You Pick It Results

On December 31, 2009 by vard

Finally got a chance to sit down and post the winning images from the ‘You Pick It’ shoot giveaway.  Olivia (Makeup Artist for Image 1) and Beth (Everything – Image 2) have both been in front of the camera more than once and are fantastic people to work with.  I look forward to creating some awesome images with both of them.

Thank you again to everyone that submitted images.  I really enjoy getting to know creative and motivated people! :D

Rock on!

Santas In Speedos

On December 28, 2009 by vard

First up – thank you again to everyone that submitted for the ‘You Pick It’ free shoot contest. Voting ends tonight at 9pm, and I’ll be posting the winning looks some time tonight or tomorrow. If you have an image up for voting, start beating down doors/phones/emails to get people to support you! Get social with it – posting a link to the voting on your Facebook/MySpace/whatever is a pretty simple way to make sure your supporters can help you out with little effort on their part. Good luck everyone!

Here’s a few shots from the ‘Santa’s in Speedos’ run this past Saturday morning.  The Nespoli brothers (pictured last here along with CIA operative and general business mogul Kevin/You’ll-never-know-my-real-name/Anthony) put this on to raise money for breast cancer research – over $11,000 was raised!  :D  And this was only the first year!  The day kicked off at Crickets Bar on Front St in the middle of downtown (uptown if you’re a mailman) Berwick @ 10am.  Gathering @ a bar @ 10am – GENIUS!  The run was supposed to start at 1pm, but things got a little overzealous around 12:40 and everyone just took off, paying no attention to what time it really was.

Fun, Exciting, Important!  Congrats to The Brothers Nespoli for such a successful first go of this.  Start looking for your own speedo for next years event!  :D

Rolling It All Up

On December 19, 2009 by vard

I was hoping to see a nice blanket of snow this morning to go along with the theme for today’s wedding.  Looks like we’re a little north of the big party, but there’s still a chance for a nice coating later today right when things are getting fun.  I’m crossing my fingers for some mother nature style special effects tonight!

We have a crazy busy couple of days ahead of us:  Today’s wedding; Sunday’s catch up on the rest of life day; another shoot at Berwick Brewing on Monday (looking forward to the results of that experiment!) and some big heavy suit & tie stuff on Tuesday.  So I thought I’d take a couple of seconds and mention the deadline again for the 2nd round of shoot give-away’s.

We’re giving away 2 this time.  1 that I’ll be picking from whatever we get, and the other that will be decided on by anyone interested in casting a vote in the poll I’ll be posting here.  Grab yourself, or a willing victim and get to work.  I wanna see what people can create with a little motivation.  Take a picture of your creation and send it to info@studio-d-photo.com with the subject line “YOU PICK IT”.  You have until 9PM Monday night (the 21st) to shoot it my way.  I’m hoping to have the poll up by Tuesday morning…in time to have it up for 48 hours AND still give me time to announce the winners but Christmas Eve.  (I just like the way that works out! :D )

You can focus (pun – hahhaahahhahaha) on makeup, costume, or a mix of both.  The only requirement is that it is something that makes a jaw drop.  That’s it.  However you interpret that, that’s what I want to see.  Don’t worry about your photography or lighting skills for the shot.  Just create, capture and submit.  (Although I should qualify that with, if we can’t actually SEE what you’re going for in the image, it’s probably NOT going to help your chances – just do your best).

Looking forward to anything we get…

Quick update – it’s been about 7 hours since I started this blog and the snow has just arrived.  This is going to make thing quite interesting today.

Alright…gotta finish this up.  The other reason for this blog was to announce to the winner of the first free shoot give away.  Here’s the think n’ skinny of how it went down.  The idea for this came from watching some very hard working ladies put together the Victorian Nights event here in Berwick last week.  They just get it done.  I wanted to lend a hand if I could, how I could, and see if anyone would be inspired to head down to the event with the motivation of a possible shoot ahead them.  I didn’t have a clue if anyone would, but it was worth trying.  Then I tossed the curveball with the requirement of having to actually hand deliver the idea to me.  Obviously this didn’t work for MOST people, but again, the entire point was to see if I could get anyone to head downtown for the night.  I got 6 or 7 submissions in email/Twitter/Facebook/MySpace and even a text msg or two.  In and of itself, that was pretty rad.  It was cool to see motivated people making waves in the current of everyday life.  But I had to stick to my guns and only count the 3 submissions that tracked me down at the event.  It was inspiring to me to see people put down on paper their ideas…and then hand deliver them.  Thank you!

In the end, the first submission I got was what I consider to be most in the spirit of the idea and the blog wrapped around it.  Getting up and living your dreams so you can take the one chance at life you’re given and enjoy it to the fullest, however you want to.  Lindsay’s write-up was right on.  I’ll keep the actual shot idea itself a secret til we get the shots done up, but it was passionate, direct and free wheeling in theme.  She nailed my motivation for giving the shoot away and her shot idea is just awesome.  We’re hoping to have it all rolled up in early Feb, ready for posting shortly after.  If I do my part right, we’re going to get some killer images.

Thank you everyone who submitted…and particularly to the people that made it downtown to Victorian Nights.  Knowing creative and energetic people makes life more colorful…I’m glad to know as many people like that as I can!

Time for me to get outta here…got a touch of snow to deal with!  :D  Can’t wait!

You Pick It

On December 17, 2009 by vard

Alrightythen!  I’ve had a few people ask me about the new shoot giveaway, which is cool.  Looking forward to seeing what gets emailed in.  So here’s a quick recap of what this one entails:

I want to see makeup and/or costume ideas that make people stop and take notice.  You can do just makeup, just costume, or both…I’m just curious to see who can throw a look together that rocks blox!  Once you have your look together, take a pic of it and send it in to info@studio-d-photo.com.  I’ll be taking submissions until 9PM on Monday, December 21st.

Don’t sweat it if you’re worried about your photography skills getting in the way of your submission.  If you’re more adept with makeup and a brush than you are with a shutter and a lens, then you’re in good shape.  Do what you do…the picture is just so everyone can see what that is.  Now, I’m not saying don’t do your best…please DO!…just know that I care FAR more about the look and what you’re trying to say with it than I do about the dialect you choose to speak…

Some time between 9PM on the 21st and the next morning I’ll carve out a few minutes to select my personal favorite.  AND I’ll create a poll here on the blog that will allow anyone interested a chance to vote for the look they like best (If we’re bombarded with submissions {HAHAHAHA}, I’ll pick the final 8 to be used in the poll…otherwise, we’ll put up everything we get).  The voting will run 48 hours and I’ll try to have the winning looks posted by Christmas Eve.  Can I get a stocking stuffer!  WORD!  :D

Yes, you can submit more than one…BUT, I’m only using 1 per person.  If you do submit more than one, I’ll be picking the image that gets used in the contest.  If you’re not ready to leave your creative expression in my hands, submitting only one may better serve you.  :D  Please put “YOU PICK IT” in the subject of your email.  That’ll help with the sorting of the millions and millions of submissions I’m sure we’re about to get!  :P

I think that’s about it…actually, I’d be surprised if I haven’t forgotten something…when/if I remember what it was, I’ll be sure to post it…

Rock on!

Damn, That Was Fun!

On December 14, 2009 by vard

Thank you to everyone that stopped down with envelopes and ideas on Saturday night…and of course to all the email/blog/twitter/facebook/myspace/txt’s….? entries that can’t be counted.  I really dig meeting and knowing creative people, and all the entries we received made it clear that lots of people have something inspiring to show.  I still haven’t figured out how to announce the selection yet though.  I’m thinking I might just contact the person, shoot it, and post it when it’s all ready to see…not sure…if you have an opinion about it, let me know…

On to the next adventure!  I know I want to do a few of these a year, but I’m pretty sure it’s NOT going to be on some kind of schedule.  I can’t see that working for how I work.  It’ll probably be whenever the mood hits…

…that was last night.  Connie and I spent the evening chatting about how hard it was going to be to think of something fun and creative for round 2.  Then she said it.  ”Have everyone send in pictures of their most creative and expressive costume/makeup combos.”  Doh!  That was easy, not hard!

So that’s it – get a camera, get a light (a few might help) and get creative.  Do up some wild makeup and/or crazy costume/wardrobe idea, take a shot and send it to info@studio-d-photo.com.  We’ll be taking submissions until Monday, December 21st @ 9pm (why 9pm again…I have no idea…it’s a 3 hour buffer up against the next day I suppose).  The idea that blows are collective minds the most is getting a shoot…but this time out we’re giving away TWO (2) shoots, each to a different winner.

I’ll be posting later on how we’re going to make that work…

Til then…

The first of many things I can’t stop thinking about…

On December 11, 2009 by vard

You’re definitely going to have to read this post on my blog to know what you’re in for…

Alright – 1/2 planned would be understatement.  The idea to try something like this hit me yesterday.  It took another 30 hours and a subarctic 6 mile run to flesh it all out.

But first…the bigger picture.

In the last couple of years I’ve come to realize that the only way to actually get something done is to pull a Nike and ‘Just Do It’.  I used to think that catch line was a smug, look down your nose way to tell everyone else how lazy they are.  But I’ve come to realize it’s actually the most succinct way of getting the point across…if you want it, you have to actually DO IT!  To all those that realized this LONG before I ever did…my hat is off; you are some seriously lucky people!  I envy the head start you have on living life to the fullest.

Think if everyone you knew could take the thing they were best at, or most passionate about and turn it up to 11.  That musician friend you know writes more and plays louder and adds some serious zest to your life.  Or if that writer you know starts sharing her words with everyone, just to see what happens.  I wanna see the painter paint her dreams and visions.  What if the mailman really wanted to make movies…what if…?

So that’s this…this is me deciding that talking about ideas is cool, but acting on ideas is WAY MORE FUN!  Try life…see what happens…learn as much as you can and have more fun than anyone thinks is possible.  I love creative people.  Everyone has something totally awesome to offer everyone else.  Sometimes you have to dig a little deeper to find it (I sure as hell did), but the differences that make up each of us are what set each of us apart, and hopefully bring us all little closer together as we enjoy what everyone can bring to the party!

READ EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS BEFORE YOU RESPOND…

To be eligible for the free shoot, you gotta sell me on the best idea you have in your head.  Let’s see what you can come up with.  I’ve been on a kick lately of challenging myself and my team to create awesome images that we can all be glad to be part of.  I wanna keep it going and I want to open it to everyone else that has something amazing in their heads.  Start thinking…

The free shoot is the one you come up with.  Make it as awesome as possible, BUT make it possible.  If you tell me you want to ride an elephant while sky-diving, you’re on your own – although I do know some people that could help on the skydiving part!  :D  Make it creative, or thoughtful or whatever…connect with me through your writing what you want to see.

Outside of one REALLY REALLY important piece of the puzzle (see below), that’s it.  I’ll read them, chose one and we’ll shoot it and post it so everyone can enjoy it.  We’re going to add some spice to the recipe of life.

THERE’S ONLY ONE MORE THING YOU HAVE TO DO…BUT YOU HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL 9PM TONIGHT TO FIND OUT WHAT IT IS.

So start thinking…but don’t send me anything!  Not a word…just think…wait for the 9pm post and we’ll take it from there.

…til then…

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