Pictage Partners' Conference

2008-09-15T23:23:00.000-07:00

I just finished two delightful days at the Pictage Partners' Conference. Pictage is the company that i use to service the printing needs of my clients who want to order prints and albums of their wedding pictures, as well as, for prints of my event and rock band shoots.

It was the most value-laden, informative conference I have ever attended. It was very reasonably priced and crammed full of great workshops and seminars. I learned a lot about the wedding photography business.

The highlight, for me, was a workshop by a great wedding photographer from Dallas, TX, Jim Rode. It was about engagement photography. It is wonderful how the Universe supports my good intentions. Just prior to attending the conference, I was revamping my thinking about how I was going to shoot engagement sessions. I was also thinking that I would also target loving couples, regardless of their marital status, who would like to have great pictures of their great relationship. His workshop took my initial thoughts and by the time I walked out of the room, I knew exactly how I was going to market and shoot these sessions. I have since had a number of conversations with him by phone and he very generously coached me as I worked out the kinks. If you live in the Dallas area and need a fantastic photographer, Jim's your guy!

Welcome

2008-09-04T02:44:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this is my first entry and I ought to tell you a bit about me, the photographer. I was born at a very early age (I've always wanted to start a bio that way, so now I have!). I am told that even though my Mother and her best friend tried to make sure my first words as a new born would be either "elevator" or "delicatessen," I surprised them all and asked for a camera. Well, the first part is true, any way. They did try. What is also true is that by high school, my love for photography had grown to

where I was the photo editor for both the school newspaper and the yearbook. I was shooting with my own Ricoh 35mm rangefinder camera and the school's Speed Graphic. I also was processing and printing pictures in my home darkroom. This is a scan of a picture taken for the school newspaper that I both took and printed.:

Pretty good for a kid with a crude, by today's standards, manual 35mm camera! The only things that have really changed between then and now is that the kid's intuitive eye for the great shot now has fifty years of practice and with my state of the art Nikon digital cameras, (a D300 and a D200), 80% of my attention can now be used to create great pictures because the camera automatically deals with most of the focus and exposure details. The reverse was true for the old Ricoh, where I had to manually focus, set light meter values, and shutter speeds.

I do not regret those days of manual cameras and film. I am a better photographer because of them. Because I had to learn the technicalities of putting together a good picture, I now know when and how to monitor what my camera is doing automatically and when to over ride its decision for art's sake. Also, having spent many years shooting with film, I learned how to make sure that every frame counted. Film was expensive and clients paid by the roll. Consequently, I tend to shoot less shots than my fellow photographers because most of what I shoot are keepers. When I edited the last wedding I shot, I only cut twenty pictures from the over 500 shots I took.

Although I have always taken pictures, my professional career started when I got to Hollywood, CA in 1982. Over the years since then, I have been a freelance photojournalist, shooting for local newspapers and magazines. I also shot and produced two lines of greeting cards. Custom prints of my fine art photography collection ( http://jasonpix.com )hang in many homes. Being a Hollywood photographer, I have done my share of events, headshots, bands and production stills ( http://jasonshots.com ).

In more recent times, I have found I really love being an engagement and wedding photographer ( http://HollywoodWeddingPix.com ). I find that I get to use most of my skills creating a photographic testament that captures the joy and emotion of some of the most wonderful of times in a couple's life. What an honor to be able to make that contribution to a lifetime of fond memories! I love what I do!

Jason Wittman Photography: The Hollywood Wedding Photographer

Pictage Partners' Conference

Welcome