This past weekend (April 16th) we had a wonderful photography workshop in Fort Myers, Florida. We invited several photographers to come out and photograph models that we provided on various backdrops we offer for sale from The Drop Shoppe.
We all had a fantastic time and I know that the photographers left with hundreds of great images. How do I know? Because they’ve been posting their beautiful work on our facebook fan page. For a direct link to view their photos you can click HERE (see: photos and videos of the drop shoppe album).
I can’t thank the photographers and the three photographers/assistants who helped out enough, everyone had fun and twords the end of the day we even drove in our 1965 Comet Caliente convertible and photographed that on one of our 10′x8′ backdrops!
Here’s some photos I took (pull-back shots) of our photographers and models in action. You may see studio strobes in these images but they weren’t used, everyone actually used natural light on all the photos you’ll view on the fan page!
All of the backdrops were put on the wall using just thumbtacks! Each backdrop we sell comes with a 1″ white border around it, perfect for sticking your thumbtacks into. Or, you can just clamp the drops right to your backdrop stand. There’s so many ways to hang these, we preferred to go with the thumbtack method for the day of the workshop because it gave us more space without bulky backdrop stands.
We also used several backdrop ‘floors’ as well. To make a nice, smooth and natural transition from the ‘wall’ backdrop to the ‘floor’ backdrop we just used wood baseboards. You can find all sorts of decorative baseboards at your local home improvement store.
Here’s the convertible car we used, which belongs to my husband and I. It’s a LARGE car and you can tell how big it is because the backdrop hung up behind it is actually 10 feet long! The photographers were really able to make the car and backdrop work so well with the models, there’s some beautiful images coming out of this workshop!
Another absolutely fun and perfect prop we used was a classic Vespa scooter we borrowed from a friend. It was so cute and worked so well on the backdrops, it was the perfect size!
I’ll leave you with a couple really cute shots from one of the photographers, Marni Bellavia of two of the models we had there
I’ve met so many absolutely wonderful friends and photographers through flickr over the last four years. It’s amazing how one website can bring so many people together and have them become friends. Everyone shares photography tips, the best places to go to find whatever bird or mammal you’re looking to add to your ‘list’ of images and we always have wonderful photography meet ups.
JMW on flickr, also known as Michael is one of those contacts. He’s been a contact of mine for awhile now but we never had the chance to meet, until this past weekend. He invited Michael Pancier, Claudia Domenig and I out on his boat for a tour of the bird rookeries along the Peace River. I had already met Michael Pancier and Claudia at previous meet ups, but this was the first time I met JMW.
JMW put his boat in the water and we all climbed in with his help. I’ve got to say, I haven’t been in a regular boat since I was probably ten years old. Oh I’ve been on a ferry that went from Wales to Ireland, cruise ships, smaller ferries, etc… but it’s been a long time since I was on a regular boat. This is one tidbit of info I didn’t share with the group, I didn’t want them to think I was going to get seasick (I know my husband was worried about that). Quite the opposite, I had a blast! On the way back, speeding through wakes from other boats was like a roller coaster ride, and to me that’s the best!
There were a bunch of pelicans out there, I just love those birds. As goofy and big as they seem, they’re actually quite graceful in flight and fun to watch.
Our first stop was where there were some Yellow Crowned Night Herons nesting. They had nests but we couldn’t see any babies. I was able to get one of the herons as it took off, they’re such unique birds.
Our next stops were several other rookeries that were filled with Cattle Egrets, Woodstorks, Great Egrets, Anhingas, Cormorants, Night Herons, Ibis, and all kinds of other birds including Grackles, Cardinals, etc.
At one point JMW maneuvered the boat into a little horseshoe bend section of one of the rookeries. We were literally surrounded on three sides with nesting birds. It was amazing. I’ve been to bird rookeries in the past, but they weren’t like this. Usually you’re on a boardwalk with a bunch of other people. This time it was just the four of us, in a boat, with all these birds just going about their business of building nests and feeding babies. I was pretty awestruck to be smack dab in the middle of everything. Mother Nature put on a show for us that day!
One of the most beautiful things about breeding/nesting season are the colors these birds get. As you can see above the Cattle Egret is literally BURSTING with color. This is the only time of year this happens, the rest of the year they go back to being plain white birds that follow cows around eating bugs in pastures (or even rooting around in the landscaping at your local McDonalds). These are birds that most of the year people probably don’t even notice. We saw a lot of Cattle Egrets getting sticks and ‘posing’ with them before moving on to wherever their nest was that they were building.
The biggest population of birds there at the rookeries we visited had to be the Woodstorks. They were EVERYWHERE and most of them had babies of various ages. To photograph the Woodstork babies was actually a first for me! Obviously the adult Woodstorks are not the supermodels of the bird world, but they are sure cool to look at….and seem very prehistoric to me.
They were also very busy gathering sticks for their nests. I’d like to think this one Woodstork (below) was going for more of a Martha Stewart decorating motif of his nest, this is actually quite a pretty branch
Woodstork babies. Again, not the supermodels of the bird world. But they are really cute in their own way.
Extreme close up of the same baby above…
I mentioned the colors before of these birds. Here’s a Tri Colored Heron in his breeding colors, how blue is that beak?! I call it Smurf blue.
We had a fantastic time out on the water with JMW. He does do tours if you’d like to head out onto the river and witness Mother Nature at her best! You can visit his website HERE for more information on the tours he offers. If you haven’t visited a bird rookery by boat, you should!
I’ll leave you with some Woodstork babies that are in more of a ‘cute and fuzzy’ stage…..
I, like most people say, don’t know what I did before I got the iphone! Seriously. We bought a radio for our jeep that has a USB port in it so we can hook up our phones and listen to our music on them. I love this. I don’t know if I’ll ever use a CD ever again. Then, with the camera, the camera apps, the HD video, the GPS, and all of the other cool apps…I’m in heaven.
Back to the songs… here’s a few random ones that are on my iphone. Maybe you’ll find some you forgot about adding to your music library, or find something new to add
Cheryl Crow, Soak Up The Sun.
Chuck Berry, Johnny B Good…. I just love this song. Probably because of the movie, Back To The Future…or because I grew up going to car shows with my family and all they played was 50’s and 60’s music at those things.
“Chuck? Chuck? It’s Marvin, your cousin, Marvin BERRY! You know that new sound you’re looking for? Well, listen to this!”
Another ‘oldie’ on my ipod is Jerry Lee Lewis’, Breathless. Again, I think the movie Great Balls Of Fire (with Dennis Quaid and Winona Ryder) probably pushed me into liking Jerry’s songs.
A song I found through the movie, P.S. I Love You, got me liking Flogging Molly’s, If I Ever Leave This World Alive. Plus, it just brings back memories of actually visiting Ireland this past year. ”I’ll be here when it all gets weird.”
Louisiana Saturday Night, I have the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band version on my iphone but I couldn’t find a video on youtube for it, so here’s Alabama’s cover of it below. I like country music, I admit it, but I only like the old stuff.
Another oldie on there is Stevie Wonder’s, Living For The City.
I’ve got a ton of songs on there, and add them as I hear stuff on the radio (using the shazaam app on my iphone so I don’t forget which ones I want to get).
I’ve been pretty busy lately but none of it has involved a camera so I haven’t posted much on flickr or here on the blog. I’ve been wanting to get our Great Dane puppy Earl into the office again to do some more studio shots of him with my backdrops but just haven’t had the time, so I went through my older shots the other day and edited a few and figured I’d post them here. He’s now 9 months old, over 100 pounds and is possibly turning into the smartest dog we’ve ever owned. Which is weird, because I do tend to gravitate to the goofy and stupid dogs…since they don’t seem to get into as much trouble as the smart ones. I pretty much got lucky with my first Great Dane, Gunther…he was a big baby and never got into any trouble, and then came Duchess…who has figured out how to get her front feet up on top of the kitchen counter next to the fridge and grab things off the top of it. Let me tell you, it took several months and several rentals of a carpet cleaner to get out one gallon of vegetable oil from our carpet in the living room…..we have a stain on our ceiling we’re trying to figure out how to get rid of from Duchess biting into a brand new 2 liter bottle of pepsi and having it explode.
Earl hasn’t really gotten into any abnormal trouble or damaged anything expensive, just the typical puppy stuff. Pulling a napkin out of the trash and chewing it, finding a hair scrunchie and slobbing all over it, etc…..But, he’s doing extremely well learning commands. He knows HERE, drop it, go lay down, sit, load up (to get in the crate) and he’s doing super learning to fetch. This is the first dog that has actually chased a stick and BROUGHT IT BACK TO YOU. I’m trying to constantly work with him even if it’s just sit and stay in the house once a day so he’s always learning and enjoying it. If I’m stuck with a smart dog, we’re going to make the best of it, lol!
