New places for art

So I've been neglecting this blog.... but for good reason. Been very busy taking and editing photos. Just wanted to share my new redbubble account

Moving on

After lots of debate and testing out new equipment we've decided to start selling off our Olympus cameras and lenses. We're already making the switch to Canon. We purchased our crop camera a 7D, and are looking at our options for a full frame. While we would love a 5D Mark II for now it's out of our price range since we have only three lenses. We're really taking our time with the change over since we are still selling all of our Olympus gear. And until some of that sells we have to save our pennies to fund new gear.

I have however found a few lenses I can afford easily. I've always been in love with the look of so called "toy cameras". They always give such unique effects. Holga, Diana+..... great effects. The drawback is they are film cameras. I love the look of film, and someday I hope to be able to use film now and then. But there is no one in the area that I would want to process film. I was thrilled when I found out that there is now an adapter for Diana+ lenses for Canon. For under $100 I can get two lenses and the adapter! I can't wait to try it out. Previous to this I had a Lens Baby Original for my Olympus and I love the effect. There is just something about doing it all in camera rather than in front of a computer in Lightroom or Photoshop.

We've been trying to shoot as much as possible with the 7D and so far it's been a dream come true. This past Saturday we shot a local band in super dark bar. With our Olympus this would have been a nightmare. Noise above 800 ISO, red banding due to stage lights. The 7D was amazing, shot all night at 1600-3200 ISO. Crisp images, no noise. Can't wait until we get our full frame so we can stop fighting over the 7D. We had to keep changing off during the show, we each had a memory card and would switch every so often so we could both try it out but still know who took which shot. Hope that becomes a thing of the past very soon.

Snowflake Ski Jump Jr Tournament

Should have posted this weeks ago......
Feb. 20th was the Jr tournament at Snowflake. I had to miss last year's event due to being sick. And this year Chad had to miss a bit of it due to working overtime at his regular job. So I asked his cousin's son (a senior in high school) if he wanted to come out and get some photos and lend a hand since it's hard to really cover such a large event on your own. Happily he agreed, he never ceases to amaze me. A great eye and always comes away with amazing shots. All in all it was a great day of shooting.

The kids competing were great. Very talented and determined. And young! These kids are doing things I wouldn't even consider. Chalk it up to kids being fearless I guess. The two big events for the day were obviously ski jumping on multiple hills, but also a cross country ski race. There is hope to one day have a Nordic combined team. It's really great to see the program growing. Just a few years ago they were considering closing it all down due to lack of funds. All in all it was a great day. It's just a little sad to know ski jumping is done for another year.
Photos can be viewed via our website www.lonewolfstudios.us

Snowflake Ski Jump

Another amazing Snowflake Tournament is in the books. This was the first year they had a night jump. There are no words for it. The hill looked beautiful and so many people came out for it. Chad and I once again were volunteering our time to take photos for the ski club. It's the least we can do. It's so much fun to talk with the athletes and coaches as well as all of the fans who come back every year. We took so many photos, I know I took over two thousand.... Crazy! I'll still be editing them two weeks from now. Hope to have them up on smug mug soon so people can get a copy if they want them. We also need to get a few printed and hung up in the club house soon. It's hard to believe its already over. We look forward to it all year, and it's over in the blink of an eye. This year we had teams from Russia, Poland, Finland and Norway. We also had a twelve year old from St Paul competing. He was actually a part of the long standing jump. This is where the jumpers at the end of the tournament see who can jump the farthest for a pot of money collected from the crowd. They pull out all the stops and really put on a show. You have to jump a certain amount of meters during competition to take part and he was right up there competing for it. Really hope to see him back next year. They were a great group this year, really got the crowd going. High fives for the kids watching and the jumpers were so animated doing anything they could to get everyone going.

Amazing location found

Had an amazing shoot yesterday with Julia a model we've worked with before. We had wanted to do an outdoor shoot but the Wisconsin weather was not cooperating. It was well below freezing, and while we managed to get a few outdoor shots we thought it best to pack it all in early rather than freezing poor Julia to death. Thanks to some great advise we did find an amazing indoor location that we made great use of earlier in the day. I fell in love with this location..... such great light and details. While I'm excited to shoot there again... I don't want to over use it either. I have a couple of projects in mind for Julia in the future too. Can't wait for winter to be over so we can start to shoot more!

Complete Disrespect....

Tonight I get home from a long day at work only to find out a band we photographed a week ago at a local gig was using one of my photos for a poster for their next show. Now this I have no issue with. Granted wish they would have asked... but still my watermark is still on the photo right smack in the middle. Can't miss it. My problem is with another local photographer who put this poster together for them. You're a photographer yourself, maybe you should be using one of your own photos for the poster since your company name is all over the dang thing! I guess I just don't want our photos associated with her company, even if it's mistakenly happening because her company logo is screamingly large on the poster. To me it feels like complete disrespect.... we've always been pretty open to bands we photograph at shows using our photos for facebook and for posters and the like. Just give us credit or leave the watermark on the photo. Simple. I think I have such an issue with it because the photos this other photographer takes and just not what I would consider good concert photography. She uses a flash for one thing, you lose all sense of being at a live show by doing this.... Plus her attitude at shows has not been great. There are tons of people at these shows, but she acts like she is the only person there who matters. And maybe the band did ask her to snap a few shots for them... Doesn't matter, the people in the crowd are the ones who matter. You can't piss them off if you are associated with the band, or if you are a photographer trying to make a name for yourself. Because people will remember the nasty photographer. And you will lose respect and business. More than once I've had to dodge beer and avoid fights at shows while shooting, it's part of a live show. But this person acted as if people should stay clear of her, and not block her shots. Come on you're dealing with people who have been drinking and are out to have a good time. You have to learn to deal with it. But back to the topic at hand, seems like I may have to speak politely with the guys from the band about them using our photos in the future because we don't want our name associated with this other photographer. At the very least they could have put our studio logo on the posters or some type of photo credit on it. But since another photographer put it together for them, I'm sure they don't want to admit it's not their photo.

Intro

In case you can't tell I'm a photographer in Wisconsin. I own a studio with my husband. We both work "regular" jobs during the week, but our real passion is our studio. And someday we hope to transition to working as photographers full time. Most of this blog will be photography related.... now and then I may stray away photography based posts.