Karie-Ann and Chris wedding day. Wedding photography a different perspective.

My cousin Chris married his beautiful fiancé Karie-Ann this weekend. I went but not as the photographer as a guest. It was great they didn't even ask me to shoot it, I did however take the camera and lights. I begged them after dinner for 5 minutes of there time to pull is off.



When I got there, I wanted this photo of them together with the Holy Cross Abbey in the background. I'm ordering a big print for them as a gift. Shoosh don't tell them!


After the ceremony I shot some quick pics on the Fuji X100 of my twin Mikes family and his adorable daughter Inara. She was a a bit camera shy at the beginning but warmed up to me making funny faces and giggling at her.


Roan even showed what a good big brother he is.


The rest of the pics I took at the reception. Less then 100 photos all day on two cameras at a wedding is probably some kind of record. But then again I wasn't 1st shooter or 2nd or even 10th. I was there only as a guest to enjoy the event. I even got into a debate with Athena about which side is best to photograph on her. Look how pretty she is. This side won.


You can see the rest of the pics on Facebook as my family wants to see them and I'm only going to put a few here.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness.... An adventure in DSLR cleaning.

My friends Rob and Dan are big sticklers for cleaning their gear. If Dan's not shooting something he's cleaning a lens almost OCD-ish but look how clean this images are. Rob can tell you tales of being sprayed with champaign after a Cardinals win and taking weeks to clean his camera.

Me, I like to clean everything when it gets to the point of bothering me. You know, when I'm spending to much time in Photoshop cleaning up dust spots or removing hair. This behavor is changing and I'm getting so sick of it that today I pulled out my hodge-podge sensor cleaner stuff and did my best to clean up my D3.

It's not the easiest camera to clean plus I'm horrible at removing dust bunnies and the more I swipe the more they populate. I soon had enough - Aaarrrgghhhhh!!!! ( Charlie Brown style screams)

I haven't worked in the past month( long story, involving Alien invasion to overthrow earth porting through my foot ) so taking it to a shop to get cleaned is out of the question.

I started looking on the intrawebs about cleaning and remembered the success I had when Rob showed me how to clean my sensor and that I needed better cleaning equipment.

Thought bubble: isn't it funny how photographers will cheap on everything but lenses, light and bodies? "but we're resourceful! We utilize things laying around!!" = BS!

So off to Denver Pro Photo to pick up some real cleaning supplies.

It took 20 min to clean my sensor and all my lenses once I got back and had the right stuff. Cost me two hours of time being cheap to learn this lesson.

So here's a bit of fatherly advise I have been told a time or two. "Get the right tool for the job! It'll make your life easier." lesson learned.







Now with this stuff, maybe I'll be cleaning my gear more often? I know I'll be spending less time in PS - bonus!!!