Philadelphia SmugMug: Relaunch 1/11/12!!

Last night, the Philadelphia SmugMug Group was able to have a Relaunch Get-Together with guest speakers that came out from SmugMug!  It was so awesome and we felt so special that Rocky and Steve from SmugMug were able to come out and show us the great things that SmugMug can do for our photography!!

The gathering was held at Calumet Photographic and a big thanks goes out to Gregg for once again hosting our group!  The turnout was great and I feel it served as a great opportunity to network and share our knowledge with one another!

Here's our Facebook Group, please do join as we are migrating away from the Meetup.com website :)

Enjoy a few pics from our get together!! :)  More pics can be found on our FB group page, which you should join!!!  I am excited for what 2012 will bring our group!

Philly SmugMug Meetup - Mike Allebach, Photographer of the Tatooed Bride + Jaleel King for Help Portrait!

Last Wednesday, our Philly SmugMug group was lucky to have Mike Allebach come in as a guest speaker!  Do check out his website!  They specialize in tatooed brides (but you don't have to be tatooed).. it's more like.. they don't do BORING couples hehehe!  Anyway, he came in and gave a very inspiring presentation about what he does and why he loves doing what he does.

empower*love

Mike is also the overall chair of Philadelphia Help Portrait, and had Jaleel King come in to talk to us about it which was very inspiring as well!  Can't wait to help out on December 10!

This is like the biggest turnout we've had for our meetups so far (well, at least since I've been a member).  It's just all really exciting to me :)  Our revamp anniversary party thing is in January, so please do join Philly Smug and come see what all the hype is about!!!

Yay Philly Smug!

Here's Mike!

Giveaways yay!

 Jaleel speaking about Help Portrait!

 

Talking Shop: Philly SmugMug Meeting - Using Your Camera 101

Okay look guys, I'll tell you straight up.

I'm not gonna lie - I like blogging on here a LOT more now that I've redesigned it HAHAHAHAH!  4 days of blogging in a row - unheard of!  But I will definitely try to blog more consistently from here on in!

Anyway, so yesterday, the Philly SmugMug Meetup Group held a meeting in Calumet of Philadelphia, a photography store which I shop at regularly!  Thank you to Calumet for opening your classroom to us, to my photo buddy Hillary for dealing with all the logistics of coordinating with Calumet, and for SmugMug for allowing us to have this meeting :)

Fred and I gave a brief and hopefully educational introduction on the essential ingredients for obtaining a proper exposure.  It was my first time to ever do a presentation like this in front of... PEOPLE... I'm used to informally helping out and such, but everyone was nice and tolerant of me and my corny jokes, so I think it went pretty swell!  After the overview, we broke down into smaller groups to tackle questions and just talk about our love for photography!

Below are some pictures we took during the meeting, but you can view more HERE.  And if you're in the Philadelphia area, feel free to join our Philly SmugMug group - it's great way to meet other photographers and share knowledge!

First here are a few pics from my photo buddy - Hillary!  Thanks for sharing!!

Apparently I'm very animated - Fred's looking at me funny as well HAHAHAHAH!!

My partner in crime :)

The next few were our 'live' (lol) demonstration on how sometimes our in-camera meter will not give us an accurate exposure.  

The camera meter has been fooled! My hubby is underexposed a little bit!! Oh no!!

When we are reading our camera meter, zeroing it out isn't always going to work if a scene is brighter than 18% grey. "Go back where we came from = go back towards the brightness (+) and expose longer!" The whites are more white instead of grey!  Yay! Excuse the off WB, just no time for that right now LOL!

Now let's take a darker scene..

Oh no! The camera meter told me this exposure would work, but I am overexposed!! The blacks are grey b/c that's what the camera wanted to do = turn me & my surroundings into 18% grey by overexposing!

Take THAT, inaccurate camera meter! We'll show you who's boss, by dialing back towards the (-) side as we look at our camera meter, exposing a little shorter (faster shutter speed) in order to make my black shirt black again!

Now let's break into smaller groups :)

Here's one from my other photo buddy - Dan!!  

His caption for this: Hi my name is Natasha, and, I'm addicted to ... photography :)

HAHAHAH!

And there you have it!! Wedding tomorrow and Poconos and Niagara after that!!