Photo Musings

The Choun Family

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:26:00 +0000

I had a fun photo session with the Choun family on Sunday, Oct 11, in Ft Collins. We had originally scheduled the session for the previous week but that day was gloomy & cold and we decided to postpone. The following week Fort Collins received the first snow of the season and that set the stage for our family session for their holiday portrait.

There's still time to schedule a session for your holiday portraits but don't wait too much longer.

Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 00:10:00 +0000

A few weeks ago I had a great senior portrait session with Jackson. He was a lot of fun and was open to my off the wall ideas, and he had a few of his own. I'm past due in posting these photos and have more that I want to work with and share. In case anyone is wondering, Jackson and his mom are both happy with the photos.

And, yes, I still have to post photos from the Ft Collins Jazz Experience and the Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highlands Festival. Soon, I promise.

ScotFest Teaser

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 01:12:00 +0000

I spent Thursday night & all day Saturday at the 33rd annual Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highlands Festival. I came back Saturday evening cold, wet and with over 1500 images. It will take me a while to go through all of them but I thought I'd post a teaser.

The El Jebel Bagpipe Band leads the Parade of Clans & Tartans onto the main field at the 33rd annual Longs Peak Scottish-Irish Highlands Festival on Saturday, September 12, 2009. The weather on Saturday was described as "authentic" Scottish weather, with fog, temperatures in the mid-50's & rain or drizzle of and on for most of the day.

There will be more photos of the festival coming, along with a new senior portrait and the long overdue photos of the 2009 Ft Collins Jazz Experience.

Fort Collins Jazz Experience

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:52:00 +0000

I took all the photos I shot on Friday and Saturday and put them together as a video. These are the photos straight out of the camera so there is some variation of exposure and focus but I like the way it turned out.

Kelsi

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 01:59:00 +0000

Here's another photo from the PPC senior model shoot in May. When I saw the black wall I knew I wanted her in profile against it. The image right out of the camera lacked the impact I wanted so I played around with a few different ideas while editing and it turned out better than I had expected.

The Vendor-Client relationship - in real world situations

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:09:00 +0000

The Last Senior

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:34:00 +0000

Here she is, the last of my picks from the Professional Photographers of Colorado K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Seniors) workshop on May 3, 2009.

I was very happy with my photos from the day and hope they will give me a boost in really starting my photo business. Which leads me to the big announcement I mentioned yesterday: My website is up and running! So please check it out and let me know what you think, constructive criticism is always welcome.

Two More

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sun, 31 May 2009 03:46:00 +0000

I have one more senior photo to post after these two. I'll post it tomorrow along with some big news. Until then...

I'm just knocking them out now

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sun, 17 May 2009 04:17:00 +0000

Tomorrow marks two weeks from the senior model shoot and they asked us to submit images within three weeks, so I'm trying to get my picks finished and sent off. I have two or three more to work on so I should have no problem getting them in on time but it would be nice if I wasn't waiting until the last minute to do so.

Two More

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sat, 16 May 2009 02:38:00 +0000

The woman above wasn't one of the models that day, she was one of the photographers, but she certainly made a good model.

The Seniors Keep On Coming

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 15 May 2009 03:53:00 +0000

When I arrived at Contemporary Expressions Photography for the Professional Photographers of Colorado senior photography workshop I saw this gear and chain in the hallway and knew I would have to photograph someone there. The studio is on the top floor of an old industrial building in Denver and the gear is part of the mechanism to open all the windows in the hallway at once. It turned out that my groups spent all day outside but I asked one of the models to pose for me during the lunch break, three shots and this was the result.

Another Senior

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sun, 10 May 2009 00:34:00 +0000

Here's another one from last week's senior model shoot. I'll be posting more throughout the week.

Senior Photos

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 08 May 2009 02:49:00 +0000

This past Sunday I went down to Denver to participate in the Professional Photographers of Colorado K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Seniors) workshop. It was a great chance for me to get some new photos to build up my portrait portfolio and hopefully lead to more portrait work as well. This is one of my last photos of the day but was one I knew I had to get from the moment I first saw the poster in the background at the beginning of the day. This is also the official debut of my new logo. Actually it's one of two versions, I have one that says "Patrick Farrington Photography" and this one, designed especially for adding to photos.

Jay Maisel Photo Workshop

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:11:00 +0000

I came across Jay Maisel's website today and there is an application for his photo workshop which contains my favorite description ever of a workshop:

THE JAY MAISEL WORKSHOP – "ALWAYS CARRY A CAMERA"

JAY’S PERSONAL COURSE DESCRIPTION

In the past I’ve gotten calls from people who wanted to know what the hell they’d be getting themselves into if they were to take my class. Fair enough, but if you want to know exactly what the class will be, that’s impossible because it’s a free form living thing that also depends on what YOU bring to the group dynamic. We will be in my environment, my city, my building. There are no rules. You will be sent out on assignments to shoot. There will be criticism of your work. You will be forced to look at my work (criticism of my work is optional). There will be demonstrations and endless talk designed to help you avoid the problems that plague you. You’ll be nagged into improving your images. There won’t be enough time to do all the shooting, editing, criticism, talking, and looking at my work that you’ll want to do. You will be overwhelmed. We will all eat together at different New York City neighborhood restaurants and talk about photography. Everyone will be shooting digitally, but this course is not about using a computer to manipulate your images. It’s about how to look for, see, and evaluate your images. It is most certainly not about Photoshop, which we will not discuss. You will end up a better photographer, if not a better human being. If this is not specific enough, please read the quotes from my former students.

-Jay

The Girls

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 18:55:00 +0000

I photographed the family of a couple of very good friends last fall and this is one of my favorite photos. I added texture and vignette in Photoshop and am very happy with the results.

The Hot Shoe Diaries

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:16:00 +0000

The mailman was good to me today, he brought my copy of Joe McNally's new book, The Hot Shoe Diaries. Last year Joe's book The Moment It Clicks was one of the bestselling photo books of the year. That book dealt mostly with the stories behind many of Joe's photos with a good deal of technique thrown in.

The Hot Shoe Diaries is supposed to be a bit more practical. It's divided into four parts: Nuts 'n' Bolts, One Light!, Two or More and Lotsa Lights. Part 2, One Light!, is more than 100 pages on working with a single light source. But as anyone who's familiar with Joe might expect, this is not a dry, technical manual. Leafing through the book this afternoon I spotted this quote: "I looked at the first test frame on the LCD and thought,'Holy s**t, that actually works!'"

I'm looking forward to digging into this book.

Branding & Rebranding. What's In A Name?

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 04:19:00 +0000

So, I'm working on recreating myself as a photographer in hope of getting a business established. For several years now I've been picking up side jobs here and there - portraits, sports, commercial and product work and even a wedding, though I know I'm not cut out to be a wedding photographer.

I'm working on putting together a website, increasing my social networking through Facebook and Twitter and am going to work on picking up family and senior portraits over the next few months. As part of this reworking I'm having a new logo designed and am trying to decide on a name for my business. I have been using the name "Patrick Farrington Photography" for many years now, you can see the logo I designed for myself at the top of this blog.

A lot of the reading I've been doing recently has talked about making yourself stand out from other photographers by promoting what makes you different, yourself. They say to not talk about the photography but what you bring to the making of the image. So I've decided to change the name from "Patrick Farrington Photography" to "Patrick Farrington, Photographer." Here's the new logo in the works:

Last week John Harrington posted this on his blog. In it he quotes an early piece of advice he received: "you're a business, and you want your clients to see you that way. When you're 'John Harrington, Photographer', you're seen as just an individual, and businesses want to hire other businesses." So now I'm wondering if I made the right decision. Is this the difference between being a portrait photographer and a commercial photographer or just a different viewpoint?

Does anyone have any opinions on the matter?

Maggie

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 21:13:00 +0000

A month ago I was in Connecticut visiting my family. My sister Kathy has a beautiful Golden Retriever named Maggie and when we got some fresh snow I knew I wanted to get some photos of her out in it. Maggie was very happy running around and playing in the snow and I was happy to be getting some nice photos. Here's one of my favorite portraits of her.

The Longest Day Team Videos and Winner

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:46:00 +0000

Sorry I've been negligent in updating, more will be coming soon and some big things are on the horizon for me and will be revealed here when they happen.

But before all that happens I'm going to re-post the team videos from The Longest Day, both the short films and the PSAs, after the videos I'll reveal the winning team. And there's a bonus video at the end.

Team A's "Late Nite with Jen Bebb"

Team A's PSA for Thirst Relief

Team B's "Foto Freaks Foundation"

Team B's PSA for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep

The winning team was announced at the WPPI 2009 Awards Reception. And the winners is... Drum roll please... Team A!

Those of you who watched the whole series may remember Ron Dawson suggesting to Team A that they film both of their ideas and work them both into their film. Well, they did film both but ended up making two films instead. So here's the second film, Killer Kamera.

The Longest Day, Episode 10 - Series Recap and the Big Reveal

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:00:00 +0000

Here it is, the moment we've all been waiting for, the unveiling of the films produced during "The Longest Day" and your chance to vote on the winner. You can vote for your choice here.
Voting ends 11:59 PM PST, Tuesday, February 17, 2009.
The winning film and team will be announced during the WPPI Awards ceremony on Wednesday, February 18, 2009.

Less Than Two Weeks To Go

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:08:00 +0000

Unfortunately I won't be able to make it to Las Vegas this year for WPPI 2009 but I'm really hoping to go next year. I am going to be asking some friends to share what they learn with me but I know it won't be the same.

The folks over at F-Stop Beyond have started to post the last episodes of The Longest Day, they put up three this past Saturday, and I'm really looking forward to seeing the final films from both teams. But before that happens we have to see the rest of the episodes, so here are numbers 7, 8 & 9.

And very soon I'll start posting my own photos and thoughts again, along with a new logo for my photo business and a renewal of my efforts of marketing myself and my photography.

The Longest Day, Episodes 5 & 6

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 05:36:00 +0000

Time is running out, WPPI 2009 starts at the MGM Grand Las Vegas in three weeks.
So the folks at F-Stop Beyond are cranking out two episodes of The Longest Day at a time now.

So without further ado, on with the show!

The Longest Day, Episode IV

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 04:38:00 +0000

Continuing the lead-up to WPPI 2009 here's the latest installment of The Longest Day.

Harlan Ellison is a very wise man

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:50:00 +0000

The Longest Day, Episode III

noreply@blogger.com (farringtonphoto) — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 03:09:00 +0000

Here's the next installment of the reality show by, about and for photographers. I'll keep posting updates as they become available leading up to the WPPI convention and trade show in February.