Hi Folks,
October 30 was last year’s deadline for the Westford Academy yearbook.  Here’s the Fall 2009 page (official yearbook page).   We got some great foliage portraits last year. Here’s a slide show of some portraits.

Here is my portrait gallery.

Westford Academy’s default photographer is Burlington Studios.  They offer competent but uninspired photography.   All of my senior’s LOVED their portraits.  When you page through the Clarion you can tell when the photos are inspired.  The difference is clear.

I will take the time to get the shot(s) that you want, and I’ll work to make the images great.

Burlington Studios cannot match what I do.  To get outdoor photos you must buy their ‘ultimate package’  Which is $200 WITHOUT any prints.   when you add in prints it’s easily (their 2011 print price list) another $100.  2 8×10’s and 8 wallets is over $110. … That’s $310!  My comparable service is $155 and includes the following.

• Outdoor photography in a variety of settings
• Comfortable, relaxed, unpressured, and fun
• On-line proofing gallery
• 1 on-site proofing session to help select your photo
• 1 edited color corrected image including blemish removal, airbrushing, etc.
  • File to be submitted to the Yearbook that meets Clarion 2011 specifications (sRGB jpg 2.5″x3.5″@360px/in)
  • sample prints – 2 8×10’s and 8 wallets

For additional prints, you can either get them from me, or purchase the digital negative (not an option at many studios).  I do professional archival (very long lasting) pigment printing on canvas, watercolor paper, and traditional photo paper at very competitive rates.  My digital negative allows you to do your own printing, and will be color corrected to print well on the Noritsu printer at Costco.

I guarantee your satisfaction.  If you’re not happy I’ll do a reshoot.

contact me at portraits at brucecaldwellphotography dot com

So you’re going to get your ’serious’ portrait taken….how should you prepare?  Here are a few items to get you thinking:

1. Time.   When do you feel calmest and best?  Most folks are usually AM or PM.   Schedule your session for when you feel (and look) your best
2. Sleep.  Unless you’re going for the goth look, get a good night’s sleep.
3. Spend a few minutes with post-its and a previous yearbook and mark a half dozen pictures that you really like.
4. Wardrobe (what to wear)
   1. Wear something you’re comfortable in
   2. Bring a dark solid top, long or short sleeves.
   3. Bring a white solid top
   4. For senior portraits bottoms and shoes are whatever is comfortable. Remember that most of our shooting is outside so be prepared for the outside.
      1. If we are doing full, 3/4, or fine art shooting, you need to coordinate with your top(s).
5. Jewelry should be complementary and not eye catching.  The portrait is of you, not of your necklace.
6. Hair
   1. schedule the hair dresser at least 7 days before the shoot.
   2. Wind can be great, but if you don’t like the affect bring the accessories you need to keep your hair the way you like it.
7. Use makeup but not too much
   1. Boys and girls : conceal your blemishes
   2. Girls easy on the :
      1. mascara, light eye liner, foundation, lip stick
8. Props – If our goal is the Westford yearbook, they have a no prop rule.
9. Groups – I really want to get the ‘real’ you.  We usually want to see a smile, and we’re really good at seeing when it’s forced.  Having your chums around can make it more fun and allow some spontaneity.
10. Have fun!

Nice afternoon with some beautiful low  golden sun….

Wow, these turned out great!

Steve, Beth, Linley, Jill and Tucker were kind enough to pose on the sand.  Here are some of the results:  Click here for a slide show

Last week we had some fun shooting Tracy and Meaghan on the beach in Brewster, MA. Here are a few of the proofs :

Meahgan

Tracy

for more examples click : Portraits

Kat& Matt!  What a great wedding.

Two great professional photographers captured the wedding and the beginning of the reception.

These are yesterday’s attempt to capture the amazing hazy sunrise.  Usually the sun is too brilliant to not overpower the image, but yesterday there was fog and haze (and hot!)

File sharing betweeh XP and Vista can be be very frustrating.    The problem is that USB disks created on XP will often not work on Vista.  This is because of Vista’s treatment of ownership and security.   Manually you can attach the drive and right click on the folder then Properties -> Security -> Advanced -> Owner -> edit… (How’s that for a burried command) Make yourself the owner, then change the permissions to grant yourself access.

this registry addition to the file menu is a great work around

After HP service did a good job repair my laptop but formatted my drive, I thought it handy to chronicle my almost new machine setup procedure to make it easier next time….

Things to do mostly in the correct order :

1. On old computer run belarc advisor
2. Create a restore point
3. Disable User Access Control (UAC) ( this gets tiring very quickly – we’ll enable it when we’re done)
   1. Control panel search for UAC   OR
   2. Win-R msconfig -> tools tab ‘disable UAP’
4. Disable file indexing
   1. Win-R services.msc
   2. find ‘windows search’ Right click properties-> startup type :  disabled
5. Disable Cyberlink MediaLibrary Service
   1. Win-R msconfig -> Startup tab
6. Connect to the network
7. Install Firefox and thunderbird
8. run www.pcdecrapifier.com to remove all trial software etc…
9. run windows update to get all the latest security fixes.
10. create a restore point
11. Move Firefox and Thunderbird setup, plugins, etc….
    1. Windows-R %APPDATA% on your old PC will disclose where the Profile directories are.
    2. copy the profile directories that you want to use to the new PC %APPDATA% again…
    3. edit the profiles.ini (in Profiles/..) to point to the profile dir you just copied.
12. Install your other apps
    1. Adobe CS4 & LightRoom2.5 – Normal DVD install
    2. Office – Normal DVD install
    3. filezilla
    4. galleryremote
    5. putty & tunnelier
    6. cygwin
    7. emacs(local)
13. Migrate Adobe preferences
14. Change caps key to Control
15. install Google synch daemon to synch lightning calendar with google calendar
16. Enable UAC