Christopher Rebo Photography

So, this will be a little departure from my normal posts.  To all of my clients, potential clients and blog stalkers: feel free to skip to the next post.  This post is a quick little write up that will mostly be of interest to other photographers.  There are some nice images, though, so feel free to stay and look, too.

I went to Las Vegas last month for the WPPI convention with a few photographer friends.  While I was down there, I got a few rolls of the new Kodak Portra 400 in 35mm.  (They were giving it away at the Kodak booth… Bonus!)  We had already set up a fun little shoot on the strip, so I decided to leave my trusty D700 behind and just shoot this new film in my F100.

I have to say – my initial impression is this film is pretty awesome.  Great color and skin tones, very forgiving to work with, and very fine grain.  Almost perfect!  Or at least a lot better than films from days past. Don’t know what else to say about it – if you want to shoot some film, this is a great one to start with.  And if you stumbled across this little review, you are probably looking for some images…  Well, I won’t disappoint you.

This first set was shot at box speed – ISO 400 – and developed and scanned by the great people over at Richard Photo Lab.  Nothing has been done to them other than some (not all) have a very slight curves adjustment, and then they are all resized for the web.

And this second set was rated at ISO 800, and then developed normally.  To clarify: it was shot at ISO 800 and NOT pushed at all in development.  Pretty fantastic results.

This post is going to be more for my fellow photographer friends…  But there will be nice pictures, so at least check them out.    In March Janna and I had the opportunity to fly down to Denver and attend a personal workshop with Colorado Wedding Photographers Andy & Angie Wood from A&A Photography.  To add to that, we had won the seats through an auction to benefit Thirst Relief International.  So all of the cost of the workshop was donated to Thirst Relief, which is super cool, and very generous of Andy and Angie!

First off, I have to say that Andy and Angie were a pleasure to work with from the very beginning.  We spent a good bit of time back and forth via email trying to get a date sorted out, and also just what we wanted to cover during the day.  Angie covered most of this with us, and she was even nicer in person than she was via email. 

Also, we had some trouble getting a rental car for the day we had scheduled, and in the end they just offered to come to the airport and pick us up – which was a huge blessing and also saved a lot of headache.  I did offer to pay them, but they refused.    So they picked us at about 7:45 that morning, and we headed off to get some breakfast (which they also would not let me pay for) and talk a little bit about the day, and our business.  We had decided to spend the morning talking about business and SEO related subjects, and spend the afternoon shooting and going over some off camera flash techniques.

After our breakfast Q&A session, we moved down the street to a coffee shop to talk in more detail about SEO and biz related matters.  (We also randomly saw a good friend of mine at the coffee shop – small world – Hi Addy!)  The morning session was awesome.  I learned so much in a short amount of time!  And and Angie were very knowledgeable when it comes to SEO, and had great advice for business in general as well.  They were also totally transparent when it came to questions about their own business, which was helpful and refreshing.    I really think the morning session more than made the trip worth it all on its own.

So, after we grabbed a snack for the road, we met up with Andy and Angie’s assistant, Charlotte.  She was going to be our model for our afternoon lighting session – which she did a great job as and was a totally trooper!  Once again I think both Janna and I found that they were very knowledgeable on the subject – and even more than that, they were patient and kind teachers.

I think that it is worth noting that throughout the day we found Andy and Angie to be a total pleasure to work with.  They have a passion for teaching that shows, and they do it well.  They were (and still are!) genuinely interested in seeing us succeed and helping us better our skills and our business.  There was no question that was off limits, and even more important, I think, was that there was no stupid questions to them.  It was the kind of environment that you felt like you could truly learn in – and we did!

To top off the evening we had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (which they finally conceded to let me buy) before we had to head back to the airport.  Nothing like a good meal to end a good day!  We learned a ton, and also had a ton of fun in the process.  I think I can safely say I would recommend Andy and Angie’s workshop to anyone looking to spend the day with some quality people and learn a few things.  Or just hang out for a good time!  Thanks guys!

And because I promised…  Here are a few pictures from the afternoon – feel free t leave Charlotte some love in the comments section!

Chris

Just returned from a fun week away – we spent some time over in Seattle visiting some relatives and just relaxing.  Well, relaxing as much as is possible with 3 children 4 and under along for the ride. 

We did all kinds of fun things with the kids… Went to the beach, went to the zoo, took them to the flight museum…  And, of course, being the good photographer dad, I was trying to document all of this along the way.  FAIL.

Ok, so not a complete failure.  I did get some fun and/or cute pictures of the kids.  But, what I did learn is that is quite difficult to participate in and document the same event.  Or at very least, it isn’t a lot of fun!  Maybe it is the wedding photographer in me, but when I am trying to take pictures of an event, it seems that is what takes over.  So, towards the end of vacation I opted more times than not to simply leave the camera for a while, and just have fun.  And I did. 

Chris

Hello blog faithful…

I know it has been far too long since I’ve really posted anything, so I thought I’d update the blog a little and, you know, let you all know I am still alive. 

So, here’s what’s been cracking:

- We moved!  Well, just across town, but you wouldn’t know that by the amount of work it seems to take.  I’ve determined that if I never move again, I think I will be happy.  At least until next time…  The good news is we moved in to a bigger house, which means the kids have their own rooms, which means I get more sleep, which is generally good for everyone who comes into contact with me.  Which also means I can maybe cut down on my near lethal doses of caffiene.  Maybe.

- I got to work with some fabulous people yesterday on a bridal fashion/editorial shoot… So much fun!  Don’t want to give too much away – there will be a full post on that coming soon!

- Shooting a few Senior sessions lately as well, although the weather isn’t playing along very well yet.  You can see all that work over on the Senior website – Helena Montana Senior Photography – it will be updated soon as well!

- On top of all of  that planning our short little vacation out to Seattle next month.  Gotta get outta town before wedding season kicks into gear.  We always like visiting Seattle…  The kids love the Zoo.  I love going back to where I grew up.  Sometimes miss all the things you can do in the big city, but Helena is really home.

And on that note, consider yourself updated…

Chris

Just a quick little something…  Was out shooting some stuff just for fun, and I shot this image.  Hope you enjoy!

Chris
Helena Montana Wedding Photographer