STONEFIELDS OPEN HOUSE

Back in March 2010 Viva posted about STONEFIELDS Heritage Farm, a fabulous new country venue getting ready to open its doors and host your next corporate retreat, special event, private party, community function, and of course Viva's favourite - your wedding.

A few short months later, with several events/weddings under their belt, STONEFIELDS is now hosting an open house for all brides & grooms-to-be, event vendors, and anyone who may be searching for that perfect rustic venue to hold their next celebration.

The open house is on Wednesday September 15th from 5pm-8pm. RSVP to info@stonefieldsheritagefarm.ca for your opportunity to tour the property and see this wonderful new venue first hand.

Thinking of coming o Maine?...

As many of you know Scott Kelby was here in Maine a few weeks ago and we had the pleasure of taking him on a "photo tour".

Being hospitable is not a service reserved for the "famous", if you are planning a trip to Maine please let us know, though we may not be able to give everyone a personalized tour, at the very least we will be happy provide a list (and links) to cool places to shoot, stops you won't want to miss, and great restaurants to eat at. Just let us know you are coming.

Maine (and New England in general) is a beautiful place to visit and is geographically compact so you can go from the ocean, to the country, then on to the city in a short drive.

Here are a couple resources for visiting Maine (here and here) and here is another for New England. Hopefully it will tempt you to head in our direction.

Be sure to come back tomorrow when we'll be spending some time with Joey Lawrence.

Who wants a David Honl DVD?...

Our contest this month is for the two DVD set from David Honl, "Light".

It's an educational lighting DVD that will walk you through nine different shooting scenarios, all lit with small strobes (hot shoe flashes), some lit with as few as one.

You can read the entire DVD review here.

To be eligible for the drawing you need to do two things between now and the end of the month (9/30/10):

1. Leave a comment on any of our posts.

2. Upload a favorite image you have shot to our Flickr Group with a sentence (or two) about why it's among your favorites.

For those of you who have already left comments since the first of September, if you upload an image to Flickr you will be in the running too.

For those wondering, all rights and ownership of any image you upload will remain with you and you alone. Period.

You can enter as many times as you like, for each comment and image combination you submit your name will be entered into our September contest.

Looking forward to reading your comments and seeing your images.

Good luck everyone.

It finally happened...

I've shot at a bunch of weddings (including 2 this weekend) and many have been beautiful, touching events. But never had I been emotional (AKA "something in my eye").

Well, at the reception of yesterdays wedding the father of the bride got up to toast the couple and started talking about his love for his daughter, how on the day she was born she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of his, then went on to talk about important events in her life (first day at school, riding a bike, etc.) when she was nervous or afraid and how putting her hand in his would comfort her and give her strength.

Each of the moments he shared was both touching and beautiful, then he started... "and now the day has come when I have to take your hand from mine and place in gently into the hand of your husband..."

The guests were crying, the wait staff was crying... even I had "something in my eye".

The above image is of a rose that was in the brides bouquet. I shot it with a Nikon 60mm Micro (macro) 2.8 lens. I wanted just the edges of the petals closest to the lens in focus and the focus on the rest of the flower to fall off.

Fate...

It's the weekend, a time when I sometimes go waaaaay off topic (from Photography).

This video affirms that sometimes there is more than chance at play, sometimes fate happens.

Subscribers will need to return to the blog to watch this video as it does not get pushed through, sorry.

One more sale NOT to miss...

I normally would have held this post for next week but by then it would be too late!

My friends over at V Gallery (Vicki & Jed Taufer) just emailed me that they are having a 50% off EVERYTHING Labor Day sale (ending September 6th).

We have reviewed a few of their products including our pick for the 2009 product of the year, "The Evolution Collection with FLO", and everything you need to add pet photography to your studio, "Unleashed".

You can read our reviews for both here (Evolution Collection) and here (Unleashed).

Be sure to use the promo code "LD2010" to get half off everything you purchase.

Happy shopping and have a safe holiday weekend.

CoffeeCup slideshow software for only $19...

If you are looking for slideshow software CoffeeCup software is offering "Photo Gallery" for just $19.

I bought it and can tell you it's powerful AND easy to use.

The only thing is the sale is for a short time only (I believe it ends in a week), so you can learn more about Photo Gallery here (including some sample slideshow), check out the video tutorials here, and use this link to order it at the discounted price here.

If you want to take it for a test run just to make sure, a free trial is available here.