Art by Fuzzy

Pottery, Photography, Design - Brandon "Fuzzy" Schwartz

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The Wedding

At the end of this past summer break I took on my largest photography project to date. It was the rehearsal, ceremony, and reception for our friend’s daughter. I, along with my beautiful assistant (wife), travelled down to a town near Indianapolis for a day and a half. It was nice that we knew the family so we didn’t feel like we were shooting our first wedding all by ourselves. It also worked out that we had shot the engagement pictures of the young couple so we had a chance to get to know them a little bit. They are both pretty easy to get along with and as far as I know, nobody said that they hated us as photographers…

I used my Canon 350D along with the 28-135mm IS lens most of the time. My wife borrowed a friends Nikon equipment. I got to use the proceeds to buy a 430EX speedlite (flash), a bracket, a cord, and diffusor which really came in handy.

Since I’m still not a master photographer I spent a good amount of time editing pictures in Photoshop. But I think that might be my favorite part of the whole process and I think I got some pretty good results so it was all worth it. Having so many pictures really helped me streamline my workflow. I worked out some custom actions which really saved me some time.

Overall, it was a good experience. There weren’t any real problems and I learned so much that I could probably write a book (or at least a pamphlet). We found out that it was even more work than we thought but I think it would get a little easier each wedding we shoot. I’m not quitting my day job to be a wedding photographer but if someone asks and the conditions are right I would do another one.

Below you will see a small sampling of the final product:

sm8867.jpg sm9170.jpg sm9189_8x10.jpg sm9192_bw8x10.jpg sm9201.jpg sm9221.jpg sm9435.jpg sm9451.jpg

Mega Update

Last weekend I spent about 3 solid days working on and updating my site. My wife left me at home while she went to visit some friends in Lexington so I sat at my computer all day Friday and Saturday putting together galleries and tweaking a few pages. I was up in Michigan the rest of the weekend where I used my dad’s high speed connection to upload everything, check a few of the pages, and update my wordpress software. The few pages and galleries that I checked seemed to work okay but I’m sure there are still a few bugs to work out. Some of the links on the links page don’t actually take you anywhere. I also still have to finish the labels for all my work (title, dimensions, date, etc.) which could take a while. If you find something that doesn’t look quite right or there seems to be a page missing or a broken link or something let me know. You can either email me or post a reply on the blog here. I’m also working on setting up a new wordpress plugin that will email you each time I post something new. Anything to make life easier!

My First Gig

Another milestone in my photography career has been reached.  I, along with my beautiful assistant (wife), did a combination engagement/family portrait session at a nearby park for some friends last Friday.  We started shooting around 7pm and finished about an hour and 20min later.  We did 20-25 different poses and I’m ordering about twice that many prints including some special effects and black and white and different views of each pose.  I just finished the post processing a day ago and I’m uploading pictures to order prints as I’m typing this.  The subjects got to see the unedited pictures a few days ago and everyone seemed happy. So as long as I didn’t screw up too much in the digital darkroom then I would say it was a successful venture.  Not to mention everything that I learned.   This was actually more of a practice session in preparation for the engaged couple’s wedding at the end of the summer.  I’ve heard that’s where the real money is at…..

Here are a few samples from the photo shoot:
On a bridge B&W on a bench Sitting by a tree The whole family

Site Update (Soon?)

Though you can’t really tell, I’ve been working on my site a little bit at a time.  I’m completely restructuring the galleries to make them easier to navigate and easier to update.  I want to wait and update everything at once though so you might not see any improvement for a few days or a few months, depending on my priorities.  I’ve got 2 gallery styles picked out but I want to tweak them a little bit.  I re-shot some of my pit fired ceramic pieces and I have some other older work that I need to shoot and add.  So expect something new in the future…  but don’t hold your breath…

Here is a preview of one of the galleries:
HTML Gallery Preview

So check back again.

Studio Update

I haven’t actually been working in the studio much recently.  I’ve been busy doing other things like shooting and editing photos, landscaping, organizing, and building…  and going for a swim every so often.  I’ve still got a few things to find a place for but most of my stuff is put away or ready to be used  for the greater good of “art”.  Here are a few pictures of my beautiful space.  I’ve still got some decorating to do I guess…

The whole enchilada.  View from the stairs.
The whole studio 

The Paint Studio.  View from behind the furnace.
paint studio 

Inside the Plastic. AKA The Clay Studio.
clay studio

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