We are excited to offer our first ever Destination Wedding Experience, which takes place on June 30th at Wilstem Guest Ranch, just outside of French Lick, Indiana. If you want to get into wedding photography, whether for fun or as a career, you do do not want to miss this opportunity.

Wilstem Guest Ranch

Imagine the perfect wedding shoot…

• An impeccable destination, outside of French Lick, Indiana. This venue is set in some of the most beautiful countryside in the Midwest, with rolling hills and pastures tucked up against Southern Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest;
• Your scenic backdrop includes country meadows, an abundance of wildflowers, a covered bridge, a winding river and a rustic barn that will host a fun-filled reception;
• Trails with overhanging oak, elm and tulip poplars provide a lovely shade canopy with dappled light;
• A beautiful bride is escorted by a horse drawn carriage, which leads her to the ceremony; and
• A reception attended by 200 people, including lots of adorable kids, all soaking in the fun of a June evening.

This wedding is portfolio perfect!

As usual, this Wedding Experience is only available to FIVE students.

We keep our hands-on wedding workshop small, so that you spend more time capturing the moment and less time standing around waiting for others get their shot. This workshop is the perfect opportunity to gain the experience and portfolio shots that you need, without having the stress and responsibility of handling the wedding all by yourself.

You will be guided through the day by IPC instructor and professional wedding photographer, Sami-Abu-Rumman. He will share tips and tricks for capturing the perfect wedding pictures – indoors, outdoors, in shade and in sun. You’ll gain insight on how to pose individuals, couples and small groups for wedding portrait sessions. Sami will show you how to best capture those important shots such as the bride and groom getting ready, the cake cutting, the first dance, and the throwing of the bouquet.

And, you will come away with a wedding photo portfolio package that will wow prospective clients.

Visit IPC’s Wedding Experience Workshop page for more information including pricing and pre-requisite requirements.

The key to taking great waterfall photographs is having the right equipment and being prepared. Here are some tips that will help you get the shots you want the next time you’re out:

Bring A Good Tripod
Almost all waterfall pictures are taken using very slow shutter speeds to achieve that silky effect. This requires a tripod. Ideally you want a tripod that has some weight to it, which won’t make carrying it much fun but may help prevent the camera from shaking as easily on uneven surfaces. A tripod that’s easy to adjust on the fly is also very helpful. If you’re on rocky terrain you’re going to have to adjust the legs of the tripod pretty much every time you move.

Bring A Cable Release

Using a cable release, which can take a picture without you having to actually touch the camera, can help reduce camera shake allowing you to take sharper pictures.

Use a Neutral Density Filter
Neutral Density Filters screw on to the end of your lens and actually prevent a little bit of light from coming into the camera. If you’re shooting a waterfall on a sunny day this can be a life saver. With less light coming into the camera it’s possible to take long exposures where it might otherwise be too bright.

Be Prepared To Get Wet
Aside from the obvious danger of falling into the creek the waterfall is pouring into, there can be a lot of moisture in the air around a waterfall. Some simple waterproofing like a large freezer bad cinched around the lens with a rubber band can help protect your camera from the moisture in the air. A lens cloth for wiping dry a fogged lens is also a very good idea.

Do Some Bracketing
Try Bracketing shots to ensure you’re getting the right exposure or to do HDR processing later.

Hopefully these tips will help you take some great waterfall shots!

Written by Trevor Warren
Photo by Bernie Kasper

You may have heard of people talking about "Raw files" or "shooting Raw" and wondered what the heck they were talking about and why you should care. Whether you should care will depend upon how and what you photograph.

A Raw file is an unaltered picture file, unlike a JPEG which is altered and compressed by your camera. They contain more colors than a JPEG and do not have the Compression Artifacts that JPEG’s may contain.

These alterations your camera make to an image in creating a JPEG are not necessarily a bad thing. Some would even argue the camera does a great job of this. However for people who really like to tweak photos after they’re taken with a software program like Adobe Lightroom, Photoshop or Photoshop Elements. 

Advantages:

• Changing White Balance
• Black & White Conversions
• Brightening or Darkening Images
• Tinting and Altering the Color of an Image

Disadvantages:

• Larger file sizes than JPEG’s Requiring More Storage
• Printing or Uploading Raw Images to the Web Requires Software to Convert the Files First

In recent years software like Adobe Lightroom has made working with Raw files much easier. Whether or not shooting Raw is right for you depends on your individual needs. If you like to play with your photos with software though shooting Raw can greatly improve your results. If you’re interested in learning more about working with Raw files sign up for our Adobe Lightroom class!

Written by Trevor Warren

Bracketing is a very helpful technique you can use in situations with tricky lighting (it is also the technique use to create HDR images). When you bracket an image you basically take several shots of the same thing at different settings to ensure you’re getting the perfect exposure.

Why Not Just Trust the Camera?

While every digital camera has a built-in light meter it’s not fool proof. Light meters typically want to give you a safe exposure setting that could be bland all around. Maybe you want objects to be hidden in the shadows, like the look of an image that’s slightly overexposed or want to create an HDR image later. This is where bracketing comes in.

How to Bracket

A lot of cameras have a bracketing functionality built-in which can be handy. When using the built-in function you basically tell the camera how many images to take and how much to vary the exposure settings. If your camera does not have this functionality don’t worry. It’s really easy to bracket in Manual (M) mode. Simply set your ISO and Aperture and then vary the shutter speed of your camera like the image below.

If you wanted to bracket a full stop between images, set the shutter speed a little slower than it should be to overexpose the first image, and then double the shutter speed for each subsequent shot.

Hopefully this technique will help you conquer more tricky lighting situations! If you’d like to learn more tricks like this sign up for one of our Fundamentals of Photography classes!

Written by Trevor Warren

If you’ve ever seen those extreme close up pictures of flowers and insects then you’ve seen what a macro lens is used for. Macro lenses are specially designed to focus on an object just inches away whereas normal lenses usually have a minimum focus distance of 1.5 to 3 feet from a subject.

The ability to position the lens so close to the subject can reveal details that even the eye cannot normally see. It’s like a putting a magnifying glass on your camera!

If you’d like to learn more about how different lenses can be used to achieve different results sign up for one of our Fundamentals of Photography classes.

Written by Trevor Warren
Photo by: Bernie Kasper