Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

Special on photo sessions!

An era is ending for me...yes, the rumors are true...we are very sadly leaving Brooklyn! We will be moving at the end of the month.  But more on that later.

This will hopefully be a happy post for many of you. After Gabby at Design Mom posted her family photographs I had a large amount of emails requesting photoshoots. At the time, I was in the middle of designing a new photography class and shooting a fall ad campaign for a large company so I wasn't even able to get back to everyone! I don't shoot a lot of client work; most of my photography is editorial. So I decided the best thing to do would be to post here!

Because I'm leaving I'm running a "Good Bye for now NYC" sale.

Family sessions for up to six people will be on sale for 650 dollars (my normal rate is 800 so it is 150 dollars less!). This includes a two hour session at a location of your choice in Manhattan or Brooklyn, a full resolution CD of 25-30 edited images, along with a written letter with my approval to have them printed wherever you like. I'm not a big fan of charging 250 dollars for a session and then charging 50 for one 4x6 print that seems to be so popular with family photographers right now. At that rate you would only get 6 4x6 from a session for the same price as my sale price.  I'd rather have you own all your photographs so that you can print them however you would like, wherever you would like!

Couple and Engagement sessions will only be 500 dollars! I love, love photographing engagements and couples! This includes a two hour session at a location of your choice in Manhattan or Brooklyn, and a full resolution CD of 25-30 edited images, along with a written letter with my approval to have them printed wherever you like.

I have very limited space available for new clients so please email me as soon as possible if you would like to book a session in the last week of June! Cstringhamphoto@aol.com

Also, I will be back in October for one week if you are interested in having portraits taken in the fall.  NYC is lovely then and I will be booking them this month as well. I have room for 4 more sessions, so hurry if you want to book a fall session!

 

Somedays I wish a big red balloon would fly me away...I'm not the only one right?

(Photograph by Grant Stringham on the deserted coney island boardwalk. Not to bad for an 8 year huh?)

Ode to Central Park and Designmom.com

It's been a while since I've posted photographs! Shame on me! This past week I had the chance to photograph one of the most lovely families I have ever met! The Blairs have such an amazing rapport as a group and Gabrielle is the talented mind behind one of my favorite blogs- www.designmom.com

It also helped affirm my love of shooting in Central Park, so I thought I'd post a few of my favorite images from the Bethesda fountain area from the past year. Those archways are the best!

  

 

 

 

 

To see more of the blairs shoot you can go here.

Note: Brenda Barrett Taylor did all the prop styling for this shoot. She is so great! Loved getting to work with her as she is an old family friend! It was a lovely afternoon.

Sold Out!

The first run of the Portraiture Class is sold out! In fact it went so quickly that the website crashed. Don't worry-we got it back up and running in no time! Thank you so much for your support! I'm really excited to teach this class!

I've had quite a few requests about both "Oh Shoot" and the new portraiture class this morning. The classes are taught at www.jessicasprague.com. It's a fantastic site if you want to learn about photography, photoediting, photoshop, or digital/hybrid scrapbooking!  Jessica is a co-editor of mine at Creating Keepsakes Magazine and one of the very best teachers I know! If photoshop scares you, there is no one better to turn to than her. She will calm all your fears and teach you lots of amazing things in the meantime!

Here are the links to my class descriptions:

Oh Shoot- a 6 week beginning DSLR course covering all aspects of your camera!

Portraiture- a 4 week class covering all the details of portraiture.

Both class are sold out right now but we will be offering more soon! If you click the notify me button we will let you know when the classes are avaible again.

I just wanted to post a class description. Registration begins tomorrow!

Portrait Photography Class

• Course Type: Instructor-led
• Format: Video, Online
• Length: Four weeks
• Subject: Portrait Photography
• Instructor: Candice Stringham
• Difficulty: Intermediate

We know that the people we love (yes, the same ones that we lovingly create layouts about) are special, unique, and wonderful. We know that when we click our shutters, we want to capture their awesome personality and appearance and let these shine through the photos we shoot. Now if only we knew exactly how to work our cameras so that when that precious moment arises, we are able to capture what we see in front of us, express how it moves us, and preserve it forever on a photograph.

Enter Portrait Photography with Candice Stringham! For four intensive weeks, join Candice as she leads you on a journey towards taking better photos of your family and friends.

Here is a quick run-through of what to expect from the course:

• In the first week, you’ll learn about the basic elements of portraits so that you can maximize this knowledge to its fullest potential each time you photograph your loved ones.
• In the second week, you’ll learn how to shoot portraits with natural light.
• In the third week, you’ll be given tips and techniques for photographing subjects from different age groups, including how to ensure that your subjects are comfortable and natural, how to pose them, and how to look for the best locations to shoot in.
• In the fourth week, you’ll learn how to photograph couples, families, and group portraits.

Throughout the 4 weeks of the course you’ll receive:

• step-by-step video tutorials that will allow you to see and hear the techniques as you learn. These videos will be available foreverfrom your course homepage at jessicasprague.com, even after the course ends.
• a comprehensive lesson and assignmentfor each week
• an email from Candice 5 days a week for all four weeks, with encouragement, coupons, and inspiration
• access to a private class message boardwhere you can ask questions and chat with other participants about portrait photography as well as everything under the sun
• a weekly live-chat session so Candice can answer questions about the lesson and assignment
• access to the class image gallery, where you can upload your lesson photographs and get praise and feedback from other students

Plus! At the end of your 4-week portrait photography journey, Candice will personally review your individual final three-photograph portfolio!

Because Candice wishes to deliver individualized and personalized instruction for each student, the course class size will be limited. Registration for the course begins on April 27th at 9:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Course Prerequisites

Because this is an intermediate photography class, you should have already taken the Oh Shoot! Photography class, or have a working knowledge of how to use your camera on manual mode.

Registration:

Registration for the May 2009 session of this course begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time on April 27, Monday.

Class dates:

Class runs from Monday, May 4th to Sunday, May 31st.

NOTE: Because Candice wants to personalize the instruction for this course, class size is limited.

Thank you so much! And a winner!

Thank you so much for all your comments! They were really helpful. An official description of the class will be up tomorrow here and on www.Jessicasprague.com were the class is hosted! I'm sure you've all been to Jessica's site but if you haven't or you haven't been lately you should go! She is a great teacher and has a lot of new classes!

We printed out the comments and Grant chose this name out of the pile. Amie, email me and I'll tell you how to register for the class when the time comes!

I am so excited about this class I loved Oh Shoot and can't wait to see what you have to share with us this time. I would like to learn about photographing really anyone but kids and toddlers in particular. I would love to see tips on posing and lighting as well. Possibly even what lights to use in a home studio if you would recommend using lights. I can't wait for this class to begin!

Posted by: Amie Fetzer | April 19, 2009 at 03:39 PM

 

New class...

I'm in the middle of developing and designing a new class on portraiture! I'm so excited about it and I think that it will be great but sometimes when you are in the middle of a large project it's hard to see through to the end result. I want to be sure and cover all the things people want to know about photographing well...people. So I have a few questions for you dear readers!

What do you want to know about photographing people? Do you have posing questions? Lighting questions? Babies? Teens? Adults? Families?  

What has always alluded you when you were trying to take a portrait? Would you want to see a full shoot on film? Or would you rather just see techniques in the videos?

I'd love to hear any questions or thoughts that you have! Post your thoughts and questions by Monday and one of you just might win a spot in the class for helping me out!

Because sometimes you need to get out of the city, so you take spontaneous trips...

to Louisville and you get tired after driving all night so you think it is hilariously funny when they sell mustaches at the diner along with the food. So you buy them and wear them.

And in some cases it's cute:

 

In some cases it's a little bit sexy, in a strange wild west kind of way:

 

 

But in other cases it's just very, very wrong. Like in a "I'm a zombie, here to eat your brains" sort of way. (I can't believe I'm even posting this. It's amazing the sort of judgment impairment missing a whole night of sleep can cause.)

I am so glad that I'm not a man! I do not look good with facial hair, but still the stash did provide many laughs on the way home, so it was money well spent.

If you ever visit Louisville, stop by the Paradise Cafe. It's good times for all!

 

The birds are chirping!

It's 6:50 am here, the sun is out and the light is spilling in from the window and across my lap and onto the couch. The birds are up chirping and building nests outside on top of the air conditioner. And all that would seem very pleasant if I had gone to sleep yet! That's right I haven't been to sleep yet! I have some big deadlines and spent the evening commenting on photographs to finish up my last class at www.jessicasprague.com and editing photographs for the films we are in the middle of making for the new portraiture class!

I'm excited and exhausted but I wanted to share this photograph of some of my favorite people in the window light studio we rented for the first half of the class videos!

Matt,Sarah,Elsie, and Patrick.

 

Hope to see you there! Good night, er...or...good morning.

Speaking of people singing in the street...

I was going through some old files and found a link to an art/film project Mark was a part of last year. It was actually on the front page of the New York Times Theater section which was really cool.

"Last year Rochelle Steiner, the director of the Public Art Fund, which commissions and presents exhibitions in public spaces in New York, encouraged Ms. Friedman to do something for the fund."

Friedman does art films and she decided to film people all over the city preforming in public spaces. You can read about it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/29/theater/29sing.html?_r=3&oref=slogin

The photograph at the top is my husband Mark! As well as the first person in the soldier's uniform to sing on the street in the video. If you don't see the video just click on the spot where it should be and it will come up. Isn't he cute?

My favorite part of the article and the experiment is the fact that there are so many crazy things going on here on the streets that no one even bats an eye! And in a way that makes me sad, I mean do we as a society have so much going on that we don't even see the other people around us living out their lives? Do we pass by things without seeing their beauty because we have to much to do? Has it become unacceptable to reach out to the people around us and share a strange moment on the street? I wonder a lot about that here in this city. It's so easy to feel alone here while at the same time be surrounded by millions of people...