I figured if there is a company that knows subtle style it would be Apple, of course after their leather bound iPad calendar app this could be argued.  Their website uses very little color, just some very slight shades of grey, except for their products that really pop off the page.  You might notice my website tries to do the exact same thing with my photography.

I was studying Apple’s website, and like the way boxes that contain information look, for example on their store page.

It might be hard to see in this picture. But the box has a very slight gradient that gets much stronger near the bottom of the box.  There is also a very slight drop shadow on the bottom that makes the box looked slightly raised off the page.  I don’t know how Apple does it, but I thought I could do this with CSS3.  This means the effect can be done without using any images or gradients made in Photoshop.

While you could try to figure out the code for this manually.  The gradient generator from Colorzilla.com http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/ is fantastic.  It can create gradients similar to Photoshop that have color stops that work in most web browsers, even older IE versions. What the color stop lets you do, is instead of having a gradient that changes shade evenly from top to bottom, you can do, like Apple does, and have it change very little until the bottom portion of the box where it increases.  Here is the exact code I use to get a very similar gradient as well as drop shadow on my boxes like on the Apple Store website, even a slight roundness to the corners. To put a box like this anywhere on your page just use something like . . .

<div class="myBoxes">Whatever I want inside</div>

Then in your css file . . .

.myBoxes {
padding: 10px;
background: rgb(255,255,255);
/* Old browsers */ /* IE9 SVG, needs conditional override of 'filter' to 'none' */background: url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiA/Pgo8c3ZnIHhtbG5zPSJodHRwOi8vd3d3LnczLm9yZy8yMDAwL3N2ZyIgd2lkdGg9IjEwMCUiIGhlaWdodD0iMTAwJSIgdmlld0JveD0iMCAwIDEgMSIgcHJlc2VydmVBc3BlY3RSYXRpbz0ibm9uZSI+CiAgPGxpbmVhckdyYWRpZW50IGlkPSJncmFkLXVjZ2ctZ2VuZXJhdGVkIiBncmFkaWVudFVuaXRzPSJ1c2VyU3BhY2VPblVzZSIgeDE9IjAlIiB5MT0iMCUiIHgyPSIwJSIgeTI9IjEwMCUiPgogICAgPHN0b3Agb2Zmc2V0PSIwJSIgc3RvcC1jb2xvcj0iI2ZmZmZmZiIgc3RvcC1vcGFjaXR5PSIxIi8+CiAgICA8c3RvcCBvZmZzZXQ9Ijc1JSIgc3RvcC1jb2xvcj0iI2ZkZmRmZCIgc3RvcC1vcGFjaXR5PSIxIi8+CiAgICA8c3RvcCBvZmZzZXQ9IjEwMCUiIHN0b3AtY29sb3I9IiNmN2Y3ZjciIHN0b3Atb3BhY2l0eT0iMSIvPgogIDwvbGluZWFyR3JhZGllbnQ+CiAgPHJlY3QgeD0iMCIgeT0iMCIgd2lkdGg9IjEiIGhlaWdodD0iMSIgZmlsbD0idXJsKCNncmFkLXVjZ2ctZ2VuZXJhdGVkKSIgLz4KPC9zdmc+);
	background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(255,255,255,1) 0%, rgba(253,253,253,1) 75%, rgba(247,247,247,1) 100%); /* FF3.6+ */;
	background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,rgba(255,255,255,1)), color-stop(75%,rgba(253,253,253,1)), color-stop(100%,rgba(247,247,247,1))); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */;
	background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(255,255,255,1) 0%,rgba(253,253,253,1) 75%,rgba(247,247,247,1) 100%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */;
	background: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(255,255,255,1) 0%,rgba(253,253,253,1) 75%,rgba(247,247,247,1) 100%); /* Opera 11.10+ */;
	background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgba(255,255,255,1) 0%,rgba(253,253,253,1) 75%,rgba(247,247,247,1) 100%); /* IE10+ */;
	background: linear-gradient(top, rgba(255,255,255,1) 0%,rgba(253,253,253,1) 75%,rgba(247,247,247,1) 100%); /* W3C */;
	filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#ffffff', endColorstr='#f7f7f7',GradientType=0 ); /* IE6-8 */;
	-webkit-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px rgba(50, 50, 50, 0.5);
	-moz-box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px rgba(50, 50, 50, 0.5);
	box-shadow: 0px 1px 0px rgba(50, 50, 50, 0.5);
border: 1px #CDCDCD solid;
border-radius: 5px;
}

This may look complicated, but play around with the gradient generator and you can make your own easily.  Or if you want to try my code, just paste this into your CSS for any <div>. There is a small hack you have to do to get it working properly in IE9, but it explains how to do it on Colorzilla’s site.  I hope any web developers find this helpful, if you do or if you need more explanation let me know in the comments below.

We had some pretty strong early afternoon sunlight which can be difficult at the beach or in an open area, but being in a nice area with plenty of trees and shade it’s not really a problem.  In fact the strong sun gives some nice Bokeh from the pinpoints of light reflecting off the trees, you can see this especially on the first image.  You can tell if someone has a really good lens not by looking at what is in focus, but by looking at the quality of the out of focus areas.

I really liked the old fence where the horses were as well, you can see a number of shots from that spot below.  The bamboo was really cool as well, but what I really wanted was evening sun showing through the Bamboo, and I couldn’t really get that, I’ll try again at this couple’s wedding in December. It should be very nice and will be later in the day so things should go even better.  Let me know in the comments if you like the pictures.

Kiss on a bridge, shot with 70-200 f2.8 - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Kiss in front of a lake, push process black and white - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Kiss on an old oak tree overlooking the lake - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Under the gazebo backlit by sunlight - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Couple sitting in the bamboo, you can see where people carve their names. - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Couple kissing in front of the horses - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Another shot by the horses - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Getting a piggy back ride - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Looks like they are having fun - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

The sign says that horses may bite - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Couple laying together on the gravel walkway - Magnolia Plantation Charleston

Back to this couple, the evening turned out to be great with some really nice colors in the sky.  I was even able to catch some of the seagulls flying by in a few shots, which is really cool of you happen to get it.  This is a good example of how you can get some really nice pictures no matter how big your wedding is, I just did this like I would do any set of family or engagement pictures and got a lot of nice shots.  I hope you enjoy some of them below.

Couple sitting on oak tree root

Bride leaning against oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Bride and groom leaning on oak tree - MB State Park

Bride and groom leaning on oak tree - MB State Park

Kissing through the oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple laying in front of the dunes

Bride leaning over behind groom in front of the sand dunes

Kiss in front of the Myrtle Beach State Park pier

Bride standing in front of the pier

Black and white portrait of bride and groom in front of Myrtle Beach State Park pier

Groom giving bride a flower

Smiling in front of the pier

Couple walking into the sunset - Myrtle Beach State Park

Bride with pier going out of focus in the distance

Couple under the pier - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple leaning foreheads together in front of the sunset

Couple sitting in front of the sunset - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple sitting in front of the sunset - Myrtle Beach State Park

Bride sitting in front of sand dune backlit by sunset

Groom lifting up bride for a kiss

Bride getting a piggy back ride

Bride and groom jumping in front of the ocean

Kiss on the pier

Walking hand in hand on Myrtle Beach State Park pier

Update:
It sounds like this will be my first and last wedding at this location.  I had a client telling me they are turning this into a housing development or something and no longer booking events.  I guess they had financial problems.  Oh well, it was a pretty spot.

Oak trees at entrance to Litchfield Plantation

House at Litchfield Plantation

Bride standing in front of the oak trees backlit by the sun

Bride meeting her carriage horse

Bride arriving on carriage

Bride arriving on Carriage -Litchfield Plantation

Bride arriving on Carriage -Litchfield Plantation

Bride arriving on Carriage -Litchfield Plantation

Bride arriving on Carriage -Litchfield Plantation

Bride and groom in the sunset

It looks like they are in love

Bride and groom laying the grass

Emotions during dancing

Toast to bride and groom

This is quite a best man speech

Bride dancing with father

First of all, I forget who said it, but if you don’t have a digital image in at least 3 places you don’t really have it.  You should have 3 copies of any picture you take, you also should have an offsite copy just incase your home or office is broken into or fire or something else destroys your hard drives.  This might seem like overkill, but trust me, things happen.  I once had to get some data from what I call my last resort offsite backup because of a stupid mistake on my computer.  It’s scary, I’m really glad I was making good backups.

My Workflow:

First of all, as soon as I get home from a shoot, I begin importing images into my Lightroom catalog and to the folder it creates on my hard drive.  I don’t have time in this post to go into my Lightroom workflow, but the images get placed into an organized by date folder on my drive.  Then I put the CF memory card to the side and I don’t delete it until all my backups have been made, typically by the next morning.

First Backup:

The important key to backing up is that it has to be automatic.  You will forget if you have to do it manually.  I use software called Sync Toy on my PC.   You can see how to automate the software here.  Automatically each night, Sync Toy copies any new or changed images from my working hard drives inside my PC over to my Drobo.  This way I have my original working copy on my fast internal raid 0 array, plus an extra copy on my Drobo.  The Drobo is much slower but provides the additional protection that a drive can fail and be replaced without any loss of data.  I can’t go into what a Drobo is here, but you can check out their website.

Offsite Backup:

So now we have 2, and essentially 3 copies of the pictures because the Drobo provides protection from a hard drive failure itself.  What about the offsite backup? In the past I would just occasionally put a copy of all my images on an external hard drive and store it somewhere offsite, but this is a pain and it doesn’t get updated frequently enough.

Why Carbonite doesn’t work:

I’ve tried various services like Carbonite that promise unlimited offsite backup.  This doesn’t work for a pro photographer!  Here is why.  I have a new Docsis 3.0 internet connection with 5mbps up, so technically I have plenty of bandwidth to upload as many files as I need quickly.  The problem is, at first Carbonite works very fast.  However, after around 50gb of storage, they start to slow down your uploads so much that it becomes very difficult to keep up with incoming images even if backing up constantly day and night.  After 200gb they slow you down to 100kbps, so you are pretty much done at that point.  So even though they claim unlimited backup, they slow you down so much that it’s not practical.  I always wondered how they got unlimited storage for $60 a year, now I know.

Amazon S3 to the rescue:

I signed up for the Amazon S3 service.  This gives you storage space on Amazon’s servers that you can use as much and as fast as you want, they just charge you per GB of storage.  If you use their reduced redundancy storage option, which is still 99.9% reliable, plenty for a 3rd offsite backup, it cost about $10 per 100GB per month.  This might seem like something very complicated, but if you get software called Cloudberry Backup for about $30 it steps you through the process and automates the backups.  With the Cloudberry software, every night any new pictures I’ve imported, are automatically uploaded and backed up to the Amazon S3 service.  S3 is so fast that I can backup a whole wedding’s worth of raw images overnight.  What I’m going to do so the cost doesn’t get too high, I’m still going to keep my offsite physical hard drive backup and update it every few months.  My latest 500GB or so of pictures I’ll keep backed up on Amazon S3 which will cost around $50 per month.

Now if you really want to get fanatical, like I am, you can also get a fireproof safe and keep a 4th backup copy in there as well.  Hard drives are so cheap now it doesn’t hurt.  So to sum it up, Microsoft Sync Toy automatically copies any new pictures to my Drobo.  The Cloudberry Backup automatically uploads all new images to Amazon S3 overnight.  You would really have to try hard to find a way to lose images using this system.  I hope this helps!   Let me know if it does or if you have any suggestions below.

I always like doing weddings up at Ocean Isle, it’s such a pretty location.  It’s a lot like the Garden City area where you have the ocean on one side and the marsh area on the other.  The sun was still pretty bright and harsh during the wedding itself, but it turned out fine.  Later I was able to get some pictures of the couple a little while before sunset that I just loved.  I actually tried to get them to go out right when the sun was actually setting, but they were too tired by that point to do it.  I ran out and took just a sunset picture without them because it was so pretty.  I’ll post a few of the pictures below, actually there are lots of pictures from this wedding I loved in addition to these few, but I just don’t have time to post them. Remember you can always see a lot more if you stop by my home office to talk about a wedding.

Almost ready for the ceremony - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Dad saying goodbye - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Something funny - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Pretty spot for a bride - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Groom leaning bride back for a kiss - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Kiss behind the grass - Ocean Isle Beach, NC

Sunset at Ocean Isle Beach

Now if you just let the camera do the black and white conversion, or if you just use basic software that removes the color, you can end up with a pretty flat and boring image.  Doing a good black and white is a lot more than just removing the color.  I think a big difference between a good and bad photographer is the investment you make in really good equipment and software.

I’ve always used actions in Photoshop that would allow for soft and glowing, sharp and high contrast, and other types of b&w image conversions.  Recently I just starting using new software called Nik’s  Silver Efex Pro 2.  This really takes the black and white conversions to a whole new level. I’m just getting started using this software, but I’m already getting results I love.   As I work with it I’m sure I will get better, keep an eye out here and on my Facebook page for more variety in black and white styles.  I will post a few of these black and white images below, I hope you enjoy them.

Groomsmen in black and white - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Entering the reception - Grande Dunes - Ocean Club

Bride dancing with father

Fun shot lifting fiance down off the tree branch

Groomsmen putting on their ties - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

About to have a first kiss - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Just married - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Grandad taking a break from the pictures

Lacing up the dress in black and white

This month has just been really busy, I’m actually making a decision to cut back some to make sure I can keep up with the clients I already have, if you do write me and I’m booked I can give you some good suggestions of photographers in the area to try.   On a week I have weddings I’m keeping it down to about 3 or 4 family sessions during the week.  I’m not going to become a business where I send out photographers to do the work for me, keeping things small seems to be working well for me.  I hope you enjoy some of the pictures, if you do please comment below.

Senior portrait with the sunset reflecting on the water - Myrtle Beach State Park

Fun adult family pictures in an old tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Cute picture of a couple taken during family pictures - Myrtle Beach State Park

Adult brothers giving sisters a piggy back ride - Myrtle Beach State Park

Mom with smiling baby - Springmaid Beach

Dad holding baby in the air -Springmaid Beach

Cute family sitting on old root - Myrtle Beach State Park

Kids climbing on the old tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

Cute kids looking at seashells - Myrtle Beach State Park

Family looking at sea shells together - Myrtle Beach State Park

Senior portrait with glamor glow effect - Myrtle Beach State Park

Cute brother and sister sitting on a oak tree - Myrtle Beach State Park

One new thing you will notice on the website, I’ve put up a new gallery called wedding documentary.  The idea for this is to put up more candid pictures that I might not put in a gallery otherwise.  I always have lots of pictures I really like, but I just don’t think they are suitable to put in as my main examples of my work.  The idea for this gallery is a place for these more raw, less perfect and touched up images.  I’m going to try to stick to pictures that are truly candid and unexpected, or sometimes perhaps a really silly picture even if the client knows I’m taking it that wouldn’t make it into the gallery otherwise.

I’ve also been experimenting with the new Nik Software Color Efex Pro 3 software.  I used the bleach bypass filter for the first image below, it’s a cool effect.  I’ve just got to get used to working this software into some images in my workflow and figuring out what I like.  Below I’m going to put some examples that are in the new wedding documentary gallery, as well as just a few other random shots I liked.  As always if you enjoy some of these pictures please click the like button below.

Groomsmen waiting on the second floor - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Bridal party in the sunset - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Holding the bride in the air - Ocean Club - Grande Dunes

Flowers in focus - Ocean Club - Grande Dun

Happy family by the dunes - Myrtle Beach State Park

Hairspray - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Groom practicing his guitar - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Bridesmaid helping bride with necklace - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Bridesmaids holding up groom - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Having fun with the first dance -Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Working with the new Color Efex Pro 3 - Kingston Plantation - North Myrtle Beach

Groom playing guitar for reception - Kingston Plantation

A little too much to drink - Kingston Plantation

Groom dancing with mother - Revolutions Club - Broadway at the Beach

Stealing a kiss - Revolutions Club - Broadway at the Beach

Brothers - Revolutions Club - Broadway at the Beach