We have a winner of the magazine game I started on my last post. Jim Cook, a photographer from Georgetown, Kentucky got two of the magazines correct. Congrats Jim! I sent out Jim's gift today - a brand new Tamrac MX-S5369. It's not just a CF card wallet... It's the best thing out for the digital wedding photographer! Seriously, before I owned one of these things, I was living in the ghetto years, keeping my CF cards in my pockets. You should see the wear and tear I put on those poor cards! I had to say "enough is enough! I'm buying my cards a new home!" Now my CF cards travel in style.

The correct answer to the question in my last post about the magazine covers is: Wedding Style, Marriage, and Ceremony.

This image was taken in New York City while on assignment for Grace Ormonde. Riva Mivasagar designed this very unique gown. It was getting really dark and I only had about 10 minutes of light left but that was the look I wanted. I'm coining a new term for this look and it's "Trashy Chic" ha ha! This image was one of my favorites despite the fact it was one of my test shots and was about 1.5 stops underexposed. I pulled it up using exposure, brightness, and curves in Photoshop's RAW image processor and spent some time smoothing out some of the noise on her face with the healing brush. I considered changing this to black and white to go for that intentional grainy look of an old favorite film (Kodak TMZ), but I just couldn't bring myself to do it because I loved the color tones so much. Here are the specs on the image:

camera: Nikon D2x
lens: 70-200mm 2.8 VR
focal length: 80mm
aperture: 2.8
shutter: 1/125 sec
mode: Aperture Priority
exposure compensation: -0.3 stop (like I said.. it was a test shot - this should have been at +1.0)
metering mode: Pattern/Matrix
image quality: RAW

So chances are... if I finish all of my homework (editing) I will get to go play (surf) on Thursday morning. There is a strong west/northwest swell coming in that should bring some pretty nice 10-15 ft waves! Check the surf report!