TimeLine Media Blog

After the bridal walk, we took a short drive from Hershey to Middletown, PA. On this occasion, the reception was held at Karen’s Harmony Hall, a beautiful venue to hold these private parties. They have a large completely open space with white ceilings which are perfect for wedding photos.

Reception Venue

These remind me of the large reception tents that wedding receptions typically have if the parties are held outside. This is nevertheless an important detail that makes it easier for the photographer. Without any tinting to the color of the walls or ceiling, there is no drastic color change from flashes to interfere tint the color of your photos. In the photo above, you can see the large hall with plenty of space for moving, dancing, and buffet setup without anyone being crowded for space. On either end of the reception hall were two large windows to let in lots of natural light and beautiful sunsets in the evening.

The music and MC duties at this time were done by Ryan Miller. He was very professional and kept the party right on schedule. No part of the evening was rushed, and he made sure to handle all requests, and announcements. Along with the music, he also used a snow machine to go along with the winter wedding theme. The machine added an especially beautiful element to the special dances surrounding the party with snowflakes!

Thanks again to Ruth and Don for having me photograph their wedding! It was such a privilege to cover the day. I hope they enjoy these most important photos for a long time to come. If you have any need for photography, please send me an email [ rassi @ timelinedc.com ], or give me a call (703) 864-8208. It is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, and I’m sure there will be proposal and wedding plans starting soon after. I’d be happy to talk with you about making some particularly beautiful images of your day!

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

Auto racing is another challenge to capture in photographs for different reasons that ballroom dance. In ballroom dance, there is a limit to how far you can change the background in the photo. Better photos have cleaner backgrounds. If you have an entire racetrack to choose from, you should find a spot without too many distractions. For these photos, I did not have any special credentials to shoot the track. So I had to find accessible areas in the spectator sections that would be clean enough for photos.

Summit Point, West Virginia

The distractions around the track include spectator stands, safety tires piled by fences for safety, and unpaved track. This is difficult to do completely. So I look for spots where these are minimized. Then I pan the camera as the cars go by to blur the backgrounds, keeping the cars sharp. It always takes a few tries to get into the rhythm of following the cars this way. In the top photo, you can see two of the wheels of the Corvette off the ground as it goes through the apex of its turn. I tried to get this shot 4 times before one finally came out where everything was sharp, and the wheels were in the air.

In this next photo, the fuel mixture was a little “rich” with excess fuel being expelled as the car downshifted through the turn. The flame would show in the braking at this turn for approximately 2 seconds. I used the motor drive on the Nikon D4 to catch the flame at the tailpipe. This was the best of the attempts. In the other photos, the flame was either too small, or I just caught the smoke left after the flame dissipated.

If you pan the camera along with slowing the shutter speed down, you can keep the car body sharp, but blur the wheels keeping the sense of speed on display. Having too high of a shutter speed will freeze the wheels making it look like the car is just parked on the track. This is similar to ballroom dancing for me. I love to see motion in the faces, and the costumes of the dancers. Capturing motion in a still image is more challenging, but holds my attention much longer.

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com
703-864-8208

What photos do you keep accessible to you? There are probably images scattered on your hard drive, on your phone, prints stuffed into drawers, and albums.  I am obsessed with looking, reviewing, and critiquing the photos that I save in a portfolio file on my computer. Some stay in the portfolio because of the technique, or the composition, or overall quality of the images. I may be able to use them to sell my services to a client or use on my website.

Library Organization

The best part about organizing photography in the digital age is the ability to instantly access image files. This is true whether they were taken last week, or 30 years ago. You will revisit old places that no longer exist. Or you can see family and friends that have passed on, and (for better or worse) yourself. Going through Facebook, there have been many sad events reported. With this in mind, I wanted to go through some old photography this morning. I wanted to post some of things I can’t go back to, greet people that are no longer with us, to remember them, and share them with readers. These are not my technically best photos, and they won’t help me display my services, but they are special for me, and for lots of others that read my blog.

Take more photos – Share – Backup your photos! There is no point to having a huge collection of photo without having some way of sharing them with those that would enjoy them. With internet, blogs, Facebook, there is no excuse not to do this. Film photos will not last forever, make digital copies of them to preserve them in case of loss. I recently transferred videos and still photos, and I feel much better having multiple copies  in case something happens to the originals. If you have any questions about how to do these, please let me know! As I get older, I appreciate these old photos more and more. This is a great time to use the digital tools available to get these out to share again.

TimeLine Media – www.timelinedc.com 
703-864-8208