Edmarie & Mannie’s Wedding

I first got started in photography through two sisters, Edmarie and Elmarie.   They saw my work on Flickr when I was still going to college at UIC and were the very first people to commission me professionally for photography.

This past May was a turning point in my photography career as Edmarie got married.  I had shown some images in a previous entry that I had changed my style due to inspiration from other photographers that I admired. Those images were from her wedding.

I can’t say enough how much thanks I can give you two for giving me the inspiration to start up and go after my dreams.  Forever isn’t enough time to thank you both.

I actually overlayed the texture from Edmarie’s wedding invitation over her veil. Several people commented to me that they had thought at first that the design was part of her veil….

The Road Trip Of A Lifetime!

An old friend of mine from back in my college undergrad days told me the news over AOL; he was moving to Los Angeles from Lansing, Michigan.

And he was driving all 3000 miles of it.

His reason being that since he was getting older, this would probably be the last time he would ever undertake a journey of this kind-so why not go on a road trip and have fun doing it?

The plan is to drive through several states and visit friends (mutual friends between us) along the way, and that he’d be passing through Chicago as one of his first stops.

I’ve been needing a vacation of sorts and realized that this would probably be the only time I could ever undertake a trip like this as well.   So I offered to hitch a ride with him from Chicago to Los Angeles when he passed on through.

Who better to take with you on a road trip through 8 states than a Photographer right?

=D

My new D3 and F6 are gonna get some work put in with them….  =)

Since I’m so used to putting some sort of image in a blog entry, I googled roadtrip and this was one of the nicer images I found…seems kinda fitting I think:

More details coming soon!

D3 High ISO Tests

When I first got my D3 I decided to try it out and test the reputed high ISO capture ability that made it famous when it first made its debut.

Here are some images that I took and above the images are the shutterspeed and ISO information.

These images WERE NOT POST PROCESSED IN ANY WAY-THEY ARE STRAIGHT FROM THE CAMERA!

Lenses Used:17-35mm f/2.8 and an 85mm f/1.4.

You can click on them to get to a larger image:

ISO 3200, 1/25th second, 19mm f/2.8

ISO 3200, 1/25th second, 19mm f/2.8

ISO 400, 1/20th second 17mm f/2.8

ISO 1250, 1/20th second 85mm f/1.4

I’ll leave it up to you though to decide personally about the quality of images and if the high ISO capabilities are up to par.

Personally coming from twin D200 bodies, I have to say that the D3 at almost any ISO would wipe the floor with my old cameras. At almost all the ISO’s I threw at this thing there was less noise/grain found in the image than what my D200 would show at ISO 1600.

Since this test was first done I’ve actually gone and ordered a second D3 body as I need a backup body for my first one. Being a dual body shooter, I keep a wide angle lens attached to one body and a zoom lens attached to another (17-35 and 85mm 1.4, the 70-200 comes out during ceremonies). I was considering getting a D700, but as I have a wedding coming up August 9th I was told by Adorama that there was a better chance that a cow would jump over the moon than I would have in getting a D700 body by that date.

Any comments or questions? Feel free to email me at info@ marc-edwards.com

Noui’s Album Slideshow =D

Click Here =D

Finished With The Gear Buying. For A While.

A popular entry that I had earlier was my D3 vs D300 Article, where I listed out the pros and cons of the D3 and D300 that came out.

For those of you that missed that article I’ll provide a summary of that entry:

D3 Pros:

Wide Angle and Ultra-High ISO!

D3 Cons:

1.  A sticker price so high you’d have to sell your family (j/k).  Sorta.

2.  Buyer’s remorse.  Lots of it.

D300 Pros:

1.  Higher ISO Too!  Better than my old camera by what seems like a long shot.

2.  Cheaper.  By a lot.  You only have to sell some of your family to get one.

D300 Cons:

1.  High ISO isn’t up to par:  It still can’t compete with a 5d, and that camera is about to be replaced anytime soon.

2.  No Wide Angle.  When I bought my D200 a long time ago, I bought all Full Frame lenses (FF) with the hope that eventually Nikon would make a FF Camera.  It took 2 years but the Camera Gods smiled down and gave Nikonians like me the D3.

The two cons with the D300 were what tipped the scales in my decision making…and I gave in and bought a D3.

After much debate on whether to get the newly announced D700 as a new backup body or to just buy another D3 body, I decided to get a 2nd D3 as well.

Seeing that the D700 wouldn’t be available to me at all until after August at the least, when I need 2 Nikon bodies for backup purposes and my shooting style.

And right now I couldn’t be happier =D

Batman & The Sears Tower

Going on a tip that I saw from a friend, I went to the Sears Tower after work ended at 10:30 Thursday night with my camera and saw this:

If you look carefully at the lower right hand corner on the Sears Tower, you see something…

The Batman symbol was on the Sears Tower for several hours on Thursday night. I was hoping for something more dramatic though…but this was still cool nonetheless.

Noui & Joey; Engagement

Noui was an old friend from mine back when we went to college together.  Our friendship goes back close to 7-8 years now since we first met, so she had known me ever since I had shown an interest in phototography.

So I was more than honored when she contacted me to photograph her engagement =D

You guys were too cute and goofy together. I’m all the more honored to have met you first as a friend before becoming a photographer.

More to come…

but in the meantime you can see a slideshow of their engagement session here

The Importance of Warranties

Never NEVER underestimate the importance of warranties!

The other day while trying out my Playstation 3 and my copy of Metal Gear Solid, I was greeted with a very distressful and consistently running black screen each time I would insert any form of disc-game or blue-ray dvd.

Confused, I rebooted the machine.

Repeatedly.

For the next half hour.

But to no avail. The machine had simply stopped working. Any and all attempts to try and run the machine the way it was MEANT TO BE USED failed.

After about an hour of restarting the PS3 and trying to get it to run any form of blue-ray disc, I gave up and started wondering how I would be able to spare another four hundred dollars to get a new one.

Until I realized that I had spent extra money on my PS3 in order to get the Best Buy Warranty.

Packing up the PS3 the next day, I went over to the Best Buy across the street and in less than 20 minutes they looked at it, got a new PS3 in the box, and sent me home.

It’s moments like these-the one in a million chance that something weird or awful happens when and you’re not even abusive with the item in any way at all, that make spending the extra money for a warranty worth it.

New Camera and Lens: Happiness Awaits =D

I’ve started to notice that my style of photography has started gravitating towards two types of shots: Wide angle scenery and Portrait photography, So when I recently came across a good deal at KEH I couldn’t resist saying no: An excellent condition Nikon F6 and a 50mm 1.2 manual focus AI-S lens. The best film SLR ever made (and most likely last) by Nikon, as well as the fastest lens Nikon currently makes.

The Nikon F6

The 50mm f/1.2 Nikon AI-S

Having been a big fan of Jose Villa for a long time, I decided to go for it and try to experiment with Fujifilm for an engagement shoot coming up in a couple of weeks. Although I’m primarily digital when it comes to photography and the studio I want to start up, the colors that results from the portrait line of Fujifilm are gorgeous and something I definitely want to offer to my clients alongside my digital offerings.

They both get delivered today. Hopefully I can show a few images with the 50mm 1.2 on my D3 soon and get a few rolls in on the F6 with Fujifilm.

A New Style, A New Me.

I decided to experiment and try out something new. A new style if you will.

Ever since I had started out in photography, I had been trying to find a place within myself where I could photograph an image and post-process it while trying to make the image “Mine.” Something where people could see and know for sure that “Yes, that’s one of Marc Edward’s images.”

I looked at my heroes in photography and whose images I loved greatly and style of post processing intrigued and moved me, and I came up with a list of four people….

1. Yervant

2. Jesh De Rox

3. Joe Buissink

4. Dave Hill

These four photographers single handedly have had the biggest influence on my desire to be a photographer in the Wedding industry and have helped me strive to better myself and my abilities.

So with Edmarie’s wedding i decided to try out something new. A different type of photography that was entirely me, yet you can see somewhat of an homage and influence of these great photographers.

Something New.

Something Edgy.

Something that was Me.

To see the whole set you can click here.

Let me know what you think =)