for the web. You now have a custom action that will do just that, but how about using the “Automate Batch” feature to resize all 700 photos at once. There is no keyboard shortcut for this. File, Automate, Batch. this will bring up your options.

Step 8. Point the Automate feature to the folder where you want the images resized. Select your custom action and boom, that’s it. Sit back and let the computer compute. Or go out am take some more photos. Either way you should be happier because you will spend less time behind a computer. The time that this will take depends on your computers processing power and the number of photos it is resizing. Enjoy!

Nikon D90 Review

I upgraded to the new Nikon D90 September of last year. I have now been shooting with this new Nikon body for over 6 months now. So far, so good. In fact it is a little better than good. I love this camera. Bigger LCD, faster shutter speed, and larger grip for my hand. I have to say though, the best part about the D90 that I have found useful is the programable “FUNC” button, located on the left side of the front of the camera’s body. This is a customizable function button that allows for a quick adjustment of a few different options, one of which is a toggle button between shooting just a jpeg and shooting a jpeg + raw image. For such a small feature this can be very useful. The setting for this option is buried in the Menu. Granted I do not use this feature all the time, but it sure is nice to know that when I do want it and I don’t exactly have all the time in the world, I have a programed button at my finger tips. For now I am very impressed with my D90, that is until Nikon comes up with the newest “must have” camera. I do like to keep up with my gadgets, but I do know that the most important thing is having a camera that I am comfortable with and won’t restrict me from taken the best possible photos.

Also just in case you were wondering, this photo is not mine. Copyright Chase Jarvis. Please check out Chase Javis.com