I get lots of questions about my use of Pictage’s album designer…

So, I thought it might be helpful to share some before and after designs from Pictage! To explain, I start my albums by having Pictage do an initial design with 150 images! I use it as sort of a spring board and take the design that they come up with and adjust about 75% of it! The reason that I do that is because I have found that I save LOTS of time by having them do the initial work of putting the main structure of the album together…and then put about 1-2 hours of adjustments into the album! When I was doing the albums 100% by hand, I was putting up to 2 DAYS into them….so this is a GREAT solution for me! I LOVE IT and even better, the Pictage design is 100% FREEEEE!!!

HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES:

ALBUM 1:

CLICK HERE for the Original Design

CLICK HERE for the JRS Edit

ALBUM 2:

CLICK HERE for the Original Design

CLICK HERE for the JRS Edit

ALBUM 3:

CLICK HERE for the Original Design

CLICK HERE for the JRS Edit

I honestly believe that this is an incredible service that Pictage offers!! I’m ALL about outsourcing..especiallly when it’s FREE…and I would highly recommend looking into this service if you don’t have a great album design system! CLICK HERE to view the order form and read info about getting started!!!

*****EDIT…..YOU HAVE TO HAVE A PICTAGE ACCOUNT TO VIEW THE ALBUMS! SOOO Sorry…I forgot to mention that!! I just assume the whole world uses Pictage….so I didn’t even think to mention it until I just received a few emails about it!!!

MANY THANKS to Jessica Claire for being sweet enough to feature ME as the FIRST EVER “show me your sac” photographer!! “Show me your sac” is a new feature on her SHOOTSAC BLOG, showing photographers with their Shootsacs…and giving a blurp about them, their work, etc!!! I’m soo HONORED to be the first one!! Jess is an awesome person whose work is easily the best I have EVER seen! She’s SUCH an inspiration….and I think that the SHOOTSAC ROCKS!!!!! MUCH LOVE TO YOU, Jess…THANKS!! CLICK HERE TO CHECK OUT HER SUPER COOL SHOOTSAC BLOG!!!!

that my SHOOTSAC has FINALLY ARRIVED!??? YES!!!

It came yesterday and I wasn’t fully sure of what it was….and THEN….I opened the box and this bright green card caught my eye and I was soo excited!! SO, JUST an FYI…if you ordered your SHOOTSAC from Jessica Claire in Las Vegas then YOURS will arrive shortly TOOO!!!!

I decided to go with the black damask pattern for my first cover, since it goes with my black wedding suit really well, and it goes well with a white, bright yellow or bright green tee & jeans (my standard for shooting engagements & such)! I do plan to branch out into some more fun covers in the future!! I also appreciate the standard black cover that comes with it…for those times when you really don’t want to draw too much attention to yourself! I’m headed to Ohio tomorrow for an engagement shoot and then down to Southern Indiana on Saturday for a wedding, so I will get lots of opportunities to use it! Can’t wait! I still think this was SUCH a great idea and I’m soo glad Jessica Claire created it because I have been in search of something JUST like this for a LONG time!! THANKS JESS!! You are GREAT!!!:)

I have decided to SELL my CANON 50 1.2!! I am just WAAAY to addicted to my 85 1.2 and so, honestly and truly, I just don’t use the 50 1.2 all that much after spending a long time relying on the 85 before the 50 came along. It’s obviously an amazing and extremely popular lens, the stats on it are proof of that and it’s one of the hottest new items of the year…..but it just doesn’t fit my personal shooting style as much as the 85 1.2 and 135 2.0 do, SOOO…I have decided to SELL IT!!! I’m a firm believer in not keeping equipment unless it fits my personal style and I use it ALOT….because, for one…equipment is too pricey AND cause other people could be creating amazing images with it!!

I purchased it BRAND SPANKING NEW the very day it arrived for the first time at my local distributor! It is still in FLAWLESS condition and is from a very good, warm & loving home!! I’m selling it for $1300….so EMAIL ME @ jess@jessicastrickland.com if you are interested!! You can send me a check or pay by paypal!

So, I have two personalities within me, ONE that says….SHOOT DIGITAL, it’s the COOOL thing to do and THE OTHER, that is my PAST and MY ROOTS that says, GO BACK TO SHOOTING FILM. The two are always at WAR, some days, Mr. Digital is totally WINNING and other days, MR. FILM puts up a REALLY GOOD FIGHT. See, my degree is in FILM PHOTOGRAPHY and I can honestly tell you that I didn’t take ONE digital class in college! NOT ONE! My days were spent at the film developing station, in the black & white and color darkrooms and buying Ilford film & paper, smelling like developing chemicals and waiting anxiously for my images to appear in the wake of chemicals rifling through the developing tray. See, film was straight art, no modifications, no “making it pretty” afterwards…and I WAS OK WITH THAT because I didn’t know ANY different. NOW, Digital has TAKEN OVER THE WORLD and you can make your work anything you want it to be. So, a part of me LOVES THAT because you have ENDLESS creative freedom but the other part of me loved that your shot was your art and the rest was history….and your WORK WAS DONE after you sent your film off to be processed. So, the story will go on because I think I will always be stuck between the two! For now, I will watch this FILM MASTERS art because he is an AWESOME FILM SHOOTER!!! Mr. Jose Villa! I’ve never met him, but I love his work and I think he’s UBER talented!! Plus, he got the cover of G.O., so that just makes him cool! I mean really…look at theses images and think of having ALMOST NO post processing in your work flow….TEMPTING, ISN’T IT!!??

So, you are going to think this cheesy, but I just need you to TRUST me on this one!! As of last year, I started receiving these PHOTOVISION DVD’s in the mail…and I would just let them stack up in the “come back to this later” pile of stuff!! Well, a month or so ago, I was organizing things and came to this collection of PHOTOVISION DVD’s and decided to throw one in and see what it was all about, while I was finishing my organizing! Seriously, before I knew it, I was to the fourth DVD and hadn’t taken my eyes off of it and it was like 2 in the morning and I’d been watching them since late afternoon! They are GREAT and packed with AWESOME stuff!!

In my first few DVD’s, I got to watch Jeff & Julia Woods do an amazing wedding in California and get a tour of their uber cool new studio, got to watch Marcus Bell do an awesome city shoot, watched Sandy Puc shoot some awesome portraiture in her daylight studio and got to see Vicki Taufer work her magic in this amazing vacant warehouse building she uses for shooting! I was seriously inspired and had no idea that these DVD’s that I had been letting stack up were SOO GREAT!!!! They also do studio tours, do demo’s of new products such as the new versions of photoshop, lightroom, etc! It’s really fantastic and I had no idea until I watched one!! It’s $150 a year for 6 DVD’s that have at least 5 different features, per DVD! If you are renewing, it’s only $35 a year!! CHECK IT OUT!!!

APERTURA!!! Ray & Erwin are downright AWESOME!! Their work is SOO inspiring!! They push the envelope and I love that! They are super nice guys, to boot…and I just really like NICE people! CHECK THEM OUT!!!

that I LOVE THE new PHOTOSHOP CS3 with BRIDGE and ADOBE CAMERA RAW!??? Well, I DO!! I use ACR for all of my editing and have REALLY been wanting them to make some changes to it, for some time now….and FINALLY, they did!!! You NOW have the ability to control saturation in LOTS of ways, which I LOVE LOVE LOVE!! You can control the vibrancy and saturation, then pull the saturation from certain colors…which is really helpful! There are also lots of different brightness features, such as a fill light slider and a recovery slider. You also have have a built in healing tool and cloning tool, which is SOOO fantastic! It’s also fast and has TONS of great new and updated features!!! I just LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! I have yet to really see what’s new on CS3, but I’m sure it’s pretty rockin’ TOO!! CHECK IT OUT!!!

My brother in law & web designer, BEN is always sharing cool stuff with me and a while back he told me about this super cool blog, LIFEHACKER. It’s really such a cool blog, full of fun stuff, techy stuff, business stuff and SOO much more!!! CHECK IT OUT!

I have followed this uber cool blog for a while that is ALLLLLL about lighting & flash!! It’s not the coolest subject, but this blog makes it pretty cool! They share cool info, new products, awesome techniques and MORE!!! I know it’s a well known blog, but just in case you haven’t heard of it, CHECK IT OUT! http://www.strobist.blogspot.com/