I’ve been hanging on to this set for a little bit now as some of the photos were meant to be used in a slideshow for Rob’s 40th birthday (yeah 40… you’d never think by looking at the photos hu? Behold… the power of photoshop ).

I’ve allowed myself a silly comment up there simply because these guys are not just an incredibly good looking family, but they’re also very close friends. It was an absolute pleasure to not only be able to spend some time with them having fun taking some portraits, but also watching their family and friends’s reactions at the birthday party when they saw the slideshow Good times.

Happy 40th Birthday Rob (it’s actually on the 10th for the record)!!!

Ok, enough of the talk… let’s let the images start doing the talking:

Here’s the handsome little man of the house:

I had never given this much thought… but while shooting this session I realized one benefit of the subjects being friends… sometimes you don’t even have to say “Ok, let’s insert a little clown in here for levity” … in fact … ahem… quite the opposite

Oh help me, help me! My eyes…. they burn!!!

Oh no! Not that kissing thing again!!!

This last shot was the only one I had specifically planned for the slideshow… as it turns out Rob and Dalia’s son Christianbears an incredible resemblance to what his dad looked like at his age, it’s amazing actually!

Rob, Dalia and Christian… thank you so much for being our friends. I hope you enjoy the photos

The whole set can be seen on our proofs site.

Related posts:

1. Kirkendall – Family Portraits in Downtown Hollywood
2. Polanco – Family portraits in Downtown Hollywood

No, not a South Florida Wedding and not an Engagement Session either… but a gorgeous couples’ session nonetheless.  Jennifer and Derek are total naturals in front of the camera… which is understandable in the case of Jennifer, who models (and dances and does all sorts of other cool things!) but Derek… he’s just a regular dude… but wow… check out the intense GQ look below!

After that shot we kept joking around that he’s got the intense look of an underwear model… oh yeah and I should note that when he jokingly asked something along the lines of “ok is this when we do the underwear shots” … my wife didn’t make a peep … hum…

At any rate… photographing them was a pleasure and an honor… and if you guys end up together… let’s totally hook up a cool multi-hour session

Here’s a shot I’d like comments on (you can email me if you prefer to keep your thoughts private)… I had this idea while shooting a tiny little baby, that we often don’t have photos from the vantage point of Ourselves while doing something… in the case of the baby I shot the baby as the parent would see him while they held him. In this case the idea was to use a normal lens (which gives a very natural perspective) and shoot the photo from the position where Derek’s eyes would be if he were gazing into Jennifer’s eyes as he gently cupped her face… does it work?

And speaking of cupping…

Two can play this game!

This shot below deserves an explanation.  As usual at the beginning of the session I mentioned to them that the best “kiss” photos are photos where they’re about to kiss… not the actual kiss itself.  Well… guess what… without me even realizing it they took my words to heart and literally NEVER kissed during the whole session LOL.  Except when we started taking some totally silly ultra-wide-angle shots… which I certainly didn’t intend on posting…  but hey… it’s the only kiss shot I have, so here it is LOL

And from kiss… to … Uh Tongue bite-pull

Guys, it was an absolute pleasure to spend the little time we had available making some fun photography.  Thank you!

Oh and Derek… unfortunately for my wife we don’t really do underwear model photography but if that’s where you see yourself in 5 years… I might have some contacts you might want to talk to

All the photos for the session are on the proofs section of the website.

Related posts:

1. Nikki and Marcelo – Lifestyle Couples Session in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
2. Ahyde and Denis – Engagement Session in Hollywood, Florida
3. Pia – Model session in Hollywood, Florida

Heater, Angela and Sean came by sometime around noon and we set out in the alleys of downtown to capture some great family portraits.

I’m always amused by the fact that parents, and in this case the aunt as well, are surprised that their otherwise outgoing young boy, gets shy when confronted with 15lbs of camera equipment and a stranger behind the lens Despite Angela and Heather’s repeated concerns for Sean’s lack of cooperation… the little dude did great!!! I’ve certainly identified a couple of shots I will be adding to my family portfolio.

I don’t need to tell you that Angela and Heather are stunning… you can see that for yourself… and Sean is well on his way to be a permanent fixture on all the girls’ cell phones in a few years … but aside from that, they were a real pleasure to work with, it’s nice to see such a cool bond between sisters, aunt and nephew and mother and son. Thank you to the three of you for warming up our day!

all the photos for the session are on the proofs section of the website.

Related posts:

1. Polanco – Family portraits in Downtown Hollywood
2. Skori – Family session on Hollywood Beach
3. Inman – Family Portraits in North Miami

For those of you who may start reading and think “Oh WPTouch” I know about that…  or those who prefer a different mobile plugin I’d suggest you hang around for a few minutes as I’ve added a killer hack to WPTouch (or any other mobile plugin) which will undoubtedly make the experience MUCH better for your iPhone (and other mobile device users).

So… if you have a Wordpress blog … and display a lot of large images … and you’re either plagued by a pathetically slow host (yeah that would be me), or you simply want to help out the clients who pay based on bandwidth usage, and give them a much faster user experience… this post is for you.

In the remainder of this post I will presume that you will be using WPTouch but as I mention at the end you can use this with any other appropriate plugin/theme.

What you need to get

Wordpress Plugin:  WPTouch – don’t let their “deliver an incredibly fast … experience” claim fool you… you’ll still want to do my hack

Install it as they recommend, configure it to your taste, and test it out either on a mobile device, or in firefox you can somewhat simulate it by getting the Firefox Plugin: User Agent Switcher and then once it’s installed under the tools menu choose iPhone 3.0 as the user agent and then browse your site.

Ok.  Once you’ve done this, you will already feel the need to add a follow link to my site (yes that would be nice if you found this useful – please link to http://www.manymanymoments.com with a link text of South Florida Wedding Photographer) …

Why is it still not perfect

Well, once you install WPtouch your blog interface will be significantly simplified and iPhone-ified in terms of it’s looks… however any images you show on your blog will be downloaded in their full multi-hundred-k size and then resized to fit your iPhone screen.

So why should YOU care?

1. Your blog load times will be much longer than they need to be.  Think about it… your viewers will be downloading 900×600 (or whatever size you size your blog images are) images but only seeing at most 300×440 or so images
2. Many mobile plans aren’t unlimited… so you’re basically costing your clients money
3. At least on the iPhone and iPod touch when some unknown magical point is reached in terms of page size and/or page load time, the browser gives up and your clients will see tiny little blue question marks.  Yeah… your glorious images, replaced by tiny question marks.

Do I have your attention yet?  If not, then maybe you didn’t read point 3 above

In an Ideal World…

When the client browses the site with their gloriously large desktop they would be served nicely sized large images to enjoy in all their glory.
When the client browses on their iPhone the site would serve much smaller images, sized appropriatelly for the user’s screen.

You would think there would be a Wordpress Plugin to do this. But no. Don’t even waste your time… at least as of today there just isn’t.

Well.. kinda … I guess there is now! (ok it’s a hack on top of WPTouch ’cause I’m too lazy to write my own agent-detection code… but for all intents and purposes it’s as if there were a plugin)

How to Hack your WPtouch and be your iPhone Clients’ best friend!

Ok, the hack is a two part thing. Part one is a slight change in your workflow:

When you generate your 900×600 (or whatever) images for the blog, also generate a smaller size set using the identical filenames. I recommend a size of 300×440 meaning that you let horizontal images get no wider than 300 and the verticals no taller than 440… not saying you should use a weird 300×440 aspect ratio LOL) … experiment with your compression settings to achieve the smallest possible sizes that still look great at 100% magnification.

when you upload your images, you’ll want to upload them in two separate folders.  One folder will be Images/Full and the other Images/Mobile.

You have complete freedom in terms of how you want to structure the overall path to the folders… so for intance:

http://yourdomain.com/blog/images/full

http://yourdomain.com/blog/images/mobile

is fine

http://yourdomain.com/blog/images/2010/Weddings/JackAndJill/images/full

http://yourdomain.com/blog/images/2010/Weddings/JackAndJill/images/mobile

is fine too

The key is that you have a folder called images which has the two subfolders, full and mobile and that identically named files are in the two folders.

Then when you write your post you simply reference the images in the FULL folder without worrying about the ones in the mobile folder.

…

This all took a bunch of lines to explain… but it’s super-easy… especially if you use a decent ftp client to do your image uploading and if you use Lightroom’s Export presets to automatically generate the differently sized images and place them in appropriate folders ready for FTP upload.

Part two is a one time hack of one of the WPTouch files (ok… one time for every time you update WPTouch… the hack would most likely be removed by an update… unless we can get them to implement this as part of the plugin).

you’re going to have to find your plugin directory with your ftp client.  If you named your wordpress root folder blog then you would find it under:

blog/wp-content/plugins

ok, once in the plugins folder you’ll want to find the WPTouch/Themes/Default folder

In that folder look for a file called functions.php

Copy functions.php to your destktop and feel free to make a copy of it for safekeeping.

Open functions.php with a text editor.

Go all the way to the end of the file where it says:

?>

add the following code before that line:

function MobileImages($content) {
$content=str_ireplace(‘/images/full/’,'/images/mobile/’,$content);
return $content;
}

add_filter(‘the_content’,'MobileImages’);

And then copy this edited functions.php file back to the blog/wp-content/plugins/WPTouch/Themes/Default folder and overwrite the old one.

That’s it.  Now whenever a device is using the WPTouch plugin the function you added will look for the text “/images/full/” and replace it with “/images/mobile/” … causing the browser to load the smaller, faster to load images.

Once again… if you find this useful and think that it will indeed be a benefit for your clients I would really appreciate it if you would add a link to my site from yours.  The final function and workflow may not look like much but It took a full two days of research and work to solve this problem… often enough the work is not in the actual code, but figuring out WHAT CODE to write.  Please use the following html for the link:

Many Many Moments photography by Alessandro Di Sciascio <a href=”http://www.manymanymoments.com>South Florida Wedding Photographer</a>

if you add a link please send me a quick note at my email address so that I may thank you.

Two last things:

1. Think outside the box.

Read this page on both a desktop computer and a mobile device with WPTouch… and you’ll see what I mean

2. You don’t have to use WPTouch if you prefer a different mobile plugin/theme.  You can add the code I wrote to any other theme THAT HAS Agent Verification code built in (basically that is only served to a mobile device) and it will work without any issue… just add it to the functions.php in that plugin’s theme.

No related posts.

This Saturday, January 30th I will be one of 15 or so Photographers donating our shooting and processing time to families who make a donation to help the Sow a Seed organization.

The donation amount is $100 and I or another photographer will treat you and your family, friends, significant other, pet, or just you… to an immediate 30 minute custom photography session in downtown Hollywood.

If you know someone who might like the idea of making a tax-deductible contribution to a great cause… and getting some great photography on top of that please let them know.

For more information see:  Soflyphotog.wordpress.com

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You may remember Jaelin and Dave from the South Florida Engagement photography session we did in Deerfield Beach. They were down here from Colorado planning a wedding in the Bahamas at the time… and if life hadn’t intervened you probably would have seen a Bahamas wedding sometime in the next couple of months. But life did intervene and plans changed, and I had the amazing opportunity to bundle up and fly out to Aspen to photograph this fairy tale of a wedding.

Yes for my fellow Floridians who weren’t following along…the bride is indeed standing on snow… and yes she is indeed completely sleeveless… and believe it or not she’s wearing regular bride shoes under that gown. Let’s just say Jaelin can probably make ANYTHING look easy

Before I go any further, a heartfelt thank you to Mark Arnold from the big D down in Texas, who flew up to Colorado to second shoot for me. Mark was a pleasure to work with, a fun guy who fit right into the group, and a talented photographer on top of that. Development choices, cropping, and post-processing of all the images was done by me and all photos were shot by me unless otherwise specifically identified in the text.

Yes… definitely NOT South Florida

The second photo above is the view from the window of my room. Jaelin and Dave rented a fantastic, huge house in Aspen, which served as home base for all the activities of the days, sleeping quarters for most of the guests, and the location for cocktail hour and the reception.

Did I mention that Jaelin has awesome taste? Proof is in the pudding… check out this wedding dress! Elegant… simple… and perfect for showing off how stunning she is!

Those are the shoes she wore all day. Including in the snow. If I told you I had bought patent-pending waterproof socks that go up to the knee… and wool-coolmax wicking/warm socks to go under those… and Timberland Pro-Level guaranteed waterproof, ultra-insulated boots would you at least begin to imagine how silly I felt when I saw HER shoes?

Nicole helps Jaelin into the car.

riding home to see her groom to be…

Oh yeah… that above is the expression of someone who has just been told by the Valet that they have… get this… LOST HER CAR. No really. I thought I’d heard them all. The Valet actually had to use another car to drive Jaelin’s mom and Nicole to the house … yes they eventually found the car

Meanwhile back at the house… Dave is transcribing his vows onto holdable cards…

photos in collage below: Mark Arnold

and then he waits…

…and waits…

and it was definitely WORTH THE WAIT!

A quiet moment for the soon-to-be new family…. Jaelin, Dave and Scrappy! Scrappy was awesome! he rode with Dave and me from Denver airport to Aspen and he was super-friendly and incredibly well-behaved. He was also featured prominently in a gazillion photos, though you’ll only see him in a few here

Ok, everybody’s ready to go… let’s head to the ceremony!!!!

But what should we ride?!?

Oh yeah … of course! Horse drawn sleighs! We do that ALL the time down here in So-Fla

The “official” sleigh with the Bride and Groom and the immediate family…

And the “cool cats” sleigh with the rest of us… what a fantastic group of people… it was as if I were around my own friends, great people, super-friendly … all about having a great time! Thanks guys for making Mark and I feel like a couple of guests (weighed down by absurd amounts of photographic equipment)!

We’ve reached our destination… the ceremony begins

photo below: Mark Arnold

Jaelin trying to keep her composure while reading her vows…

united by two rings…

…and sealed with a kiss

right under their favorite mountain… I don’t know about diamonds… but mountains are certainly Forever. Certainly a humbling place to start a new life together.

photo below: Mark Arnold

Mr. and Mrs. Dave Mayer!

as we’re sledding down the mountain their guests hop off the “cool cats” sleigh and write messages in the snow for the newlyweds

Back at the house it’s time to get serious with the formals…

uh … could someone roll back that reel… I said time to get serious with the formals…

No more formals for now… the rest will be in the proofs gallery in a few days…

Ok, I have to confess… I don’t think I’m the first photographer ever to take a shot like the one below.

But I may be the first to ever post the “How to get down from that once you’re done” … thanks Dave for demonstrating for us!

Since they had a small group of friends and family Jaelin and Dave chose to skip some of the more traditional things like tossing bouquets and garters etc… but I wasn’t going to have any of that…

photo below: Mark Arnold

some of you may have already noticed the twist… as she holds her bouquet ready for the fake launch, behind her I lined up….

All the men at the party!

as you can see even Dave is back there… hold on a minute… didn’t you JUST GET MARRIED?

I’d really love to show you a lot of the photos from the reception. Jaelin and Dave hired a word-class chef to prepare an exquisite meal (ask me how I know <grin>) and serve it to their guests. However I’m quickly running out of internets here… so I’m going to have to leave those for the proofs section.

Here’s a sampling of the food/details from the reception room:

photos in collage below: Mark Arnold (I think all of them)

the first dance … Dave’s mom and sis looking on, teary-eyed… lots of emotions at this wedding for sure!

a quick dance with the parents…

and then on to the final event! The Aspen Fireworks!

And that is where the curtain falls.

I hope you enjoyed those photos as much as I enjoyed photographing them and developing them.\

Jaelin, Dave… thank you for making me a part of two very special moments in your life. You were outstanding hosts, your family and friends opened up to Mark and I in a way I could not have dreamed of beforehand. I hope you find the photos to be a good way to help you remember these special days in your lives 100 years from now.

Oh… Mark and I hard at work while the ladies get their hair done (I don’t need to specify who took the photo, do I?) I’m the incredibly good looking one in the picture, of course

Related posts:

1. Patricia and Michael – South Florida Wedding
2. South Florida Wedding Photography – Anna and Sean – Studio Album
3. Jaelin and David – Engagement Session in Deerfield Beach, Florida

It was a very interesting experience.  The students who are vying for the belt must pass an oral examination involving demonstrating knowledge of the history of Karate, and of the specific style employed in the dojo, they also have to demonstrate the ability to perform specific moves when asked to do them in the native Japanese, they have to recreate imaginary fights (Kata) and finally demonstrate proficiency in a demonstration combat session.  It was great!

Relaxing before the exam

100% focused

All of the body’s strength,  focused by the mind in a clenched fist

One of the more “intense” guys…

…and yet none of the guys could hold a candle to this force of nature in terms of sheer icy determination:

you want intense?  Here’s intense!

Sensei looks on…

I was particularly drawn by the whole ceremony aspect of it…

I hear these two are great friends!  Hey with friends like these…. LOL

I hope you enjoyed the photos… it was a trip outside of my comfort zone, many lessons learned, one for all… it’s definitely fun to shoot something totally different every once in a while!

Hundreds of photos are in the proofs gallery

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In a previous blog post I addressed the question of How my Clients’ Images are kept safe.  If you haven’t read it I would certainly advise you do so.  In the future I will address other “catastrophes” and how I have implemented plans to deal with them.

Before I go any further… I want to point out that I realize many people are uncomfortable with even thinking about something like My not being able to shoot their wedding (due to illness, or worse) and I understand that.  But at the same time, having put a strong plan in place (and one that I continue to improve upon as time goes by) I am actually freed from having to worry about this… and my clients are too.

Ok, so … what happens if for whatever reason I can’t shoot your wedding?  Well for one you can rest assured that if this were to happen it would mean that I’m either too ill to physically stand up and think straight, or that I’ve suffered an incapacitating injury that makes it physically impossible for me to peform as expected, or worse yet that I am no longer among you.  In any of those cases, please spend a moment to have a warm thought for my wife and children.

The key point above is that I’m very aware of the demands of the job and while I can certainly come up with scenarios that would prompt most to not feel capable to “show up for work” … I will show up for work unless what I mentioned above has happened, and let’s leave that at that.

So…  what have I put in place to mitigate the “loss” to my clients in the event of my inability to shoot the wedding?  As with everything else there is no silver bullet… however I feel fairly comfortable with the plan I have in place:

• I select second shooters whose skills I feel confident in.   While you can certainly expect me to bring along someone with limited experience on an engagement shoot, a family portrait session, or any other session where their presence isn’t really “required”, you will not see a rookie roaming your reception on your wedding day.  While they might not shoot exactly the same way I would, second shooters are familiar with my style and would most likely be able to provide you with photography you would be thrilled with.  Of course that would NOT leave you without a second shooter as I try to have a “bench” I can draw from should the need arise.  This would be the default solution if something were to happen to me during the event or immediately prior, where any thought of finding a replacement would be moot.

• I am friends with a network of professional wedding and non wedding photographers many of whom shoot in a style similar to mine – I would be able to tap this network to help you quickly find a replacement photographer if that is your preference.  Note that the netowork is actually two networks… one local and one global… so even in the event of a destination wedding I should be able to quickly find an awesome photographer that could replace me should you approve of such.

• I “charge” a set “fee” to myself against every wedding I shoot and set that money aside in a self-insurance fund.  The purpose of this money is to pay to have a higher-priced photographer come in and shoot your wedding if I can’t – having such a fund makes it so that if the situation were to arise I could truly recommend based on my perception of the other photographers’ work quality, rather than having to be significantly limited by a budget.  Of course this may not be an issue depending on the relationship I may have with the photographer

• Finally as a member of the Professional Photographers of America Association I am covered by an indemnification trust that would cover many kinds of losses, including possibly restaging the wedding for the purpose of taking the photographs.  This one is clearly not a particularly appealing solution, but it is a final safety net in the event that nothing else worked.

If you read this and think of other things I could/should do to further contain this risk, please share it with me either via email or by commenting at the bottom.

If you find this useful and think you will benefit from what you read here, I would really appreciate it if you would add a link to my site from yours.
Please use the following html for the link:

Many Many Moments photography by Alessandro Di Sciascio <a href=”http://www.manymanymoments.com>South Florida Wedding Photographer</a>

if you add a link please send me a quick note at my email address so that I may thank you.

No related posts.

Rosie looking at her little man

Here’s what happens when you leave a 6 year old loose while you’re getting your camera equipment out of your trunk

I Love this one

Here’s another one of my favorites… nose to nose

I still can’t believe his mommy let me plop him up there!!!  ok, ok there was soft Astroturf below … and I did shoot it from an angle that would make him look higher up than he really is

“Where do you think you’re going young man?” … ok I have to admit it… it’s a total setup

Guys, thank you for a great session.  Joel thanks especially to you for being such a good sport and going along with all the setups and all, thumbs up for sure!

You can see the rest of the set on the proofs site by clicking here

Related posts:

1. Kirkendall – Family Portraits in Downtown Hollywood
2. Skori – Family session on Hollywood Beach
3. Inman – Family Portraits in North Miami

So when we were invited to go play I figured why not bring some camera equipment and try to do justice to their awesome setups?  Some gelled flashes, some creative compositions with flash flare in the shots and I’m happy to say that I got exactly what I was looking for.

Enjoy!

Our gorgeous rock star host:  Kelly

…and her hubby Dan

JMZ

The second stage

my (much) better half.. probably expressing her joy at having landed me

Shawn easily taking the “Best move of the night” with this impromptu dance to a James Brown song

fake moustache

love this candid

Many more photos are available on the proofing site, by clicking here

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