RB Photo and Design

Today I got reminded why I love photography so much. A friend of mine lost her son yesterday. I didnt know him to well, but he was a really good kid. 19 years old, way to early to go. Anyhow, he graduated this past spring from High School with  Jeannie's nephew and half brother so I got some shots of my friends son getting his diploma and walking off stage. I took them over to her today on a disk, and she was very thankful to get them. I was so glad to be able to give her something to help her remember her son by. This is what I love about being a photographer, being able to capture and preserve these special memories for people. It is a very fulfilling and rewarding profession.

Had a wonderful Christmas with the family. Got a chance to get pictures of everyone and sit around and catch up a little. My sister got us Colts tickets, so next Sunday we will be going to the last regular season game of the year to watch the Colts play the Titans. Should be a lot of fun! Anyhow, here are a few pics from my family's Christmas get together.

Merry Christmas everyone, we hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season!.

So last night we went to  Jeannie's aunt Betty's house for our first Christmas get together this year. We had a great time seeing a lot of Jeannie's family. Good food, great company and a little football talk makes for a great evening. While we were there I took some pictures for Jeannie's family, wish I had brought more than just my 18-50 lens and a 430ex flash...used some nice light coming in from the window for my main light and bounced the flash in manual to balance with the ambient...could have done better with my triggers and an umbrella, but part of being a good photographer is being able to produce shots in less than optimal conditions.

Looks like a late might, watching the weather as reports come in...forecasted snow totals just keep going up...as of right now the last report was 5-9" expected in my area with up to 3/4" of ice expected south of here in Louisville KY. Soon as there is anything to take a picture of I will post some up!

So after weeks of putting it off I finally broke down and reworked my logo into something I feel is more professional and that I hope will go a long way in building brand recognition. What do you think?

Problem is I have never been able to find a grid that was made just for hot shoe flashes that were affordable. Well, I happened to stumble across these guys, Honeycomb Grids , and they have the perfect products to use for your hot shoe flash... you can but them ready made or DIY, in addition to grids for flashes they have grids for beauty dishes and strobes, as well as gobos, snoots and wraps. So if your in the market for a quick, cheap grid solution check these guys out.

Sorry for the lack of any posts over the last week or so. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I took a little time to relax and not do anything but catch up on some reading I have been meaning to do. I took all of last week to read the Harry Potter series and finish up some Christmas shopping. Anyhow, I am back and wanted to post up a few things...Today we went to the local Christmas Parade and I took a few pics of that, had fun standing in the snow with the family and watching the parade go by. Seen a few faces I knew riding along in the parade and a couple of the kids that attend the day care my wife works at were in the parade as well.

Went out Friday and took pictures of our great nephew for his 1st birthday, Always fun to take pictures a of a fussy and tired 1 year old! lol. Now I am busy editing pictures from a session we shot of two couples a few weeks ago down on the fossil bed on the Ohio river across from Louisville KYand then I will be making a book for one of the girls. Sometime in all this mess I need to take a picture of our puppy Bella and our cat Furball and start making our Christmas cards so we can get those ordered. Like I said, busy, busy, busy!

Sitting here watching NCIS and cleaning my camera sensors...taking it easy and recovering from a long weekend of cleaning and shampooing the carpets in the house. Tomorrow I am going to be outside working on my daily driver, rear shocks need replaced and I have a brake drum frozen from where the car has not been driven in over a year.Figured I better get out there and fix it before the cold weather really moves in. I am sure having two running cars this winter will come in handy. If the weather stays nice I am going to try and get some shooting in this weekend. I have a nephew who needs his one year pictures done and I want to do a portrait session with my grandparents sometime soon.

Not much going on this week, been slow and boring. Hopefully this weekend will present some chances to do some shooting. I will be doing my great nephews 1 year pictures soon and I am consulting with a friend to do her kids pics so as soon as those happen I will post up some more pics.

Doesn't happen very often, because Jeannie and I like to do everything together, but this weekend she took off with her boss and went to D.C. leaving me home alone.... SO now I sit here bored out of my mind watching the Discovery channel and nodding off. What to do what to do? I could head down to the bar and hang out with some friends who are playing tonight and take some pics, or I can stay home and be bored...not sure which will win out. I used to love hitting up the bars on the weekend, but anymore I would rather sit at home. Is that a sign of getting old? lol...

Sort of related to my previous post, not sure who made this video but its funny and so accurate of how the photography business is anymore. http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7414705/

In my opinion there are 3 types of photographers. There are those who are hobbyists, they shoot with a point and shoot or a nice DSLR, but never learn what all the settings are for, they just stick it in auto and click away...these are parents, aunts and uncles for the most part that just want pictures for the family photo album. They dont charge for their images because they do it for fun and there is no implied level of quality expected.

So yesterday started off a little slow as most weekend mornings do around here. I got up and fixed breakfast and then we went out on the front porch and carved a couple pumpkins. I carved one with skulls in it and Chrissy done one with a cat...After that we went down to the Falls of Ohio and done a shoot for my friend Heather and her fiancee' and his sister and her fiancee'..hope you were able to follow that..lol. We had a beautiful overcast day with an awesome sunset. I was able to get a lot of beautiful pictures, I am sure they will love them. Pictures after the break

Its almost the weekend and we have a portrait shoot this Saturday at the Falls of the Ohio. Should be a lot of fun, I have known one of the girls for a very long time and she has always been fun to be around. I am also currently looking for a mini truck to shoot for a possible feature in a magazine. I have been wanting to break into doing car show coverage for the magazines for a long time. Recently one of them had a staff change and I got in touch with the new editor and sent him some images of trucks I had shot recently and he liked my work and gave me the go ahead to shoot something for the mag. problem is, in this part of the country its getting cold and nasty so everyone has their trucks put away for the winter...lol..just my luck...Hopefully I will find something soon...

The day has finally come! My brothers Chihuahua had her pups. We were hoping she would have one that was similar in color to our Charlie, but our hopes didnt pan out. She had 3 pups, 2 boys and 1 girl. All of them white with brown spots.

Went to Montgomery Farms on Saturday as I said we would on a previous post, and surprisingly had a really good time...lol. Not that I don't enjoy seeing my nieces and nephews and spending time with them, its just usually I am around them in a house with them going crazy running everywhere. It doesn't take long for my nerves to be fried. and the older I get, the less  it takes to get me frazzeled...lol

So we are off today to celebrate two of my nephews birthdays at Montgomery Farms, click here for info While we are there we are going to do our Christmas card pictures, I am wondering how many weird looks I will get from the point and shooters when I pull out my strobist gear. Jeannie is making me take it easy on gear for this shot, I am only bringing my camera and tripod, a 24" softbox and two hotshoe flashes. My sisters and their kids will be there so I will probably get suckered into taking some portraits of them while I am at it...

So this past weekend Jeannie and I went up to Tallmadge Ohio for the Dropt n Destroyed car show. We had a really good time hanging out with our friends that live up north and hanging out with Acrophobia guys that were there...If you want to know more about Acrophobia check them out at AcrophobiA While I was there I tried to cover the show from a photo journalistic style and think I done a decent job of it. I also shot a couple trucks up there to practice my off camera lighting on trucks, Here are a couple pics from those shoots.

Once a year I go to a car show in Ohio. I have quite a few friends who I only get to see at shows, so sometimes its a year between seeing each other. It was great to see my AcrophobiA family and get to meet a couple of the guys from down south who flew in for the show. It was a 6 hour trip up to Kent Ohio where we were staying, I am getting to old to sit in a car for that long..lol

Those of you that know me, know that I am a huge Beatles fan. I love the music, I love the stories behind the band. This Saturday would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and I sit here wondering what would he have done to celebrate. I think he would have been out protesting something somewhere, raising his voice to challenge us to be better than we are...

 Custom Photography is part of my brand name, but what exactly is custom photography? I recently found this article explaining what custom photography is:

Over the last several months I have noticed a lot of people hanging out their shingle and attempting to do "pro" photography. I visit all of their facebook pages and websites and look thru their portfolios and can't help but wonder how in the world are they getting clients...terrible compositions, harsh lighting, underexposed and missed focus...none of them can use off camera flash as far as I can tell and rely heavily on photoshop to hide their mistakes. And people LOVE their images...I just dont understand it.

I know this is supposed to be my photography blog, but I have been to pre occupied with the loss of my bestest pal to do much shooting. Today I was out in the yard with Bella, our other chihuahua, and the neighbors came out and asked about Charlie.  They were upset that he didn't make it. They told me how he made their day when he was outside and would bark at them.

I lost my bestest pal today...Love you Charlie

Our Chihuahua Charlie was hit this morning...we have him at the vet, he is stable, but unresponsive... It took me forever to get Jeannie to let me get a dog, But after years of wanting one we got the puppy no one else wanted..twice the size of all his brother and sisters and big ol floppy ears..he was the cutest dog we had ever seen... Jeannie taught him how to sit and shake and jump in no time...it was like having a little baby in the house...He is one of the greatest gifts we have ever received.  even with all the aggravation of having a dog, it was all worth it...He is my bestest pal

So it seems like a perfect time to go out and do our family pic for Christmas cards. Heading out to the Indiana side of the Ohio River this weekend with Louisville KY as the backdrop. Not 100% sure how I am going to shoot the pics just yet so I was out checking some of my favorite photog blogs to get some inspiration. One of my favorite photographers is Zack Arias. A real down to earth guy with a great sense of humor. I try to follow his minimalist approach to lighting and composition. If you have the time you should go check out his site and read his blog.   Zack Arias website

The wife and I have been sick all weekend. Its amazing how being sick wipes out every ounce of creativity along with all your energy. Not much going on right now. Fall is always slow, we have a couple portrait sessions coming up and getting the family together for a family pic and Christmas Cards.

I am a digital photographer...I am not going to try and pretend I am anything else...even tho I first fell in love with photography with film cameras, I never took the time to learn anything about photography until I started shooting digital. Now that I understand how to make images and how everything works I think I am going to go back and try my hand at black and white film photography. I really want to try my hand at a medium format camera, but for the time being I am going to start with my Canon EOS 3 35mm SLR. this is esp nice since most of my lenses are compatible with this camera.

How many people can actually say they love their job? Well, I can! I love seeing a newly wed couple seeing each other for the first time and all the love in their eyes and capturing that emotion. I love taking a picture of the precious baby/kids. Seeing all the innocent and true love they radiate from them. I love the ... excitement of a graduate as they enter the next step of their lives. I JUST LOVE MY JOB!

Just finished up the first round of editing of Kimmy and Jason's wedding pics, Now to go thru and clean up a few things out of the background in a few of the pics and I will be done with them...then begins the week long project of getting them posted on the website for them to see..I really wish we had better (affordable) internet service available to us.

Well, I have been busy editing pics from this past weekends wedding, I am about 1/3 the way thru them...The bride and her friends loved the few teaser images I posted on Facebook for them to look at, so I am pretty confident she will love all the images. I sold my 20D and kit lens today and ordered a Sigma 18-50 2.8 lens...looking to pick up either a beauty dish or a softbox soon...I love shoot thru umbrellas, but this past weekend showed me how limited you are with them outside in the wind. So time to move on to different modifiers.

I think we got some wonderful images from Kimmy and Jason's wedding. We had a great time with some awesome people and wish Kimmy and Jason the best. I haven't started into the editing just yet, still recovering from the 11 hour day, but here are a couple I edited for everyone to see.

Went to the Weber-Gladden wedding rehearsal tonight. Had a load of fun and got everything figured out for tomorrow. Hopefully, if I'm not to tired, I will be able to post 1 or 2 pics tomorrow after the wedding.

 Tamron is giving away a lens a day for the next 60 days! Tamron lens giveaway

If any of you are looking for a good tripod for cheap, Amazon is having a sale right now on Induro tripods.... The reviews are very good from what I read.... A-113 $26: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Alloy-6...3405904&sr=1-9 A-114 $58: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Alloy-6...405904&sr=1-12 CX-113 $87: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Carbonf...3405904&sr=1-2 CX-114 $111: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Carbonf...405904&sr=1-13 C-114 $210: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Carbon-...3405904&sr=1-6 C-413 $207: http://www.amazon.com/Induro-Carbon-...3405904&sr=1-3

When you are looking for a wedding photographer, other than pricing and quality of work, what is more important to you.. Quality prints or a disc with the images on it for you to print out on your own. Leave me a comment on what you think.

Like I mention in my intro I love custom trucks and go to a lot of car shows. I also love to shoot those trucks and do automotive portraits as part of my photography. Here are a few I have shot this past year or two.

The wedding is set, you found a talented photographer whose work you love. It's a big day for you and you want awesome pictures but aside from looking gorgeous what is your part in creating great pictures? After all, it's not every weekend you plod around in a wedding dress and tux every weekend with a photographer in tow. How do you help your photographer achieve their best? Here are 10 do's and don'ts when working with your wedding photographer

I don't have much going on this week other than preparing for this weekends wedding. So to pass some time, here are a few images from weddings we have shot lately.

Went out to the ceremony site today to scout out some locations and check the lighting for the ceremony. I found a lot of potential areas for shooting in and the B&G are very excited to see what kind of images I can capture of their big day. I have quite a few ideas I want to try, but I am sure once we set up and start shooting I will have even more ideas. Hopefully we will have the time to shoot everything we want.

This past Friday we had the chance to photograph Emily. She was full of life and attitude...lol. Thankfully my wife came along and was able to charm Emily into being cooperative. Emily's father works on the Hanover College campus and was able to get us permission to shoot the pictures on campus. I could spend a week shooting all the beautiful buildings and views there.