from beginning to end 365 days of the year

365 Project

 

Ok, I know it's been way too long since my last post. I'm sorry, but on the positive side I've been staying busy. I've recently had opportunities to photograph a few weddings and engagement shoots which have led to more business for me in the future. I am truly blessed to be able to do what I love. Now onto new business. I have decided to take on a new and exciting project. Starting yesterday November 1, 2010 and for the next 363 days I will be taking one photo everyday.  It might seem like a task, but I am taking on the challenge to keep it going for the rest of the year. I've heard that it not only helps improve your photography skills, but it also acts as a virtual yearbook of memories. I decided to just wing it as far as planning goes. I woke up on Monday morning and walked outside and took a picture of the first thing I saw.  I called Day #1 A Conversation with God. The beautiful sunrise was a sign to me that it was time to start this journey. So here we are. Day #2 ended with a Election Day Tribute to Voting. I have no idea what I want to do tomorrow. That is part of the excitement. I am taking the role of a feather blowing in the wind. I can't wait to see where it takes me.  Stay tuned...

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Omega Psi Phi 76th Grand Conclave in Raleigh, NC

Do you hear dogs barking? The City of Raleigh has been invaded by Purple shirts and Gold combat boots. The new Raleigh Convention Center is home to the 76th International Grand Conclave of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated. The "Que Dawgs" are here to enjoy a week long conference that includes seminars, vendors, concerts, a golf-tournament and fellowship with other Omega men from all across the globe. This event is one in a series of other major conferences that will be held here in Raleigh. Omega Psi Phi, a black fraternity founded in 1911, is a Greek letter organization established on the principles of Manhood, Scholarship, Perseverance and Uplift. Their main activities include service to the community, involvement in church activities and political influence. Many of their members are Doctors, Lawyers, Professors and Professional Athletes all well educated members of your local communities. The "Clave" is held every year, with next year returning to Washington, D.C. for the 100 year anniversary of being founded on the campus of Howard University.  With the newest addition of the Raleigh Amphitheater next to the Convention Center, Raleigh is definitely trying to set itself apart as the true "Capital City" and a destination for large events such as this one that is expected to draw over 5,000 attendees.                                                                          

This conference is not just for the boys, the week also includes events for the family and special activities for the women in their lives affectionately referred to as "Quettes". While shooting photos at the Convention Center, I couldn't help but notice all the generations of men who shared a common love for one another despite meeting for the first time for most of them. The fraternity motto "Friendship is essential to the soul" was on full display this weekend as brothers young and old gathered to fellowship with each other. Fathers and Sons, Cousins and Uncles all sharing a legacy with each other as Brothers. It's a great thing to witness in a time when all you read about is violence and crime amongst black men. I chose to write this blog because of that. Although I'm not a member of Omega Psi Phi myself, I have family and friends who are. They are all good examples for our youth and an alternative to the negative publicity that we see everyday involving black men in America. This is a great showcase for them as well as a step ahead for the City of Raleigh, for being chosen as a location to have such an important event for the organization. 

Take a look at a few sights from the Conclave. All photos by Complexx Visionz Multimedia

These guys wanted to make sure that I tagged this one as "8th D bruhs"

Real Estate Photo Special

Take advantage of the of these Summer Specials now by setting up an appointment. Contact me by email: complexxvisionz@gmail.com

2010 National Poetry Awards coming August 20 -21

Complexx Visionz Multimedia will be a participating sponsor at this year's National Poetry Awards in Raleigh, NC. The weekend's events include a meet and greet, open mic pajama session, and an awards ceremony with the winners chosen by your votes! It's definitely the first of many events, that I plan on being a part of. I hope everyone gets an opportunity to check it out. For those of you that love poetry, you'll love this. If you don't like poetry, just come to be seen. It'll be a good place to be anyway and get your picture taken. For more info about the events planned or to cast your vote for your favorite poets visit the official event website. We'll see you there. While you're snapping your fingers, I'll be snapping pictures!

The awards are being held The Progress Energy Center for The Performing Arts. Tickets are available through Ticketmaster and if you book early enough there are discounted rooms available at the Host Hotel Raleigh Marriott City Center. (Right) This picture I took of the Performing Arts Center at night from the north on Fayetteville St. (Below) City Plaza in front of the Downtown Marriott Hotel.

Good article on 10 Wedding Photography Tips to help the day run smoother

10 Wedding Day Photography Tips for the Rest of Us

Guide on How to Improve Your Wedding Day Photo Results
(Article by Wedding Photographer: Glen Johnson)

There is truth to the saying "Leave it to the professionals", but professional wedding photographers are limited to work around your wedding day shooting schedule, locale, and weather. Even with their own assistant, wedding photographers often admit they could still use your help from time to time. You might be surprised at how much contribution you could provide to improve the final outcome of your wedding day photo quality. Throughout my professional wedding photography career, I've compiled a "Top Ten Photography Related Tips" of all the little things you could on your wedding day to assist your photographer to get that photo-perfect result.

1. Organizing Your Guests

Getting everyone into the shot takes planning. While you're thinking about groups and portrait sessions - make a list of who is in each shot. Tell all your relatives (in advance) that they should be there at a certain time. Create a wedding day shooting schedule sheet, email it to your party days in advance, and pass it out again at your reception. Leave contingency reserve for potential late comers (yes, you know who they are).

2. Choosing Outdoor Location If you wish for an outdoor shot, do your research and scope out the area. If you can’t do it, assign a trust worthy friend or relative for this task. Choose a location with sufficient shade to cover all the members.

This is especially true if you are getting married in a location that has a variety of different locations for the photographer to move about and experiment. Dramatic backgrounds are great for this type of photo shoot, but many things will work.... a forest, field of flowers, old buildings, barns, rocky riversides, meadow, city streets, college campus, city park, etc.

3. Decorate the Bride's Dressing Room

This almost always gets overlooked in the planning and decorating phase. First start by picking a room with enough ROOM; one with lots of natural light. And use light gauzy fabrics over the windows instead of thick curtains or shutters that obstruct illumination.

Don't keep it too neat! Natural is the way to achieve the a documentary style look. Decorate appropriately. Cover up any unpresentable objects with curtains or drape cloth. Messes are ok if they are wedding messes. Empty boxes and bags should be placed somewhere outside the dressing room. It looks wonderful to have all the dresses hanging and shoes lying around on the floor, but they look awful if they are still in the boxes or if they have piles of plastic wrappers and cardboard boxes lying next to them. Flowers also look better in a vase instead of the cardboard boxes the florist packed them in.

4. General Photography Lighting Tips

• Indoor Window Lighting
  
  If you want to have an indoor shot, warn your photography days in advance. Keeping your wedding photographer well informed will ensure he/she brings the necessary extra lighting equipment.
  Avoid direct sunlight streaming into the windows. If you have direct sunlight, keep some curtains at hand that are a little thicker to diffuse it. You can assist your photographer to put light cotton cloth over the outside of the window in order to cut down the direct sun. Or better yet, pick a room location with windows facing north.
• Reception Lighting
  
  Think romance! Get creative. Try lots of candles or little Christmas lights placed on and under things. Christmas lights, hanging bulbs, and rope lights all look good in the background especially if you hang them just above head high.
  If you are having an outdoor reception, placing your dance floor under a tent will make a world of difference. Your wedding photographer can bounce the flash up into the tent roof, and provide a much more even lighting condition than direct flash. A tent also gives you a structure to hang the small lights in the roof which create a mellow warm background.
• Moving Light Concerns
  
  If you hire a DJ who uses moving spot lights, every place the spot light hits will be much brighter than the rest of the area. Due to this rapid moving nature, light becomes near impossible for your photographer to calculate the correct exposure. Translation: this leaves no options for the photographer but to shoot a strong flash to overpower the disco lights, which results in a missing black background.
  The solution? Ask the DJ in advance about their lighting setup. Inform them you wish to cut the disco lights at moments notice, or ask them if they could use constant stationary colored lights instead. Lights that throw colors or patterns on the wall or roof are great, but ideally you would not let them hit the crowd directly.

5. Photographing in the Dressing Room

This is a touchy subject, especially if your wedding photographer is male. If you are self conscious or modest, you may ask your photographer to leave the room whenever you ask. However some of the best images from the entire wedding happen in the dressing room, especially when the dress is going over the bride's head while all the bridesmaids are helping to get it on.

If you have your photographer wait outside when this is happening, you will miss out on one of the most spontaneous photo opportunities of the entire day. Remember, with photography, it’s easy to delete things later, but it’s impossible to turn back time and do it again.

Under professional photography ethics, a wedding photographer would never show inappropriate photos in his/her portfolio, or on the web. If you are concerned about this issue, be sure to review and discuss the contractual obligation and portfolio usage rights with your photographer. Also pay keen attention to your intuition, and trust your instincts.

6. How to Work with Your Photographer throughout the Day

During the formal dances like the first dance or the father daughter dance, you should ignore the photographer completely. However, late in the evening when your photographer comes around to shoot the fun dancing shots, it would be wonderful if you and your wedding party would occasionally turn and dance facing a little bit towards the camera. With this in mind, your dancing photos would look more natural.

Did you also know it is customary to feed your photographer? You may not feed some wedding vendors that are only there for a short time, but your photographer won't survive a nine or ten hour day without dinner.

Photographers don't normally shoot constantly during mealtime, but they do have the camera close at hand in case anything interesting happens. If you could seat them about 20 feet from your own table that would be the perfect distance to get candid shot. If the meal is buffet style, your photographer may eat near the end of the line. If you want to run off and shoot portraits while your guests are finishing dinner, make sure to warn your photographer in advance.

7. The Correct Way to Put on the Rings

This is one of the most difficult shots to get for a wedding photographer. Most couples are not aware of the fact that they are blocking it either with their hand positions or with their bodies. To turn this moment into a great photo opportunity, all you need to remember is that as you are putting the ring on, position your fingers on the top and bottom instead of on the sides of the ring.

One more tip is to avoid extending your free hand out to grab your partner's wrist so that you can push that ring on there better. If you feel it is necessary to do this, try putting your hand UNDER your partner's hand and grabbing on from below. This approach prevents your wrist from blocking the shot. Practice this couple of times, and you will see that it is possible to put the rings on while keeping your ring visible from your guests’ view, and photo capture.

8. Throwing Flowers

Don't rush through this part... take a minute to play with your crowd. This gives your photographer time to get a shot of you holding the flowers and looking back over your shoulder at all the gang getting lined up. Before you throw, try chasing off all the little kids because they often beat your bridesmaids and friends to the flowers. Now look up and make sure you don't have anything low like lights and ceiling fans that are going to intercept your flowers before they get to the crowd.

When you throw, be ready to call for a do-over if it doesn't go as planned. I have seen it gone badly many times. One time I was standing beside the groom, he somehow managed to turn far enough around to shoot me in the back of the head with the garter. As soon as it fell to the ground, a little kid snatched it and ran off.

9. Videographers

Videographer and photographers are like cats and dogs; we often don’t play well together, and we fight for our spots. Some inexperienced videographers will occasionally get right up in the middle of the altar area during the ceremony. If you don't want their backside to show up in all your pictures, please tell them to stay at least 15 feet away during the ceremony. I've actually seen these guys standing right between the bride and groom during the whole ceremony with a wide angle lens. They could get the same shot from 15 feet if they used a telephoto lens.

I've also seen videographers that would watch to see what I was shooting. If they liked it, they would step in front of me to get their own shot. Make sure to tell them to watch for where the wedding photographers are so we don't get in each other's way. It's probably also best to specify very clearly as to which one of us has the highest priority for you.

And if you don't want to worry about this at all, ask your photographer to recommend a videographer that he/she has worked well with in the past.

10. Common Sense

There are no extra time to spare on your tight wedding day schedule. Everything unexpected could effect your wedding photography timeframe. Things rushed are things improperly done. Keeping your common sense will ensure your wedding and photography sessions progress smoothly.

Even small details anticipated will benefit you, such as sunburn. You should be extremely aware of staying out of the sun before the big day. Save the sun tanning until after the wedding. All too often I've seen brides that got burned in the week before the wedding and were extremely upset to have peeling skin or bright red tan lines on the wedding day.

Dress properly for location shoots, and check the weather! I've seen grooms that looked like they were going to pass out at any second, and brides that refused to budge from in front of the air conditioner. Dressing light should be foremost in your mind when you plan your wedding for a hot climate.

About the Author:
Glen Johnson Wedding Photographer - OR, Oregon

John's love of photography began at about 6th or 7th grade, with camera he "borrowed" from Dad. Today John works exclusively on wedding photography. His work has appeared in numerous publications. He is also the author of the book "Digital Wedding Photography: Capturing Beautiful Memories".

Mobile Photographer Tip#1

Mobile Photographer Tip of the Day: When taking pictures of yourself in a mirror. Turn your phone around so that the lens is facing you, not the mirror. Use the mirror to view your image. Now you don't have the annoying camera phone in the pic. Oh and look at the camera not the mirror! Simple as that... Smartphone users can also download the photoshop mobile app to make minor effects on your pics.

So, now there are no excuses. Unless you just really like the effect of having a phone in your face or a big flash of light reflecting off of the mirror. Hopefully this will help release the inner photographer in all of you. 




I decided to take a couple of example photos for those of you that are visual learners. Hopefully you can use these pics as an example and look past the fact that I'm in a bathroom taking pictures of myself. To the right, you see the typical camera phone pose (look familiar?) facing the mirror looking at the screen to make sure I'm aiming correctly. Below, is my suggested way to take it so that the subject of the photograph is front and center without distraction.

HDR Photography

HDR= High Dynamic Range
This is the method of taking pictures of something at different exposures and combining the pictures to capture the full range of highlights and shadows. I like playing around with my own photos like this to see what I come up with. Sometimes this look can appear painted or even fake, but these are still regular pictures seen through what would be considered a "Super Eye" If you had the ability to really capture an image from the brightest to the darkest with all colors in between.(Above) I shot a picture of my daughter Kendall posing one Sunday after church. I was able to wash out the yellow outfit a little while bringing out the green in the grass. (Right) This photo was taken at The Veterans Freedom Park in Cary,NC. I actually drove by this memorial and did a u-turn to come back and snap a few shots. This example really comes off as a painting more than a photo. I love how the little flags glow against the green grass. The gun and helmet almost have a halo around them against the cloudy sky. I chose to accent the text in Photoshop with the flag colors to pay tribute to our Military.



(Left) Hey, who's that handsome fella making a guest appearance on Las Vegas Blvd? Oh, that's me! This image is cool because of the way the clouds pop out and the colors seem so rich. As you can see I like over-saturation of color in HDR photos. It makes the pictures look more layered to me.


You too, can achieve this look several ways. There is a Merge to HDR function in Photoshop starting with I think version CS3. A program called Photomatix Pro is one I like to use, because it is user friendly and does a lot of the guess work for you. You have to import at least 3 images with different exposures. Darker= -1, Regular= 0, and Lighter= +1. It helps if your camera comes equipped with AE(Automatic Exposure)bracketing, but it's not mandatory. This is when it can snap pictures back to back at different exposures just by holding down the shutter button.The more images the better the range. I haven't gotten into tutorials yet so, you have to search for your own, but take my word for it it's cool. I periodically find images that deserve a little HDRing (I just made that up). The best ones are outdoor on cloudy days but any image can work with the right tweeking.

The Vision

"Ok here goes nothing..." That's what it feels like sometimes when you try new things. If you've ever tasted an unusual food or jumped off of a diving board then you've probably used this phrase more than once. Well, starting your own business is something like both of those. You don't really know going into it whether or not you're going to like it. It might make you sick or even kill you, but you get the guts to try anyway! Why, because there is something inside of you that says this could be the greatest thing you've ever done. If you have ever followed through with that high dive, you might have discovered that you love the thrill. If you finally hold your nose and taste the new dish, you realize that its actually pretty good. Some people make that decision on their own and others need a little push to get them there. I admit I was one that needed a push.

 Complexx Visionz started as an idea in my head just like any other business would. I've known for a while that I wanted to do something with video editing and photography, but the idea of working for some company just didn't seem like my style. It all began to make sense when the pictures I was taking for fun started being recognized. I had developed my own style all this time, but never noticed it. For years,I had been practicing my craft and learning from my mistakes. It funny how God works sometimes. I would question why I took some of the odd jobs I had over the years. I complained about things I had to learn. I even mourned over jobs that I lost. Now, it all comes together. I know how it feels to be at the bottom and work my way up. I can manage a staff and I can get my hands dirty. I've done it before.

 So, not only did I jump off of the diving board, I took a running start with a back-hand spring double twist. I didn't just nibble the food, I turned up the plate and licked it clean. That's what it felt like when I started my business. The Vision, depsite the company name, is quite simple. I do what I love, I share my art with people, I provide good customer service, I build relationships by doing all these things to deliver a good product. First blog in the books. Now let's see where this thing goes.

"Ok, here goes something..."