Wicked Cool

Since the beginning of the hockey season, I've been trying to get on the ice to do some posed action shots with some cool lighting and non-traditional angles. At the beginning of the season I was too busy and then I had to wait for my shoulder to heal enough. The last thing I needed was to slip on the ice and wreck my shoulder trying to catch myself.

With the high school hockey season over, I had one chance to get on the ice with them on Monday when they came to the rink for pizza and to turn in their jerseys. I did photos of the seniors as well as one of the goalies along with Cade. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Facebook Profile Day

With the kids being off from school I thought it would be a good time to kick off our first Facebook Profile Photo Day. On Thursday from 10:00-5:00 we will be doing 10 minute sessions for $10 with 10 photos posted to Facebook for you to tag. There's no appointment necessary, just stop in anytime between 10:00 and 5:00. The studio is located at 114 South Main Street, Canandaigua, NY 14424 on the second floor.

DVD Sale Extended

Due to my crazy hockey coaching schedule, I failed to post on my blog about our Mid-Winter DVD Sale which was supposed to end on February 12. In light of this, I will be extending the sale through the end of February. Here are the details.

Save $200 on our wedding DVDs for the complete set (normally $850) and $100 on our set of 200 images (normally $350).

We are also having a sale on our individual images on disc at just $25 each (normally $75).

Lighting Notebook

We held our "Art of Light" workshop at the studio last week with great success. If you missed out fear not, we will be adding more classes on new and repeat topics in the coming weeks and months. If you have a topic you would like us to do a class on, feel free to drop us a note. Some of the upcoming classes will be Photoshop, Newborn Photography, Sports Action, Art of Light, and Camera Basics for DSLR users.

During the Art of Light class, we referenced several books which have great lighting ideas. One of my favorites is Kevin Kubota's Lighting Notebook. It note only has a great section in the beginning on light, but it also has lighting recipes and step by step details on how he achieved specific shots. I have included a direct link to his website to purchase your own copy of the book which also includes a free set of Lightroom Actions. Purchasing from the link helps us bring you more of our workshops.

Braves Hockey

The Art of Light

Our next class at the studio will be Tuesday, February 7 at 7:00 p.m. called The Art of Light. We will be exploring different ways of seeing light and using multiple different light sources to experiment with different looks in the studio. This will be a hands on class where we will be shooting and sharing images, so bring your cameras and any creative lighting tools.

The class is $40 and will go from 7:00-10:00. If you would like to attend, please e-mail info@cheslerphoto.com or call the studio at 585-393-9242.

Snowless in Seattle

I love winter weddings, in fact, so much so that I have a website devoted exclusively to them at WinterWeddingPhotography.com. This winter however has been a bit of a downer for snow lovers, including brides looking for the fairly tale winter wonderland. WHo would have guessed that we'd be in to the second week of February with little snow to speak of the entire winter so far?

Yesterday, Amanda and I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding of Barb and Marc at the Methodist Church in Canandaigua with a reception at The Inn on the Lake. We also go to work with some o our favorite vendors from Flowers By Stella and Nathan Baker from Finger Lakes Entertainment. Despite the lack of snow, we were treated to an awesome sunset on the pier in Canandaigua with the backdrop of the boat houses on the north end of the lake.

Barb owns a dance studio in Geneva so their first dance was a treat, complete with blue tap shoes for both Barb and Marc.

2 Day Canvas Sale

In conjunction with our labs winter sale, we are offering 30% Off our canvas gallery wraps for two days only. The sale ends at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. Canvas Gallery Wraps are images printed on stretched canvas with the image wrapping around the edge so no framing is necessary. We have many samples of these in the studio so feel free to stop by with any questions or to see some of them. If you do stop by, please call first to make sure we are in since our hours vary during the winter. 585-393-9242

Old Man and the Sea

Growing up on Long Island, I spent many weekends on our boat on Long Island Sound. We would fish for Blue Fish, Fluke, Flounder and other salt water critters. Closing up the boat after a day out on the water always seemed to be such a monumental task, hosing the salt water off of everything. I always hated the gritty feeling between my fingers of salt water, but that feeling now brings back fond memories of countless hours on the water with my Dad.

I just returned from a trip to Florida to participate in a bridal show at the Hollywood Beach Marriott. We've always offered our services in South Florida having a home base in Boca Raton. With the kids getting older and my tolerance for long, cold winters shrinking, it's time to ramp up our presence in Florida to fill in our winter schedule.

While I was down there, I spent a few days with my buddy Daryn who is a wedding photographer down at Disney World. He spends a lot of his free time on the coast of Florida in Titusville, running his flats boat up and down the Indian River on the prowl for Red Fish. He's been trying to get me down their to fish since he moved down there two years ago, so this was my chance. We spent almost ten hours on the water in search of the elusive Red Fish with no luck. We did see one patrolling the flats in search of bait fish but had no luck catching it. I did however manage to catch a Sea Trout. I didn't do much casting with my arm still in a sling. We did however get pulled over by the Florida Wildlife Commission for going a little too fast in a Manatee zone.

I didn't see a Manatee but we were treated to Osprey diving for bait fish, an Alligator roaming the flats, more Dolphins than I could count a ton of Horse Show Crabs crawling on the sea floor. We pulled back in the marina at sunset, putting a perfect exclamation point to the end of a great day. I even enjoyed the gritty salt water feel between my fingers.