INSPIRATION - JUST MARRIED

Thinking of having your own getaway car at your wedding? Here are a few of Viva's favourite!

THE GETAWAY CAR

While there are many old school wedding traditions Viva has been happy to see disappear, the getaway car is not one of them. Okay, we should be specific. The time honoured tradition of the wedding party sneaking out during the reception to toilet paper the bride and groom’s car, wrap it in cellophane and fill the air vents with confetti is not what we’re talking about. Having an actual getaway car is.

A common past tradition, wedding guests would gather outside to officially send off the bride and groom earlier in the evening and then continue to enjoy the reception without them. When newlyweds decided to ditch the early exit, choosing instead to party the night away with their guests and often being the last to leave, the getaway car became obsolete.

Well Viva’s happy to report it’s making a comeback! Newlyweds aren't necessarily leaving their reception early, but after exchanging vows they definitely have a car to drive away in with the Just Married decor to prove it. We wonder if Will & Kate having their own getaway car had something to do with it.

Want to be a better photographer... Really?

If you do I have a great opportunity to tell you about.

Over at Strobist David Hobby has started Boot Camp III, a great chance to learn by reading and more importantly, to learn by doing.

What I like about Boot Camp III as that David has designed to to be a fun learning experience, NOT a competition or to be "better than".

Another cool thing is it has a "2 light rule", meaning that any image submitted can be lit by no more than two lights (to keep the "gear hogs" from having an unfair advantage).

There are cool prizes to be awarded at the end of the boot camp, but the real prize is in becoming a better photographer, which is exactly what will happen if you participate.

Assignment 1 has just been posted so it's not too late to get involved.

Have fun, learn good stuff, doesn't get any better than that.

I got me a new camera bag...

I share that fact with you not to brag, but to let you know the great deal I got and that you can get too!

My previous bag was a LowePro Rolling CompuTrekker, I really liked it but the one thing that really frosted my muffins was the bag was not deep enough to hold a Nikon D3 with an attached lens. I know some of you are rolling your eyes right now thinking "well that makes world hunger look like a booger!", but I liked to be prepared as possible when heading to a shoot so I like to have my first lens attached and ready to go. I also do not like changing lenses at the beach (or when it's windy), so I want to "expose" my sensor to the elements as little as possible.

Well, I found a LowePro Fastpack 350 at an incredible price, just $75 with FREE shipping! This bag is well made, will take (and protect) a 17" laptop, has all the room I need, AND will take my camera with an attached lens.

They liked the Fastpack 350 over at the Digital Photography School too, you can read their review here.

If you follow this link you'll see the price of $125, it's when you use the coupon code "S7654321" that the price will drop to $75.

This offwe/deal expires on the last day of June (6/30) so you only have a few days to "make the deal".

Below is a 3 minute video that nicely demonstrates the features and space of the Fastpack 350.

A 16" x 20" canvas wrap for $45...

Sorry to say it's too late for for this deal, but it will be back in a couple months and I want you to be prepared.

I signed up for Groupon a while back and get email notifications of outstanding deals, but those deals are available for a limited time, so you need to act quickly. One of those deals was a 16" x 20" gallery wrap from Canvas on Demand.

There has been more than one post here about why I love Canvas on Demand and recommend them so highly (you can read some of those posts here, here, and here). They are a great place to buy your canvas prints (I know because I just ordered the 6th canvas for my house), but when you can get such a large canvas wrap for just $45 it would be silly not to.

The normal price is $127 so $45 (which includes shipping) represents a 65% savings (and a far better price than I can get even with my pro account).

An interesting fact about canvas prints that I learned from Earl Christie was that it has a slightly wider color range than paper prints, so you will actually see more color and more details, especially in the blacks.

So sign up for Groupon discounts so you are ready to pounce the next time around.

You guys take great pictures...

Not sure if many of you wander over to the Weekly Photo Tips Flickr group but you really should as folks upload some pretty darn good images over there.

If you would like to join our Flickr group and share some of your images ('cuz we'd love to see them) you can get instructions on how to join here.

In the mean time take a look at these beauties.

And to those of you who have joined, thanks for sharing your work.

(clicking on any image will open it larger and in a new window)

Not your mothers Reynolds Wrap...

Rosco has recently come with "PhotoFoil", it's a smaller and more convenient version of the old standby CineFoil.

It comes in 10 foot rolls and you can get it either 12 or 24 inches wide.

Chances are good this is one of those products you will only buy once as it's very heavy duty and can be used over and over again.

It's very versatile and can be used in a lot of different applications, you can follow this link to see how I used to to kill a reflective surface while shooting some products.

In the example below I use PhotoFoil to turn an Westcott Apollo softbox into a strip light.

The first image is just a "standard" one light portrait, in it the subject is pretty evenly lit.



In the example below I covered the outer thirds of the Westcott Apollo with PhotoFoil leaving just a center strip exposed, you can see that the subjects face is well lit but the light falls off quickly as you move to either side of center (of her face).



I first started using Cine/PhotoFoil several years ago and still have every piece I have pulled off the roll, this stuff just doesn't wear out!

Below is a quick video, if you're a subscriber you will need to return to the blog or head directly over to our YouTube channel to watch it.