WPPI 2009 from LemonLime Photography on Vimeo.

Outspoken friends and quiet blog-stalkers, please comment and let me know what is going on in your heart, in your life, in your business.

Smiles, friends. (This is Casei from St. Louis, by the way)

Last fall, a unique opportunity presented itself when Megen and Matt contacted LemonLime Photography for what was supposed to be a typical client interview. The newly engaged couple came to LemonLime with an open mind. Neal & Eric with LemonLime saw an amazing opportunity before them …an opportunity to both participate in a random act of kindness, and to allow unrestricted creative thought by multiple photographers as a learning experience for everyone involved. We are humbled that Megen and Matt gave us full creative freedom.

The Photographers

LemonLime Photography (Eric Linebarger & Neal Troester)
Domingues Photography (Jason & Allison Domingues)
PhotoMementos (Marco & Jan Simonelli)
Steller Photography (Dustin Steller)

Over the course of the last few months these four studios have selflessly worked together to create a plan for the day that would allow each photographer the freedom to explore their ideas and focus on a specific portion of the wedding day while maintaining a photojournalistic flow that documented the day.

In addition, we took it one step further and contacted a local florist and cake designer to see if they too would like to take part, and with Megen and Matt’s blessing they joined forces with us to contribute their time and talents for this unique opportunity.

Florist – Ornamental Petal (Bridget Kelly)
Cake – Cakes by Joe (Joe Schutz)

Over the next week and a half all four studios will display their contributions to this project. We hope this project shows the power of teamwork within our industry, compels you to find new ways to challenge yourself, and inspires you to make a difference in someone’s life. A special thank you to everyone who gave selfless of themselves to make this project come together.

Three more posts will follow over the next week with the rest of my contribution to the project. Check out the other photographers above for their individual contributions.

Today, two abstracts.

The brilliant moon that night. Hand-held shot on a 200mm.

For creating portraits, good photographers often start with a mental projection of the image they want to capture, they know the appropriate camera settings and lenses that it will require, they make the light work for them or they create it themselves, they bring in their experience and their view of the surroundings, add in the ideas for digitally editing/processing the image and they make it work for the end result of an awesome (hopefully!) photograph.

Wedding photographers have to do all of this rather quickly, with large numbers of people, while making sure everyone is having a good time. At least, that is what I try to do.

I am enjoying capturing weddings by myself, but for a few of my wedding packages, I offer a second photographer to come in for the day or a portion of the day. Logistically, it can be good to have two people in different places at once. Good teams can feed off each others ideas, sometimes even raising the creative bar. Sometimes though, the two photographers end up working the same scene. The results, while similar, can be awesomely different.

Take these two photos, for instance…

Neal’s Image

My Image

Neal Troester joined me on a wedding I shot earlier this year. He is one of the two awesomely talented guys with LemonLime Photography…yes, he cheated on his business partner, Eric, to come shoot with me.

Anyway, back to the photos, this is an example of the same direction, lighting, and nearly the same settings and lenses, but the final perspective and composition, although still straight on, is entirely different. I wanted the beams in the roof to be in my photo to lead your eye down to the folks and Neal wanted the reflective ground to be in his. Ends up, the results are stunning and I decided I like his version better. The key, though, is sometimes just changing your perspective only a few feet can make all the difference in the world.

Out of curiosity, which is YOUR favorite? Why? Why Not?

To all my incredible and patient wedding clients… a HUGE Thank you!

NINE Albums are currently being designed and the album proofs will be out very, very soon. Same with a bunch of DVDs…The new packaging is in and ready to ship very soon!

– John & Jessika, your proofs and blog post are almost ready (later today!)
– Tyler & Monica, your blog post is nearly there also later today!
– Michael & Amanda, your proofs and large blog post are going to be done tomorrow!
– Bob & Stacey, I am nearly done with your amazing wedding images and am getting them ready to show you on Monday or sooner!
– TJ & Krista, the windy photos look awesome…can’t wait to share them with you early next week!

It has only been a year since I took the plunge and jumped into this photography business with both feet running. I have learned a great deal and been mentored by some of the best. I count it a credit to God that I had the rare opportunity to meet some of the most influential and inspiring photographers I could have at one place. It was awesome to so quickly bond with them during the exercises and tasks at the Anti-workshop. If you can’t decide on a workshop to attend, I highly recommend it.

When I met these people, I literally only knew of three of them beforehand (Erin Vey by way of Flickr, Heather Cole by way of fellow Kansas Citian, and Fred Egan by way of blog-stalking). I ended up getting to know so many more rockstars in the industry, it is not even funny… I shot with ever-so-fabulous Jasmine Star on one exercise…with Jesh De Rox and our subject Jessica Claire on another (see below). I listened to Doug and Chenin and John and Dalisa. Got to know Jan Garcia and Ed Atrero and so many more.

Anyway, I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction into this new world of wedding photography. I hope I made a decent impression on these people, but I want them to know that they made a HUGE impression upon me. I look forward to making my mark and someday being counted as a mentor myself.

The above photos are a few photos from the Jessica Claire session, but edited with my lightroom presets and Doug Boutwell’s brand new Totally Rad Actions 2, the Revenge. Go buy them, they are totally rad and a bit genius.

If you are in the Kansas City area, you HAVE to attend the veryaltf Tour from the leg-en-dary John Michael Cooper and his lovely bride, Dalisa, (who we all know really wears the pants in the family…inside joke for Dalisa).

Free is good, right? Right. Quality Adobe Lightroom presets are good, right? Right. Well, that is what I’ve got for you. Quality free lightroom presets! Download them now!

The two new free presets are part of my new Steller Utility series (coming soon). Gray and Snap are great little ‘utility’ style presets that I use fairly regularly and I have a bunch of other things (including some actions and textures) that I am working on to put together a full Utility set. In the mean time, I hope all my photographer friends out there enjoy these little gems.

One of these presets (the Guru GreenGold) is part of a series that is included in the 52 Steller Lightroom Preset Pack. You can see samples of many of the presets and even purchase the set for only $40 at stellergear.com. Also, if you have questions on how to use them, install them, or whatnot, please read the readme.pdf included in the zip.

If you download these, please comment and tell me what you think! Let me know how you use them and shoot me links to the photos. I’d love to see them in action!

Smiles!

-dustin

To continue with the “From the Archives” series, I wanted to share one of my all-time favorites that I shot of the talented model/actor/singer/dancer, DJ Rouse.

I chose this image because I originally processed it with this not-so-nice, greenish tint that looked kinda funky, but didn’t bring out the full potential of the image. Since it was originally processed poorly, with fresh eyes and my new Lightroom Presets, I saw some potential with this image with the new post-processing. I am very happy with the results.

Session Notes: This was shot in natural light, mid-day, with my trusty old Nikon D70 and my 50mm f/1.4. I shot it in RAW and processed in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. We had just poured water all over his head with a jug so he had kind of a wet appearance. He was a good sport and went along with it for some pretty cool results. This was re-processed with Steller Lightroom Presets (Gray Craze Warmer).

Here is the original RAW file next to the Gray series preset, Gray Craze Warmer. This is only one of the 52 presets included!

See this image on my Flickr.

After many people have inquired about purchasing my Adobe Lightroom Steller Presets, I am proud to say that I finally have everything ready for delivery! There are 52 individual quality presets in the collection being offered at the special introductory offer of only $40!

Lightroom? Presets? Why? These presets allow me to artistically process hundreds of photos for proofing in a quick amount of time, all while giving each photo a little unique love of it’s own! Your clients will love you for the speedy turnaround and the “artistic” style that you are able to share.

Be sure to check out our FREE Lightroom presets, too!

With Lightroom’s lightning-fast mouse-over preview function, these presets offer a great starting place for sparking your creativity. After selecting the preset you want, you are able to tweak the settings to fit the photo (maybe just increasing the exposure or bumping the saturation), then sync those custom settings with every similar photo from the session. Ta-da! You’ve got it made and you get to spend more time do what you love…taking photos!

After processing in Lightroom, editing in Photoshop becomes a relative breeze. I usually refine each photo with a trusted action (Check out my favorites from Doug Boutwell – Totally Rad Actions) or set of steps to maximize the photo and then I am done!

Here is a preview of some of the presets in action on some of my favorite photos.

Find out more about the Steller Presets!