Very First engagement session, Yahoo!

[Jwreich]

Today I had my very first engagement session. I was scared out of my boots and spent the entire day planning each shot, location, and look. Well that was useless in the field as I just took the lead of my clients.

I'm a video guy by trade, and nature so I put their pictures in montage form. If you care to take the time to watch it (2 minutes long) I would appreciate any feedback.

http://www.jphotographic.com/video/tl.wmv


Thanks!

[Bifford]

"J",

that's a nice little montage indeed. You've used depth of field very nicely in a lot of those shots and good to see you've used B/W as well as colour. I thought the "triptic" set at the end of the 2mins was a bit out of place - but only because it was the only one in the show - if there had been a second similar set it would not have stood out so much.

I found the "zooming" in on the shot distracting and annoying on a few of the images - most noticably the one with the woman up against the wall and the man poking his head around the corner. I loved that shot more without him in it but rather than focusing on her laughing face I was "waiting" to see if anything else would be revealed in the pull-back, and indeed his face round the corner was. So the zoom isn't needed in everything I think.

Have you tried different transition effects? Don't go mad with them cause as you know - too many different effects leads to a seeming "randomness" that doesn't work, but two or three wipe effects should work ok.

There ya go! Hope that's constructive enough for ya :) Keep this quality up. Oh, and ditch wmv and replace it with AVI, wmv is rubbish (although u at least seem to have played with the settings from standard so it's not too bad heheh)

Sam

[grego]

Very nice. Most of the photos are pretty solid, except for 1 or 2. A few of them had some lighting issues like where the guy was lit halfway with his wife to be, for example. But regardless, its still pretty impressive.

[Jwreich]

Thanks for the comments. The montage was completed in Microsoft PhotoStory 3, a free download for XP users, and doesn't offer much in motion (in/out) and no transitions that I can find. I completely understand and appreciate the comments.

Grego, I lost my afternoon sun faster then I thought and had to rely upon flash. I'm trying to work with two flash units but until I get more practice I don't know what I'm doing :-).

Thanks again for the comments, they are appreciated.

[jsarnold]

You had some pretty great shots man! The one with the woman showing off the rins with her husband to be in the backgrouns is my favorite.

I also thought the zooming was a little over done, but overall very awesome end result man! I'm sure the brode and groom love it!

[AjP]

beautiful shot, congrat, I bet couple is really happy with such great pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jwreich]

Thanks for the comments on the Movement of the images. I have worked the slide show a bit and taken your suggestions. I think it looks better. I hope you do too.

[berto]

the pictures are nice and your montage is nice too.. my only critique is the picture quality isn't all that great.
i tried this before when i made a cd for a wedding i did. perhaps you resized the photos too small?

love the montage though

[AjP]

I use Pro Show Gold for DVD/CD slideshows this way all images are full size and quality and u can add trasition, effects, music......

[Titus213]

Very nice job! I like the images, color, DOF, composition. The couple also looked relaxed in front of the camera which is no small trick.

The video! I really like the presentation. We did our first with a baby shoot and the parents loved it - added a little background music. I use Pinnacle Studio for now. It's a reasonably priced package that gives you transitions and several sound tracks for narration and music. All our vacation photos go into DVD format now for viewing. It makes a great add-on to the portrait package too. It just takes forever to render on this old 800 Mhz machine.

[Photonut29]

FANTASTIC! love them all! great job and she is very beautiful

[Salleke]

Thanks for the comments. The montage was completed in Microsoft PhotoStory 3, a free download for XP users, and doesn't offer much in motion (in/out) and no transitions that I can find. I completely understand and appreciate the comments.

Grego, I lost my afternoon sun faster then I thought and had to rely upon flash. I'm trying to work with two flash units but until I get more practice I don't know what I'm doing :).

Thanks again for the comments, they are appreciated.

Jwreich - Nice montage. When you zoom in or out, at the end of the zoom, let the pictures stay
one or two seconds stil (longer on screen ) before you go to the next picture(s) transitions.
And IMHO slow down the whole montage and or transitions a little. You have beautiful picures in your movie
but i'ts goinig a bit to fast for someone to give it a better look and to enjoy the romantic vieuw from these happy moments.
If you are looking at a better software to do this movie out of pictures go to the IMAGEMATICS software.
There you have a lots of possibelity's to make your movie's better.
The personal edition is not expensive and it gives you plenty of tools to work with.

http://www.imagematics.com/

[hjoli]

I think they look great!

[Jwreich]

Thanks everyone for the feedback, encouragement and suggestions. I hope to one day be a great photographer and your a great bunch to share with.

Thanks again!

[markubig]

That was some wonderful work there! Thanks for sharing them. You had some great poses and composition. I especially like the use of DOF in the pictures where the woman is sitting on the bench and the man is on the bench behind her and vice-versa. You had a great variety of poses, as well, and the montage to music just made it that much better . . Kudos!

[UK Cheryl]

Ab Fab - what a cool interpretation of engagement shots

CJ

[Jwreich]

Thank you both. I can't wait to try it again with a new couple.