My take on Shay Stephens Wedding Photo Boot Camp - 2007

Scott_Quier · September 2, 2007

By now, most of you have heard from photogmomma and Urbanaries about the very wonderful time that was had at the Shay Stephens Wedding Photography Boot Camp, 2007 in Denver CO (another one is scheduled very soon in San Diego).

Topics covered:

How to get booking and how to make sure they are the clients you want; how to avoid the Bridezillia
Seach Engine Optimization (SEO)
Off-camera lighting and how Shay does it
The practice of documenting the event and not creating the event
How to stay in the background, making the day about the Bride & Groom and not about the photographer
Wedding books, suppliers and how they are so nice to deal with
What to deliver and what the clients are most likely not to be interested in
A little about posing - for those almost obligitory "formal" posed shots
Slow down the shoot - don't be in all fired hurry to get the shots in the can and move onto the next location.
No matter what else you do, don't take your eyes off the B&G during ceremony. It's when you have your back to them that something really significant will happen --- and you'll have missed it!
There was loads more but you really don't want me to spill all the beans, do you?

BTW - I got so much out of the WPBC that I have told Shay that I'm first on the list if he decides to do another series next year!

Anyway - here are some of the shots I got:
1. This is the chapel in which we ran the practice weddings. This was ISO 800, f/3.5, 1/20s - just to give you an idea of just how dark this place is (though I've shot in darker churches).

2. The "Bride & Groom" - They were simply wonderful to work with; they understood the concept of working and were willing to do what was required to get the job done. Just wonderful! The lighting here was from two Sunpack 622 flashes, both at the very back of the chapel, up in the choir/organ loft - easily 50 feet from the alter area. On was pointed directly at them, the second was bounced from camera left to the ceiling to reflect to the alter. Amazing that those things had enough power (we ran them at 1/2 power to compensate for the fact that some of the attendees had, at best f/5.6, wide open).

3. OK - they were married by the power vested in "SpongeBob Square Pants" - just to make it more relaxed for them.

4. And, out the door they go...

5. Because these two were actually dating, they didn't have any trouble getting into the spirit of the event.

6. This is a start. I think it needs a little more work to make it right.

7. Photogmomma ran her "wedding" outdoors ('cause that's what she expects most of her clients to plan on). This shot was after that event as they were returning to the chapel to rest/relax - but they worked it all the way back there...

8. This is a series of photograhs where I encouraged them to snuggle a bit and then kiss. Worked out pretty well.

9. Finally, a context shot; the two of them walking away and having a good time.

10. I don't even remember what was going on here. I think they were just collecting them selves for the next "portrait session".

I think that's enough for now.

Final note(s):

A wonderful time was had by all the attendees. Some were more experience than others. There were those who were having difficulties figuring out the relationship between ISO, shutter speed, and f-stop (what's aperture?) and some for whom holding a camera was second nature (Andi, I think, has had her camera surgically attached!). I wish I had 1/10 the artistic flare that others there were demonstrating daily. But, I did learn (thanks Andi and Lynne!).
All these were processed using Bibble Pro, 4.9.8c.
I need help with Linux monitor calibration (see link) - thanks

System · September 2, 2007

these are great photos, scott-

btw, how's the soldier/son doing?-

ShepsMom · September 2, 2007

Excellent shots Scott! Bride is absolutely gorgeous!

MrsCue · September 3, 2007

Stunning, as always Scott!
I just did mine on Saturday and wasn't allowed to use flash for the ceremony.
I think I got some OK one's though.

Scott_Quier · September 3, 2007

Thanks for the look and comments.

My son, Matt, is still at home burning up the contract term. When he got out of school, the Army put him on some sort of reserve status. He tried for about 6 months to get a posting. Nobody would return his calls. He gave up. So, for the last couple of years he's been working at Starbucks, living at home, and saving his money for graduate school. Just recently, one of my wife's clients has mentioned an Engineer unit at a local fort that doesn't seem to have any problems signing up 2LTs. We'll see where that goes.

Thanks for asking - it's amazing how much people here remember about the lives of others. Wow.

gefillmore wrote:

these are great photos, scott-

btw, how's the soldier/son doing?-

Scott_Quier · September 3, 2007

ShepsMom wrote:

Excellent shots Scott! Bride is absolutely gorgeous!

The shots are ok and I had nothing to do with the bride's appearance. She was very attractive. Both models were genuinely nice people. They really worked hard all day long and were real troopers - willing to do just about anything that was asked of her.

Scott_Quier · September 3, 2007

MrsCue wrote:

Stunning, as always Scott!
I just did mine on Saturday and wasn't allowed to use flash for the ceremony.
I think I got some OK one's though.

I'm sure you did. I usually don't use flash during a wedding and have found that even though you have to boost the ISO, if you make sure your exposures are good, the noise is hardly noticeable. It's when you have high ISO and under-expose that you have problems with the noise.

Anyway, post when you have a chance. I would love to see them.

Never mind, I see that you did post...

System · September 3, 2007

Scott_Quier wrote:

Thanks for the look and comments.

My son, Matt, is still at home burning up the contract term. When he got out of school, the Army put him on some sort of reserve status. He tried for about 6 months to get a posting. Nobody would return his calls. He gave up. So, for the last couple of years he's been working at Starbucks, living at home, and saving his money for graduate school. Just recently, one of my wife's clients has mentioned an Engineer unit at a local fort that doesn't seem to have any problems signing up 2LTs. We'll see where that goes.

Thanks for asking - it's amazing how much people here remember about the lives of others. Wow.

don't want to ever forget those who have and are serving-

God bless them-

photogmomma · September 3, 2007

They are all wonderful, Scott, but I LOVE the ones in front of the flowers! Since I didn't do any photos there, I was interested to see how they would turn out. Amazing! The color is just spectaculat, but I love their interaction - nice captures!!

And I'm having my camera surgically removed soon.... If I can scrape up enough money from my next wedding. Seems people are disturbed when people realize it's permanent....

This was definitely a blast! And anyone thinking of doing it definitely should!!!

wxwax · September 3, 2007

Excellent thread, Scott.

schmoo · September 3, 2007

Very nice job, Scott! I'm really impressed seeing the different takes all three of you had for this one event.

Who knew little strobes had so much power? Wowee.

saurora · September 3, 2007

Scott_Quier wrote:

[*]I need help with Linux monitor calibration (see

Hope you get that monitor calibration issue resolved easily, I knew the processing was not up to your normal high standards, and then I read why.

You have some great stuff and no doubt a whole lot more which I hope to see.

I like how you captured their exhuberance in this shot in front of the church. Glad you had such a great learning experience!

ChatKat · September 3, 2007

photogmomma wrote:

And I'm having my camera surgically removed soon.... If I can scrape up enough money from my next wedding. Seems people are disturbed when people realize it's permanent....

I have LOVED all the shots from the bootcamp - very exciting to see them (from all of you).

And my friends and husband no longer ask me what I am doing this weekend since they know it will involve me bringing a camera.

We just make our plans and expect that they will need to pose or stop what we are doing because I might be "seeing" something.

urbanaries · September 3, 2007

1. Nice church shot, it was reeeealy dark in there!

2. Awesome kiss shot, we'd expect nothing less from you! Regarding the lighting, the one aspect I am still

over is that personally (for me) besides the Kiss, the two important shots are the bride coming down the aisle and the exit. I wasn't able to get good shots of either due to the setup; lights being focused solely on the altar? Any thoughts?

3. Very cute, once they stepped a few steps beyond this "sweet spot" they were out of the light. Are you planning on having an on-camera flash at all in addition to the off-cameras? Just curious.

4. Really beautiful!!!! wow!!! Love the tilt! Nicely done!

5. I just love the emotion here! I wonder how this would look in BW. You could burn in some detail in her skirt, and there is something about all that clay color that's a little distracting (I fought with this myself)

6. Sure are flexing your artsy muscles with this one! I really like the subtlety. I think cloning out the foreground OOF leaves will do wonders for this one. Lovely exposure, btw. The dress was pretty simple (no beading, etc) but some sidelight on the bodice makes for some VERY nice shadows. (take note, SD bootcampers!

7. I just love this one, with her holding her shoes. She's beaming! Wish I could see a little more of his face but that's minor nit.

8. O M G

must pick my jaw up off the ground! Way to leverage those firey orange tall flowers. I intended to do some shots here myself but ended up with the LOTR scene instead....I'm so happy to see you nailed these! Love the tryptic, the interaction, the colors (what would this look like in BW? JUST KIDDING!) Absolutely salivatory.

9. This is really nice, they sure were hard workers, eh?

10. Like this one too, but not as much (double stroller!

Scott_Quier wrote:

I wish I had 1/10 the artistic flare that others there were demonstrating daily. But, I did learn (thanks Andi and Lynne!).

All these were processed using Bibble Pro, 4.9.8c.

I need help with Linux monitor calibration (see link) - thanks

First, clearly you rose to the challenge, this set is quite lovely, varied and creative! Second, what prompted you to go to the Linux/Bibble combination....was it seeing Shay use them together or are you unhappy with your other PP lineup?

Scott_Quier · September 3, 2007

urbanaries wrote:

1. Nice church shot, it was reeeealy dark in there!

2. Awesome kiss shot, we'd expect nothing less from you! Regarding the lighting, the one aspect I am still over is that personally (for me) besides the Kiss, the two important shots are the bride coming down the aisle and the exit. I wasn't able to get good shots of either due to the setup; lights being focused solely on the altar? Any thoughts?

Actually, it wasn't all that dark in there. I could easily have shot the entire wedding using only ambient light - ISO 1600 at f/2.8 is a wonderful thing.

Those others (the ones taken outside the "sweet spot" will probably need to be done using ambient or set up the flashes to cover that area as well. I had a short discussion with Shay on this exact topic. On solution would be to have lights set up on two different channels and shoot that way. This is one reason why I was, initially, so hot to get 4 light setups. I've since throttled that back a bit. We'll see what happens.

urbanaries wrote:

3. Very cute, once they stepped a few steps beyond this "sweet spot" they were out of the light. Are you planning on having an on-camera flash at all in addition to the off-cameras? Just curious.

4. Really beautiful!!!! wow!!! Love the tilt! Nicely done!

Would you believe that this (over)exposure was a complete accident? It turned out good and I put the tilt on it in post.

urbanaries wrote:

5. I just love the emotion here! I wonder how this would look in BW. You could burn in some detail in her skirt, and there is something about all that clay color that's a little distracting (I fought with this myself)

6. Sure are flexing your artsy muscles with this one! I really like the subtlety. I think cloning out the foreground OOF leaves will do wonders for this one. Lovely exposure, btw. The dress was pretty simple (no beading, etc) but some sidelight on the bodice makes for some VERY nice shadows. (take note, SD bootcampers!

Too much to easily clone. I might consider cropping it a bit if I were doing this for a client or for a book.

urbanaries wrote:

7. I just love this one, with her holding her shoes. She's beaming! Wish I could see a little more of his face but that's minor nit.

Seeing more of his face would have been nice. In fact I have some where you can see more of him. But, I looked at all of them and this was the best of the lot. Her expression more than made up for the loss of his "face time."

urbanaries wrote:

8. O M G

must pick my jaw up off the ground! Way to leverage those firey orange tall flowers. I intended to do some shots here myself but ended up with the LOTR scene instead....I'm so happy to see you nailed these! Love the tryptic, the interaction, the colors (what would this look like in BW? JUST KIDDING!) Absolutely salivatory.

Yeah, these did kinda turn out ok

I worked pretty hard to get the contrast just right and to get the colors to pop without over-doing it. I think I like this. Would make a pretty good mounted trigraph if these kids were actual clients.

urbanaries wrote:

9. This is really nice, they sure were hard workers, eh?

10. Like this one too, but not as much (double stroller!

The stroller in the background was there and so was the moment. I think it was worth the background to get the image. It was one of those intimate moments when they thought the camera wasn't on them. It works in my book. It also might benefit from a bit of cropping and cloning - I just wasn't motivated enough to put in that kind of effort.

urbanaries wrote:

First, clearly you rose to the challenge, this set is quite lovely, varied and creative! Second, what prompted you to go to the Linux/Bibble combination....was it seeing Shay use them together or are you unhappy with your other PP lineup?

As for the move from WinXP/Adobe to Llinux - well, I've wanted to do this for years. I hate M$. And, they are getting even worse with the way they are treating their customers. Adobe has started down that path as well. And, I'm getting tired of buying the same stuff over and over again. And, right now, Windows Vista is a looser.

Linux is a smaller footprint OS and more secure, if installed correctly, and even right out of the box. If you can find the software/tools you need to get the job done, it is usually a lot cheaper and the software is usually more sound.

But, that's the rub - getting the software you need to get the job done. I have found everything I need (most of it legally free) except for a way to organically produce/install/use a monitor color management profile. Right now, all such solutions require either Windows or Mac OS. Shay hinted that he had found a solution. I'm going to pick his brains a bit more to see if it's real.