Wanamaker Photography Blog

Behind The Scenes Of A Photography Studio

On April 5th, Bri from Just Add Sugar Cafe asked me to go with her to the Walpack Inn to set up a wedding cupcake display tower. I agreed as this was my first time seeing a full cupcake tower assembled from start to finish.

We arrived at the Walpack Inn that afternoon and began setting up. I never realized how much work went into making it perfect. I saw the opportunity for pictures and brought the camera. I did snap a couple of shots for her upcoming website. The lighting was perfect because the room we were in was like a sun room with the sun shining brightly through the ceiling.

This was taken with the Canon Mark III and the 70-200mm lens F/2.8.

A couple days ago, my sister stopped by and brought me a Lily plant for Easter since we weren’t going to see each other. It was still closed up until the other night when it decided to open up in a matter of a couple hours.

I took a few shots of it last night, getting creative with my light … but wasn’t 100% satisfied with what I had captured. This morning we had a beautiful bright sun coming in through our front windows, so I sat this in front of the window and snapped a couple of shots.

I setup the 20D with an 18-55mm lens zoomed to about 25mm. I set the aperture to F4 so I could really just focus on the inner parts of the flower, set my shutter to 1/2500 and ISO to 100. Thankfully the sun was bright enough to kill out the background completely as our one cat wanted to be in every shot I took!

Carly came to us for one of our Senior Portrait Sessions. Actually, she is one of our Ambassadors for the Eldred High School in New York. With that title comes a free photo session and images to take with her to show off to her classmates. In return, Carly will provide us with the information of other interested Seniors so we can setup their Portrait Sessions as well!

During Carly’s Senior Portrait Session, we took some standard and unique photos indoors and then headed outside while the sun was still strong. I wanted to experiment a little with a prom gown she owned … so we decided to incorporate some images of her trashing her prom dress.

However, before we totally ruined the dress, I took her back to a wooded area that had a couple large boulders … one of which I sat her on. I shot a couple frames before this one and then she just tilted her head and looked right into the lens with her amazing blue eyes … so I snapped this shot and absolutely loved it! (We’ve got more images of Carly coming really soon!)

I shot this with our Canon 20D with the 70-200mm lens at F4 at 1/160 with the ISO all the way down at 100.

This past week, Loretta photographed Baby Brady for the start of his First Year Package. During the session, Mikayla (his older sister) became Loretta’s new assistant. She loved holding one of our little white reflectors while Loretta grabbed some absolutely adorable images of Brady.

However, the moment Loretta took out our blue and purple mats, Mikayla decided that she wanted to switch jobs and become a model instead!

Using the Mark III, the image was captured at F5.6 at 1/125 with ISO 160. She had one Alien Bees 800 light with a large soft box set off to the right of our assistant/model at 1/8 power.

Before the Eldred vs. John A Coleman Basketball game got underway, the player introductions were held in the middle of the court and this was one shot that I was able to capture as the team came together. I had a few others, but the focus point was somewhere behind them … so I had a nice sharp wall and fuzzy players!

This image was shot using our Mark III with a 70-200mm lense zoomed to about 150mm. We used an off camera flash, wirelessly triggered with the camera set to F3.5 at 1/200th with the ISO at 400.

Yesterday, Loretta was out covering the Section 9 Wrestling Finals at Monroe-Woodbury as a Team Photographer for Minisink Valley.

During one of the matches, the coaches in the corner of the mat kept blurting out moves and opportunities that they saw as the wrestling match progressed. After a few minutes of this, it seemed that the wrestler had had enough and decided to tell the coaches how he felt …

We actually thought that this was pretty funny. In all the times we’ve photographed wrestling matches, it was the first time we’ve actually seen a wrestler telling his coaches to be quiet during a match. While the extra eyes and expertise can be an added advantage for the wrestler … trying to listen to two coaches yelling moves to you can definitely break your concentration.

This image was shot using our Mark III and 70-200mm lense, zoomed all the way in at 1/200 at F3.2 with the ISO at 500. The light actually came via a friend of ours, who had two strobes on the upper level tied to a pocket wizard. While he uploaded some of the images he shot to the newspaper for a play-by-play, he let Loretta use the system for some of her shots.

Now, we usually post our Image Of The Week on Sunday … but since this shoot wasn’t wrapped up until later in the day yesterday, we needed a little extra time to get it to press! 

Starting in 2008, we began our marketing campaign for “Senior Portraits: Your Way!” with the premise that each high school senior is unique … and their images should be the same. Granted, most parents want the traditional cap and gown or tux or drape shots … but the seniors want something that is as unique as they are without looking the same as everyone else.

Roberta is the younger sister of our photographer, Loretta, who wanted just what we were offering and loved the end results! The entire shoot lasted a few hours and provided her with a couple different backgrounds and outfit changes to work with. We provided her with a hair stylist and she brought her own clothes and did her own makeup.

This image was shot with our Canon Rebel XTI, 28-105mm lense at F4 at 1/500 with the ISO at 400. This was zoomed into about 75mm and had some minor retouching, lighting levels and saturation adjustments done in Photoshop.

On a recent trip to San Francisco, I took a boat tour that brought us under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz island. During the ride, I snapped shots of surrounding elements like this sail boat with the Bay Bridge as a backdrop.

I had been watching the sail boat for a while as I had snapped enough shots of Alcatraz and was looking for something different. What originally attracted my eye for this shot was not the sail boat or the bridge, but rather the reflection of the boat in the water. I am not exactly sure why that captured my eye, but I loved the way it looked and decided to go for it.

The shot above was taken with the Mark III with a 70-200mm lens at F8 at 1/2000 with the ISO at 320. I was zoomed out to about 105 mm and did slight retouching in Photoshop to help bring out the blueness of the water and sky.

This past Saturday, we photographed our first ever Cheerleading Competition at the Minisink Valley Ultimate Cheerleading Competition. While we’ve photographed cheerleaders at football games, we were still in the dark about what we’d encounter during the event itself. Let me start off by saying that cheerleaders at football games are a bit more predictable. These competitions happened fast and moved over every possible inch of the mat!

Shots like the one above pretty much became the theme of the day. While each of us tried our best to anticipate the next flip, kick or jump … we found that we were swinging the lenses around in hopes that we’d capture something great. Well, we did get some great shots … but not the ones we had in mind!

The shot above was taken with our Mark III with a 70-200mm lens and a hot-shoe mounted flash at F2.8 at 1/250 with the ISO at 1250. Most of our close-up shots of the girls in action yielded more roller-coaster and screaming-match shots … except for this one … which was taken during the actual performance itself. After becoming an instant classic, we all started comparing our “frozen face” shots as the rest of the day went on … but nothing seemed to top this one!

Each of our photographers have a different “eye” and with all of the events and sessions that we photograph each week, there are often images that stand out and become our favorites for one reason or another. We wanted to showcase some of these creations as most of them never make it to the front page of our site or even to the pages of our blog. Only one image will be chosen from everything captured during that week and we’ll explain why we took the shot and what our thoughts about it are. This is your chance to see the good, the bad and the interesting!