Jules Cafe

Boston, here she comes!

Jules — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:49:48 +0000

If you live in or around Boston, be sure and send jules an email (jules@julesbianchi.com) since she’ll be in your neck of the woods from August 21 through the 29th! She would LOVE to hear from you…. It is always nice to be around a local when traveling, isn’t it?

Cheers!
Joy

Mentoring: Tea for Two

Jules — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 04:53:46 +0000

If you have never given yourself the luxury of one-on-one mentoring, you should really consider it. Not necessarily with Jules (although of course I’m biased!) but with one of the other photo greats… it is really money well spent.

Photographer Shaun Ring flew out all the way from Lexington Kentucky to participate in Jules Tea for Two mentoring program. His comments to Jules were so sweet I thought I’d include them here!

take care,
Joy

In Shaun’s words:
Thanks, Jules! I can’t tell you how happy I am with the route my photography is taking since my Tea For Two with you. Here’s a quick run-down of what I’m doing differently:
1)I’ve made lens changes. I’m reaching more for the 70-200 and the 100mm macro, specifically.
2) I’m now exploring and using the Bridge/ACR/presets workflow and I’m loving it.
3) I’m shooting with pocket wizards and a strobe/shoot-thru umbrella at receptions.
4)I’m showing a slideshow at each reception with the highlights from the day so far.
5)I’m shooting in manual mode much more instead of aperture-priority w/ the +/- dial.
6)I’m making a great effort to get more of my work in front of the coordinators, venues, and vendors.

Above all of this, though, is just the confidence and personaility I’m showing more at the weddings. I’m getting great compliments, and I’m pretty sure I’ll look back on my trip to shoot and mentor wth you in LA as a huge turning point in my photography career. Thanks again, Jules!

Shaun

Totally Rad Actions with Doug and Chenin Boutwell

Jules — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:32:13 +0000

If you have not seen the award-winning images of Boutwell Studios, you need to take a cyber stroll and visit. Doug’s ability for creating kick-ass actions is uncanny, and they will kick your images up a notch, and all you have to do is apply the action. The Totally Rad Action Mix comes with 46 actions designed to make images come alive, and to streamline the process of working on photos. Click the link above or go to www.totallyradactions.com.

Check it out! Click right HERE if you want to purchase them for yourself. You won’t regret it!

Pay it Forward

Jules — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 00:16:48 +0000

All of us are looking for ways to give back, to thank those who have helped us get ahead. Lindsay Yates and her team Biff Ulm, Jenica Lemmons, Lindsay Docherty, and Bobie A. have worked together to create a wonderful and feel-good resource for photographers out there…. FREE templates, actions, interviews, ideas, resources…. can’t hurt to check it out!

Click the image below or go to Pay It Forward to find out for yourself, and do some good while you’re at it! Also, I’d love to hear what you think, so leave a comment or two while you’re visiting. thanks.

take care,
Joy

i’m all aglow with design aglow

Jules — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:08:50 +0000

Recently I found the website Design Aglow and I wanted to share it with you! It’s an online resource with information and products for professional wedding and portrait photographers designed to inform, teach, and inspire. And inspire they do! It’s made up entirely of contributors from the photography industry and it’s completely reader supported. Meaning they host no ads or sponsors. You yourself can contribute to Design Aglow– they are constantly looking for new ideas and writers. I found an adorable template of ideas for grouping portraits… what a great gift for clients!

For some reason I can’t get an image to post today, so just use the link above. Hope you get inspired!

take care,
Joy

love & happiness: partnercon sept 9-10, 2008

Jules — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:27:47 +0000

For the Fourth Annual Pictage Partnercon, Jules Bianchi is lined up to speak! She’s been a featured speaker every year. So of course we are thrilled to be coming back this September to present on a fun subject… love and happiness! Jules will be talking about inspiration, how to get it, how to keep it, how to maintain your sense of wonder and energy while dealing with the not-so fun parts of photography.

Jules will be speaking alongside other fantastic photographers such as Robert Evans, Mike Colon, Sara France, Dane Sanders, and the amazing Gene Higa!

Check out the PartnerCon link to find out more about it all!

Listen and Learn with Kevin Kubota

Jules — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:01:45 +0000

Most of you know how highly I think of Kevin Kubota. After attending his Digital Photography Bootcamp this past April, I have become an avid (rabid?) fan. Kevin is the kind of guy who has become successful by helping others to become successful… the best kind of success, if you ask me. I recently found a fun interview that Kevin gave this past June on the Pro Photography online show. In it, he discusses the best way to showcase yourself to get the clients you want, his latest favorite gadget, and how he started using that action hero to represent his photoshop actions.

Give it a listen (click the image):

Prophoto show with Gavin Seim…. fun tips for you!

Jules — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 08:34:44 +0000

Check out what Gavin Semin of Photography Show has to share about the Nikon Lens Pen:

if you’re a pictage member, these books are so cute!

Jules — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 18:57:58 +0000

Before & After

Jules — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:08:24 +0000

After checking out my blog last night, my sister asked what I did to the following image. For all you photographers who follow my blog, I thought I would go ahead and share with you as well.

This image is from Julie & Yas’ wedding at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

My thought process:

When I first saw Julie’s colors (red tones) I was excited because I knew there was a red wall in the parking lot level of the Walt Disney Concert Hall where she was getting married. For this image, I asked them to hold hands and look at me. I wanted them to simply stand quietly together because I was trying to capture something that might evoke feelings of a vintage wedding image like this one:

How I shot it:

I was shooting in RAW with my Canon 5D and my new 50mm 1.2 lens. This image was shot in manual mode at 1/80, f 1.6, ISO 500.

Because it was rather dark down there, I used my Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2 and had Shannon hold my 580 EX flash to light them. She was off to my side on a short staircase at about a 45 degree angle to the couple, and she held the light above her head pointed down at them.

My post-processing:

I used my own custom preset, “jb bluesy”, to process the RAW file in Bridge and then applied Kevin Kubota’s action, “The Look” to the jpg. I used The Boutwell’s Totally Rad Action, “Yin/Yang” to get some of the detail back in Julie’s dress and to pop a tiny bit of light back into their eyes. I then applied Jesh De Rox’s Fine Art Texture, “He Loved Her Italian Accent” to create the velvet wallpaper look in the background. The last thing I did was add an 85 warming filter set at 25% and remove the shadow behind Yas in Photoshop.

Wah lah!!

before (straight out of camera)

after