After working our butt’s off the entire year, and not spending much dough, we decided to do a little shopping. Thanks to our new Professional Services Exec. from Adorama, Jeff Snyder, we now have 4 more speedlights. This currently gives us 8 portable lights, allowing us to brew up all kinds of lighting scenarios. We also purchased the Vagabond II portable power pack, from Paul C. Bluff, Inc. This will now allow us to take our studio lighting into the field as well, without have to run a mile of extension cords, or a generator. It will also open us up, to a whole new world of diffusers and modifiers, giving us many new options for lighting. Basically, we can now light a small town, if we chose to do so.

We’re Portable Baby!

As you can see, our blog has had a major face lift. It took the fine surgeons over at BigFolio, about 20 seconds to give us our new look.

We are really excited to be using this new Wordpress theme, as it will offer us a vast amount of control and functionality over our blog. So if you’re not familiar with Wordpress, and have about a week of spare time to absorb the mountain of information out there on it, check out – wordpress.org

We’ve finally moved forward on the website, and contacted the folks at BigFolio, giving them the go ahead. Just for the record, BigFolio Rocks! They had the whole back end of our new sites, up and running, in less than 12 hours. Pretty amazing, consdering that it takes me that long, just to change the font. Now that the back end is up, it’s up to us, to put in the pain staking hours in front of the computer, uploading images and tweaking it.

We should have it completed within a week, so check back soon.

Today, we attended the Joe McNally Location Lighting Seminar, in Washington, DC. To say that this was a life changing experience, would be an understatement.

For those of you who have no idea who Joe Mcnally is, you can start here – joemcnally.com/blog

For starters, this guy is a character, with personality galore. With everyone still half asleep, and lacking the morning java, Joe walked out on stage, and immediately fired a joke off. With hardly no one in the crowd acknowledging it, he walked away while mumbleling through the microphone, “Joe make joke”. We almost fell out of our chair with laughter, and could wait to get rolling with the next 7 hours, of what would be, our day with Joe.

For starters, this isn’t really the type of seminar that you should take, if you’re new to photography. Joe spends very little time, if any, discussing what camera or flash settings you should be using. It’s about light, and how to see it, get the most from it, and work with it. He starts the day off, using just one speedlight and diffuser. Over the next few hours, he goes from one light, to 3 or 4 speedlights, with all kind of different modifiers. The whole time that he is talking light, he’s actually giving live demonstrations with models. You basically get to listen to the thought process behind the shot, and then see the final outcome. What a great way to get the point across! The day wraps up, focusing on the “big guns”, your powerful studio lighting with portable power supplies. It was quite interesting, seeing the light, that all of the differnt types of modifiers for these strobes, produce.

The best part about this whole day, was the little pieces of information that we walked away from it with. Although we both are pretty knowledgeable, when it comes to lighting and lighting in the field, there were constant little 3 second bits of information or tricks, that will remain priceless. A huge thanks to Joe and NAPP, for giving us this opportunity.

Well, we finished the back lit sign for Tom and Rick, over at Champion Billiards, in Arlington, VA. The sign arrived a day early from our printers, but who’s complaining. All I can say, is this thing looks “HOT”. It’s going to look amazing at night, when it’s lit up.

If you’re ever in the Shirlington area, stop by and check it out. They also have great food, and great bands most Friday and Saturday nights.

This coming Friday, we’ll be taking the day off and heading to Washington, DC. Why you ask? To spend the day with the one and only, Joe McNally. For those of you that have no idea who Joe is, I’ll cut through the chase and get right down to the nitty gritty. He’s a location lighting guru!

So stay tuned, we’ll have some great stuff for you when it’s all over.

Matt

As we wind down from a great year, our site is going to take on a whole new appearance over the next few weeks. We have decided to make this leap, due to the fact that we offer multiple services, as a photography/graphic design company.

Our vision is to make life, just a little bit easier for our clients. We plan to have multiple websites, for all of the services that we offer. Our plan is, to have one main splash page, where the client can select the appropriate service. They will all still remain under our current URL, however, each site will compliment the service that’s being offered, just a little better. Our new look will not change anything with our proofing site or blog, just the actual website. Once completed, when a client chooses to go to our wedding site, they will be taken to an elaborate site, showcasing and work. If they choose design, they will be taken to a commercially designed site, that reflects that industry.

We are both very excited about the upcoming facelift, so stay tuned!

NextProof that is! So, for quite some time now, we’ve been using a proofing site called NextProof. The problem was, we were only using it to provide online proofs to our clients, and not really using it to it’s fullest extent. That was, until recently!

We’ve recently started using NextProof, to not only provide almost instant online proofs to our clients, but to also provide products, such as prints and downloadable image files. What does that mean to you, the client? A simplistic way of viewing your images, and ordering prints. No more sitting around, waiting for the completion of proof books. You now have the option of a password protected link to our site, which houses your high resolution images, broken down into easy to understand categories. From there, you are able to order image prints of various sizes, download full resolution digital files, and even convert images to black and white. You can even pass the link on to friends and family. Once they register through the same secure site, they too, will have the option of viewing your images, or purchasing prints.

We are very excited to finally being able to provide our clients with this service, as we feel that it greatly simplifies their life, at a time that can be somewhat stressful for many people.

We hope that you love this service, as much as we do.

Had a great wedding shoot yesterday, for Page and Brian. The event took place at Hillsborough Vineyards, in Purceville, VA. This place has it going on! It’s a beautiful vineyard, nestled in the foothills of Loudon Valley, with a mountainous backdrop. The weather was cool and comfortable, which only added to whole atmosphere of their big day.

Page looked absolutely beautiful, and Brian was no slouch himself. Everything thing went without a hitch, and everyone had a wonderful time. To be honest, this was one of the most normal and undramatized weddings that I’ve ever shot. It was truly a pleasure! Needless to say, we got some beautiful images, and documented a wonderful and joyous time in their life.

We had a great engagement shoot with Rosanna and Paul today. They are such a wonderful couple, that even though neither one of them are use to being in front of the camera, everything came pretty natural. The shoot took place at one of our local lakes, and even though we had a beautiful locale, lighting was a big chore. We basically had really harsh, mid day light. Even under the canopy of trees, the would punch through the branches, creating very unflattering, specular highlights. We did the best that we could, for what we had to work with, and kicked out some very beautiful shots, that the couple is very happy with. I can’t wait until their wedding date gets here, so we have the opportunity to shoot them agian.

No, not to photograph more Congressman. Well, not directly, at least. We spent close to a week their, photographing and documenting the arrival of a new car. The Aptera 2e! Aptera Motors, out of California, hired us to document their visit to Washington, DC and Capital Hill.

They were here for the sole purpose of introducing their new vehicle, and trying to get a bill passed, which would allow them to get funding. Aparently, the Department of Energy, gives funding to auto manufacturers, for new car productions. The problem was, that they don’t consider the Aptera 2e a car, because it only has 3 wheels. Well let me tell you something, this thing is a hybrid car all the way, and on the man toy scale, ultra cool!

It would be an understatement, if I was to say that this car was a real head turner. Neck snapper, would be more accurate! On the streets of DC, this car nearly caused a wreck on every street corner. On Several occasions, the local police even pulled it over, to find out what the heck it was, and check it out.

Needless to say, we had a great time photographing the Aptera 2e, and hanging out with the people of Aptera Motors. We’re definitely thankful for the opportunity!

We had the opportunity to shoot a beautiful young couple at the lake today, Ashley and Brock. Even though it rained for the majority of the morning, the heavy clod cover provide some beautiful diffused lighting. In conjunction with our field studio lighting, we were able to provide this couple with some gorgeous images, that they are both ecstatic about.

Well, we’re headed to Capital Hill. Not that we have a political agenda or anything, but to take some congressional portraits of California Congressman, Brian Bilbray.

We started off, by meeting up with Congressman Bilbray’s head communication’s officer, who gave us the behind the scenes tour of the Capital. The first half of our day was spent scoping the joint out, looking for promising areas to photograph the Congressman. Let me tell you, security up their, is a royal pain in the arse. We had a day filled of “you can’t stand their”, “no tripod”, “you need to move on”, “no flash allowed here”, and so on. It’s no wonder that nothing ever gets accomplished on “The Hill”, they have way to many rules to play by, not to mention, getting lost trying to get from point A to B.

Anyway, after many hours of hanging around, and our feet hurting from walking so much, we were finally able to get together with the Congressman, and take a couple of great shots of him.

Just finished up a pretty interesting black tie event shoot, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. This was kid of a double header for us, as our job was to photograph the guys from OrangeLine, as they played the benefit, and then photographically document the benefit for the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

Black tie events are always nice. You get all dressed up, and look your best. You walk around with your chin up, really feeling like you’re someone. Then it hits you! You realize that your working the gig. Two hours later, you’re absolutely miserable. Everyone around you is getting drunk at the open bar, while you running around with your head cut off, slow cooking in your suit, which feels like an oven at 350 degrees. But wait, it gets worse. Every time you go to take a shot (which is happening about every 30 seconds at this point), your camera strap is getting caught up in your jacket, and your tie keeps ending up in front of your front lens element.

So what do you do? You focus on those first two hours, when you really felt like you were hot stuff, wait for everyone to get drunk and really start capturing some priceless moments, and just get the job done!

Our friends from the band OrangeLine, hooked us up with a great shoot, of a benefit they were playing. It took place at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, in Washington, DC. The gallery is truly an amazing place, with all of the old architecture and such.

This had to be, one of our most challenging shoots to date, as far as lighting was concerned. The inside of the gallery is quite large, only being lit by large pot lamps, shooting straight up the columns. Needless to say, it was pretty dark and had 50 foot ceilings, with nowhere to really bounce our flash off of. What do you do in a situation like this, you ask? Improvise! It starts with really cranking your ISO up, and opening up your aperture. We would bounce light off whatever would could find, whether it be a white concrete column, or the white shirt of some guy, that had removed his black coat and tie. Needless to say, it all worked out in the end. We were able really capture the mood and ambiance of the gallery, due to the lack of light.

What happens when two guys get together, with a combined photography experience of more than 20 years, and one of them having more than five years of graphic design experience?

You get a total package of artistic workmanship, to define “your” image!

Jeff Allen of ALLEN-ARTS and Matt Reeves of MATTHEW REEVES STUDIOS, are pleased to announce, PIXPHIX, your total imaging solution. After many months of planning and hard work, we have finally pulled together, to offer our current and future customers a complete package for all of their imaging needs. Here is just a small sample of what we are prepared to offer you.

PHOTOGRAPHY

* Wedding, Portrait, Event, Sport, Modeling, Fine Art, and just about anything else you can dream up

GRAPHIC DESIGN

* Business Cards, Logo’s, Flyer’s, Banners, and whatever else you should need to promote your business

PRINT

* Whether it’s a portrait of you or your family, business cards or banners to promote your company, posters, or fine art, we can handle of all your needs, no                  matter how big or small

We are both, very excited about this new venture. Our goal is to aggressively move forward in 2009 and the upcoming years, while supplying our clients with great ideas, and a superior product. Our sole purpose is to,

Define your Image!

Stay tuned for upcoming news and events, and brace yourself, it’s going to be one heck of a ride!

Matt & Jeff

getyourfix@pixphixpro.com