Winners of the Nikon Award 2016 in Single Shot nominations MAGIC LIGHT

Winners of the Nikon Award 2016 in Single Shot nominations

MAGIC LIGHT
Light plays major role in the picture

And here is fantastic TOP 10 of the nomination:
JohnnyGarcía, Fotógrafo Bodas Extremadura
Aleksey Malyshev
Mantas Kubilinskas
Катя Мухина (Katya Mukhina)
Ivan Troyanovsky
Manola van Leeuwe
Adam Johnson
Artur Pogosyan
Lea Lea Torrieri
Bartosz Płocica

Congratulations, guys!

You can find full results of the competition at Nikon Award web page: https://mywed.com/en/award

Workshop in Lithuania

2017 m. sausio 14 d., Vilniuje organizuojamas vienos dienos Vestuvių fotografijos Workshop’as.

Mokymus sudarys dvi dalys.

Teorinė dalis:

• Kaip rasti tinkamus klientus?
• Fotografijos technika vestuvių metu: kokia, kaip ir kodėl?

Praktinė dalis:

• Poros fotografavimas (pora – ne modeliai). Fotografavimo vietą išrinksite patys;
• Nustokit pozuoti - išmokit pažinti.
• Fotografijų apdirbimas su "LightRoom" – darbo eiga ir kitos detalės.

Bonus dalis:

• Fotografija yra verslas. Kaip vienam susitvarkyti su 150 klientų per metus?
• Pietūs.

Visi surinkti pinigai už mokymus bus skirti labdarai.
Kaina – 100 EUR.

Vietų skaičius ribojamas – dvylika asmenų.

Kas tas Mantas Kubilinskas? Daugiau informacijos rasite cia:  https://www.mantasphoto.com/about-mantas-kubilinskas/

Apdovanojimai: https://www.mantasphoto.com/awards

Mokymų vieta bus patikslinta.

Norėdami registruotis ar turint papildomų klausimų rašykite: mantas@mantasphoto.com

Curt + Kerri Capitol Stone Yard Engagement Session

It was such an honor to document Curt and Kerri happiness at one of hidden spots in Washington DC Capitol Stone Yard. After session in Stone Yard, we went to the city and have such an amazing time by Spanish Steps. 

Winners of the Nikon Award 2016 in Single Shot nominations: CEREMONY

Winners of the Nikon Award 2016 in Single Shot nominations

CEREMONY
Groom reacting to bride walking down the aisle and other special moments from wedding ceremony.

And here is fantastic TOP 10 of the nomination:
Gabriel Sánchez
Mika Alvarez
Francisco Javier Munoz
Petr Wagenknecht
Wojtek Długosz
Andrea Giraldo
Isabelle Hattink
Артем Кондратенков (Artem Kondratenkov)
Daniel West
Mantas Kubilinskas

Congratulations, guys!

You can find full results of the competition at Nikon Award web page: https://mywed.com/en/award

Jason + Savita Engagement session at City Center DC and National Gallery Of Arts

It was fun engagement session with Jason and Savita at City Center DC with a quick trip to National Gallery of Arts. They are so vibrant, and so funny, I  had such a great time following them during this session. 

Ian + Aisha quick engagement session at Washington DC

A short glimpse at the  engagement session with Aisha and Ian. It was quick, but nice session at the Washington Mall, DC. 

Sokiu Svente 2016 Baltimore MD

The crowd was on its feet Sunday, cheering for the final number as nearly 1,800 dancers streamed onto the arena floor.

Dance troupes came from the Baltimore suburbs, Boston, Atlanta and Los Angeles, everywhere in between. Boys and girls, parents and grandparents skipped and whooped into the finale of the 15th North American Lithuanian Folk Dance Festival.

For three hours Sunday afternoon at Baltimore's Royal Farms Arena, performers, mostly Americans, waltzed and polka'd in the traditional routines their grandparents danced decades ago in Lithuania.

"You're keeping the culture going," said Rytis Grybauskas, a dance instructor at the Baltimore Lithuanian Hall.

Since the inaugural performance in Chicago in 1957, the massive, choreographed festival has come every four years to an American city. The 15th festival featured 45 troupes from 29 cities. The oldest dancer was 77; the youngest, 7.

"Music, song and dance, whether there were good times or bad times, it still allowed people to keep up their spirits," said Algis Silas, of Chicago, a festival spokesman.

Grybauskas' parents arrived in the United States as World War II refugees and clung to the traditions of their homeland. As a boy at Saturday classes, he learned the traditional steps and the handholds, similar to square dancing. About 40 local dancers participated Sunday from his Baltimore troupe. During rehearsals Saturday, their T-shirts said "hometown team."

Sunday's performance featured a challenging dziugunas step to imitate the movements of a horse. It wasn't easy, even for the instructor Grybauskas.

From big-time festivals to concerts and everything in between, the best of what the city and the surrounding areas has to offer in July. 

"I'm 58," he said, laughing, "and I'm trying to do this scissor step."

Other dances portrayed scenes from the forest and farm work, such as chopping wood and cutting wheat. One dance represented a rooster's call. In another, women danced ballet steps like graceful birds.

They wore blonde braids and woven cotton aprons, the patterns bright and intricate from particular Lithuanian villages. Some women danced with crowns of flowers in their hair. A man wore a rich necktie and a handmade sash. The sashes can take up to 40 hours to weave.

Andrius Blekys, of Chicago, groaned as another dancer stretched the 18-year-old's ankles.

"You're constantly jumping around," Blekys said.

The men wore moccasins and thin-soled ballet slippers.

"Most of us are not professional dancers," said John Howes, an attorney from Rockville.

On the floor, troupes formed circles and danced in merging lines: a kaleidoscope of geometric patterns. The first act represented a Lithuanian leaving the family farm.

The second act portrayed the search for a new home, the labors of a traveler. The final act celebrated that dream of home beneath a starry sky.

Then cannons fired confetti above the arena floor. Some 1,800 people danced beneath the gold shimmer.

The act ended, but they danced on. The music quickened with the electric peal of rock 'n' roll.

Some children, in their woven aprons, fists clenched with gold confetti, began a conga line.

And one teenage boy, his brow drenched with sweat, leaned into an air guitar.

Source:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-lithuanian-fest-20160703-story.html

Peter + Dori Engagement Session at Smithsonian American Art Museum

 Sunday -  Fun day with Peter and Dori at Smithsonian American Art Museum. Cannot wait to share their wedding images already! 

Junebug Best Engagement Photography Of The Year Award

Wohooo!!!! I'm So happy to announce that this year three of my images was selected The Best of the Best Engagement Photo Contest as winners 👏🏻🤓

These collections of the world's best engagement photos were chosen by the Junebug Weddings team for their quality, beauty, technical excellence, and distinctive personality. They raise the bar for wedding photographers and inspire photo aficionados everywhere, while celebrating the true art of wedding photography. Enjoy each and every one and stay tuned for more in the year's ahead. The stunning work featured above was photographed by Gabe McClintock, MANSANO FOTOGRAFIA, Nordica Photography, and Andreas Feusi.             

  The 2016 Best of the Best Engagement Photo Collection

The 2016 Best of the Best Engagement Photo Collection – Honorable Mention Winners

Curating the top 50 best engagement photos in the world is close to impossible, which is why we love curating our honorable mention images almost as much as the collection itself. Getting to recognize a few additional images on top of our set 50 is not only fun but rewarding. Our honorable mention winners this year showcase the creativity, emotion, and technical skill that make up a truly compelling engagement photo, and we cannot wait to show them off! A big thank you to our star judges Phil Chester, Samm Blake, and Hendra Lesmana of Cheese N Click Photography for helping us to curate this year’s collection. Enjoy!

TOP WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHERS GIVE THEIR BEST PIECE OF ADVICE TO BEGINNERS

With experience comes wisdom along your journey in photography and life; You’ll make mistakes. You’ll learn from them, grow from them, and your work will be better for making them. Hopefully, one day, you’ll pass along these parcels of  earned wisdom to someone who can learn from them as well.

We’ve turned to some of the top wedding photographers in the world to share with us their best piece of advice for a beginner photographer and here’s what they had to say.

To see our entire list of Top 100 Wedding Photographers from the U.S. and Canada and our Top 150 Best International Wedding Photographers, check out these articles:

• 100 Best Wedding Photographers In The U.S. and Canada
  

1. MANTAS KUBILINSKAS OF MANTAS KUBILINSKAS PHOTOGRAPHY

Mantas’ Best Piece of Advice: Many beginners make the same mistake I did when I started my photography business, we get very excited about everything photography and begin buying things we will rarely use. We buy new gear without mastering whatever already we have.

My biggest piece of advice is to become a guru of your gear. Get one camera, two lenses and one flash.  Once you master those, then begin adding new things to your camera bag. If you buy two cameras, ten lenses, and ten flashes right from the start, I believe it will take eight times longer to become an amazing photographer.

See more of Mantas’ work on his website: www.mantasphoto.com

2. ANDREA BAGNASCO OF ANDREA BAGNASCO FOTOGRAFIE

Andrea’s Best Piece of Advice: Be prepared to work hard and never give up, even when it seems like the obvious thing to do.

3. VLAD LODOABA OF VLAD LODOABA WEDDING PHOTOJOURNALISM

Vlad’s Best Piece of Advice: Find photographers you trust and respect, reach out and offer to assist/second shoot for them. You will likely get told “no” a lot (don’t take it personally), but you will eventually find someone. Learn from their experiences and their mistakes. Assisting allows you to get a good feel for some of the challenges of a wedding day, and second shooting allows you to improve your technique or experiment without the stress that comes with being principal photographer. Then when you shoot your own weddings, you will have valuable practical experience and be better prepared to do a great job.

4. GARY EVANS OF GARY EVANS PHOTOGRAPHY

Gary’s Best Piece of Advice: You can do all the planning you want prior to the wedding but there are things that can blindside you, including the weather. Don’t be afraid of things you can’t control, embrace them and go with it.

5. YVES SCHEPERS OF YVES SCHEPERS PHOTOGRAPHY

Yves’ Best Piece of Advice: Reach out. Reach out to the wedding photography community in your area/country and create a network around you. Start to see them as colleagues instead of competitors. Whether it is to get honest feedback on your work, to share jobs when you’re overbooked, to get some support when you’re going through a rough patch, or just to hang out and have some fun, it will help you get your business going so much faster.

6. KEN PAK OF KEN PAK PHOTOGRAPHY

Ken’s Best Piece of Advice:  Put your personality into the frame. Get closer to the subject; balance between mundane, untraditional angles, and compositions. Don’t be afraid of experiment. Look out for the unpredictable, and  serendipity will find you!  Enjoy your learning process.

7. JESSE VAN KALMTHOUT OF JESSE VAN KALMTHOUT PHOTOGRAPHY

Jesse’s Best Piece of Advice: Confront your inner demons and fight them. Every single wedding photographer makes a ton of errors for every great shot or award. It’s about failing and then failing better. So infuse your personality and keep going, because there is no way around failure, only straight through it.

8. NICOLA TONOLINI OF NICOLA TONOLINI PHOTOGRAPHER

Nicola’s Best Piece of Advice: Get it out of your head that this is the easiest job in the world. If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to work, work, work, work, work!!!!

9. DALLAS & SABRINA KOLOTYLO OF DALLAS KOLOTYLO PHOTOGRAPHY

Dallas & Sabrina’s Best Piece of Advice: Keep your love for photography and your creativity flowing by maintaining balance in life. If you love what you are doing, you are naturally going to put your heart and soul into it and you will end up producing work that has soul, and that you love. When you are producing work that you really love, it will attract like-minded clients and at the same time give you the opportunity to continually refine your craft.

10. CHRISTINA OF CHRISTINA ZEN PHOTOGRAPHY

Christina’s Best Piece of Advice: It’s in our nature to follow other photographers. We look at them and get inspired, but don’t just follow and try to emulate. Don’t just fawn over how they shot something. Instead, dissect their work. Study it critically to see where their light it, how their pose is in the minute details. Look at and break it down so that you see the components of the images you admire, not just an overall look you want to copy.

Doing this helps you bring those components into your own work without mimicking, and allows your personal aesthetic to come alive. Take those ideas and do the same with your own work too. Break down what you did well and what you struggled with, and fix it. The best photographers are the ones that never stop learning or striving for better.

11. WAYNE LA OF WAYNE LA PHOTOGRAPHER

Wayne’s Best Piece of Advice: Don’t pigeonhole yourself into particular styles and techniques at the beginning; learn everything. Be a natural-light ninja but advance your flash lighting. Train to pose like a master painter but learn to see moments before they happen. You’ll find your authentic voice soon enough, but you won’t know until you’ve sung many songs.

12. DAVE PAEK OF DAVE PAEK PHOTOGRAPHY

Dave’s Best Piece of Advice: Don’t be afraid to get your feet wet. I’m not necessarily referring to underwater portraits here but more about taking shots that take you beyond your creative comfort zone. The more “fall back” shots and gimmicks you rely on, the more you’ll become complacent in what you do and, in turn, you will stunt your own creative growth. If you shoot safe all the time, inevitably, photography will become more of a mechanical chore rather than something that inspires you.

13. NICOLE CHAN OF NICOLE CHAN PHOTOGRAPHY

Nicole’s Best Piece of Advice: Never stop learning. Create a multi-faceted educational plan for yourself with specific tasks and timelines. Learn through podcasts, books, YouTube tutorials, webinars, workshops, and magazines. Also, don’t forget about non-traditional learning – assisting other photographers, 2nd shooting, personal projects, etc!

14. CRYSTAL STOKES OF CRYSTAL STOKES PHOTOGRAPHY

Crystal’s Best Piece of Advice: Take the lens cap off……just kidding. Continuing education is undoubtedly the best investment you can make as a new photographer, or as an experienced photographer! This is often overlooked or dismissed  because we want to spend money on the tangible; a fancy new DSLR or a lens or lighting equipment. However, if we aren’t equipped with the information we need to give our clients our absolute best, those shiny new toys won’t matter nearly as much! Invest in YOU!

15. MARIUS TUDOR OF PHOTOCHIC

Marius’ Best Piece of Advice: Always be ready for the most intimate moments. Being ready means to be there all the time even when ‘nothing’ is happening.

16. ALESSANDRO IASEVOLI OF ALESSANDRO IASEVOLI PHOTOGRAPHER

Alessandro’s Best Piece of Advice: Be focused. Figure out where you want to go, where you want to be in 3-5-10 years from now. Define your goals and never let the day by day workload distract you from them. Do not take any job just to make money, but always try to define and target the clients you want to work with, the ones for which you think you can be unique, and look for them only! You may need to say ‘no’ many times, but it will pay off in the end.

Full Article: https://www.slrlounge.com/top-wedding-photographers-give-best-piece-advice-beginners/