Jeff LaPlante Photography

Switching to WordPress

2007-05-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Today I moved over to the newest version of WordPress blogging software so I'm here by relegating this blog to archive status. Go check out http://blog.jefflaplante.com for the latest news from jefflaplante.com

Andrea & Marty's Engagement Session

2007-04-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Man! Don't tell anyone but the weather around here has been pretty spectacular lately! So much for it always raining in Seattle!

Andrea and Marty are a really cool couple that love the outdoors. They're getting married in Stehekin, WA in June at the Silver Bay Inn. Stehekin is cool because it's so remote. You have to take your own personal boat or a slow ferry to get up to the top of Lake Chelan where it's located. Their wedding is going to be beautiful!

We got together last week for their engagement session over on Alki Beach in West Seattle. It was so warm and sunny you would have thought we were in Southern California, minus the palm trees. As luck would have it, the tide was on it's way out and the sandy beach on Alki was exposing itself, something of a rarity in Washington. We're known for our rocky beaches so seeing sand was a gold mine to me. We totally had to take advantage of it!

Here's a few of my favorites from their session and as always, check out the slideshow for more.

Cynthia & Cameron's Engagement Session

2007-04-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

Cynthia and Cameron are getting married over on Hood Canal next month and I can't wait because they're having lots of nieces and nephews in there wedding! I love photographing kids at weddings. They're always so cute!

We met up at the Japanese Gardens in the Arboretum last week and had a great time walking around. Cynthia got lost on her way to meet me at my studio for our initial consultation so we never had met until the day of the engagement session.

In the brief time I spent with them that day it was so easy to see the love these two share. It's incredible! Just look at them. That's awesome!

Here's a few selects from their engagement session. Be sure to check out the slideshow for more.

Ashley & Jason's Engagement Session

2007-04-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yet another awesome engagement session!

Ashley and Jason met me over at Lincoln Park in West Seattle on a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon in Seattle last week. It's one of Seattle's largest parks and it's awesome! They have this cool zip line that you'll see Jason and Ashley try out in their slideshow.

We had a great time walking around the park and UP the steep trails that go from the beach to the bluff above. I'm totally going to bring my family down to the park to play!

Their wedding is next week! It's going to be lots of fun! I can't wait! Thanks for the awesome time last Sunday Ashley and Jason.

Here's a few of my favorite images from their engagement session.

Genevieve & Bobby's Engagement Session

2007-04-19T14:30:00.000-07:00

Genevieve and Bobby were in Seattle a few weeks ago finishing up their plans for their wedding in Port Angeles this summer so we took advantage of the great weather to go play in the sun and take some great engagement photos!

This was the first time I'd met them in person. It was a treat to put a face to their voices. They're both awesome and I really look forward to being part of their wedding day.

Here's a few images from their engagement session.

We met at Red Square on the University of Washington campus and played around in the library and then the quad where the cherry trees were still in bloom. Then we jumped in my MINI and headed over to Gasworks Park. I love this place! There's all sorts of cool and colorful bits of plumbing to use as props and backgrounds. Fun! Gen and Bobby told me they had once tried to stay up all night at the park and watch the sun rise but they didn't quite make it. I wouldn't have been able to do it either!

Bobby and Genevieve have their own wedding page if you'd like to learn more about them.

Check out their slideshow on my website to see more images from their session!

Kiara & Chad's Engagement Session

2007-04-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy week for engagement sessions!

I met up with Kiara and Chad at Kerry Park in Seattle on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. It was a glorious day and everyone was out enjoying the sunshine.

We had a blast playing in the sun at Kerry Park on Queen Anne and down by the Space Needle. We checked out the EMP and then had a fabulous dinner at their favorite Indian restaurant at the base of Queen Anne Hill. Chad even tried his hand at photography and caught a few fun-but-out-of-focus images of Kiara at dinner. :) (I think they're cool!)

After dinner we ran back up to Kerry Park and played in the golden light of the late afternoon with the city skyline in the background.

What an incredible day!

Check out their slideshow for more images.

Megan & Travis' Engagement Session

2007-04-04T14:55:00.000-07:00

During my whirlwind that was March I had a free day to get together with Megan and Travis to photograph them out in the rain at the UW campus. Now, we really hadn't planned on doing their engagement session in the rain, it just turned out that way. None the less, we had a great time! :)

Megan and Travis are both Alumni of UW and we thought it'd be fun to go back to the campus for some shots. The Cherry trees were in full bloom!

After spending some time on campus we decided to try and get onto Husky Stadium field for a few shots before the security guards swept in. As luck would have it we found an open gate and made a break for the 10 yard line. :)

We were able to get a few shots in before we felt like total trespassers and took off. It was a really fun shoot even though I was completely drenched by the time we finished up. It's a good thing I brought the Gortex jacket!

Check out their slideshow for more images.

Simple Photo Booth - Dane Sanders' Trippy Shiny Black Photobooth

2007-04-02T17:47:00.000-07:00

I mentioned in an earlier post that Dane Sanders brought out his new Simple Photo Booth to WPPI. This thing is so cool! Dane and his buddy Carl did a fantastic job of reincarnating the old fashioned Photo Booth like the ones Amélie Poulain used in the movie Amélie.

They're renting out the booths in Southern California so go check them out! If you want one of your very own, they're starting a franchise so place your order now. :)

Here's a few hilarious images of Brittany and me in the booth at the [b] party.

Davis Photography article in Studio Photography Magazine

2007-04-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

My good friend Jim Davis-Hicks of Davis Photography is featured on the cover of Studio Photography magazine this month!

In the article, Jim talks about how he built his business on customer service and the need to balance a busy business life with your family life.

ActionRunner 2.0 takes center stage in this balancing act, allowing Jim and his wife Lara to spend less time editing and more time living life.

If you'd like to check out ActionRunner, visit davistools.com or my store for a free trial copy. You can edit 10 images per batch to check out how it works. Register it and you can process unlimited images in a single batch.

It was great of Jim to mention me in the article. (Thanks Jim!) I've already gotten a couple of emails from people who saw my name. :)

Here's a great testimonial about ActionRunner 2.0 from Heather Kallhoff:

ok, I'M LOVIN IT!!

YOU ROCK...

YOU ARE THE BEST...

YOU ARE MY HERO...

the 2.0 is a HUGE improvement over the 1.0

I THINK I'M IN LOVE!

heather kallhoff
www.kallhoffportrait.com

March Catchup

2007-04-01T15:18:00.000-07:00

Wow! I have so much to write about! March has been a very busy month here at the studio!

It started out with a trip down to Orange County to see my friends Dane Sanders and Mike Colón. Follow that with an amazing Conclave with Denis Reggie at his home in Atlanta with my good friends Sharlane Chase and Susie Hamidi. I came back for a few days and had time to squeeze in an awesome engagement session with Megan and Travis in the rain at the UW campus. (We even got on the field at Husky Stadium!) After that I was off to WPPI in Las Vegas where I spent the better part of 4 days in the air conditioned Paris and Bally's hotels meeting with photographers and checking out all the cool new stuff at the trade show. I attended [b]ecker's party, had a lot of fun with Dane Sander's Simple Photo Booth with Brittany Gebler (watch closely and you'll see a photo of Brittany and me in the video) and enjoyed a good lunch with Mike Colón. I had the pleasure of meeting Joe Buissink too which was great! His work is truly inspiring. While in Vegas I was working feverishly to finish up ActionRunner 2.0 for Jim Davis of Davis Tools. It's a sweet little program to take the pain out of adding actions to your images. I gave Kevin Kubota a demo of the new ActionRunner at the trade show. Good stuff. Now that I'm home I had time to get my e-store up and going. Check it out at www.jefflaplante.com/cart. I am now configuring custom RAID storage solutions for photographers like the one I setup for Dane. You can also purchase ActionRunner there.

Phew! Ok, now I need to back fill and post individually about all of that. Stay tuned!

-Jeff

Krista & Kevin's Wedding at Salish Lodge - Snoqualmie, WA

2007-03-10T22:11:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday was my first wedding of the year and it was a great way to start off the season! Krista and Kevin planned a small intimate affair with their friends and family at the Salish Lodge in Snoqualmie, WA. The lodge is located right on the edge of Snoqualmie Falls and the view from Krista's room was breath taking!

Krista and Kevin were a great! Here are a few of my favorite images from the day.

New Storage Solution for Dane Sanders

2007-03-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

My good friend Dane Sanders, a great photographer in Orange County, emailed me a few weeks ago with a problem. He'd hit the wall. His G5 was out of storage space and he needed a solution right away.

So, I asked him a set of questions to gauge his needs and came up with an awesome expandable storage solution that will grow with him as he grows his business.

I ordered the hardware and bought my plane ticket into John Wayne airport to visit Dane and Mike Colón last week.

Now Dane has a 12 bay enclosure with 750GB of mirrored storage space at his disposal which he can expand up to 9TB of space as he needs it. How's that for expandability!

I flew in Wednesday morning and drove out to Dane's church, Rock Harbor to meet up and get directions to his home in Costa Mesa. Dane gave me a tour of his church and it's awesome! Go check out their website!

Here's Dane's house from the car. :) He recently moved into this place from Santa Barbara. It's a great house, I love his wood floors and look at that lawn?!

So first things first we had to de-tangle and disconnect his mess of wires behind the desk and pull out the G5 to put a new PCI card in it. Once the card was installed I connected the cables that go to the hard drive enclosure and cleaned up his fire hazard that was the mess of dust bunnies and tangled cables behind his desk. :)

Then we unwrapped the enclosure and installed the 750GB hard drives into the first two bays.

Once the drives were mounted into the drive trays, it was a simple matter to slide them into the enclosure and hook it up to the cables that attach to the G5. The new PCI card called an 'HBA' then needed to be configured to tell the OS what to do with the new hard drives we just installed. I setup Dane's system to use the two 750GB drives as a mirrored RAID set. Now should one drive fail the other drive in the mirror protects you from failure! Replacing the failed drive is as easy as sliding the drive out of the enclosure and installing a new drive in the tray. Even better, you can put a third drive in the system to act as a 'hot spare'. This drive is meant to sit idle in the enclosure just waiting for something to go wrong with a drive that's part of a RAID set. Should a drive fail, the HBA automagically rebuilds the array using the 'hot spare' disk. How awesome is that?! No user intervention required and your data is still 100% protected.

When he wants to expand his storage space Dane just adds new hard drives to the enclosure and tells the HBA how to present them to the OS. Easy!

We didn't stop there. Dane had a laundry list of things he hoped I could help him out with and I'm pleased to say we accomplished all of them.

Dane already had two identical hard drives in his G5. One was his startup disk where the operating system and applications are installed and the other disk he was using for storage. One thing most people take for granted is the vulnerability of your computer's system disk. What happens if that drive were to malfunction? Well, if you didn't have it backed up or protected in some way then you'd find yourself reinstalling your OS and ALL of your applications again. It's a tedious process that I've had the pleasure of doing far too many times. To spare Dane from this eventuality we moved all the data off his second hard drive to his new RAID setup and created a new RAID mirror set of his startup disk and the second drive. This is all a non-destructive process that doesn't require any re-installation of applications or operating system and gives you a huge safety net.

We also wanted to give Dane the ability to login to his G5 from the internet to get work done on his system from where ever he is. This is a huge deal since he'll be in London and India next week. We configured his home router to allow access to his system via VNC, a virtual desktop application. I also setup FTP access so he can move files to and from his G5 to his laptop in the field. Lastly we setup encryption on his home wireless network to give him a bit more privacy.

To top it off, I custom tailored a new workflow for Dane so he can make the most of his new RAID system and existing external firewire hard drive. I included a few applescript droplets that automatically create folders for new clients and manage files.

Phew!

Here's Dane and his messy baby having just finished dinner and headed for the bath tub!

Check out Dane's Simple Photo Minute website soon for a podcast featuring his new RAID setup and my consulting services. It should be up after Dane returns from his trip to India. Have a great time my friend!

While I was down in the OC I called up my friend Mike Colón who has been having issues with the RAID system he setup a few months ago. After a tour of Mike's new place and a great dinner made by his awesome wife Julie (thanks Julie!) we got to work.

We determined that one of the disks in Mike's 10 drive striped mirror RAID set was bad. The trouble is, Apple's software based RAID doesn't exactly tell you what the problem is. It's less that straightforward to diagnose but we got it figured out. Off to Fry's to buy a new drive and many hours of rebuilding the array and he's almost back in business. I had to catch my flight back to Seattle while we were still waiting for his array to rebuild and Mike's off to Vegas for a convention so when he returns we'll finish up the process. I also helped Mike out with his home network. We got him all setup with a gigabit ethernet switch in his closet so now Julie can edit photos or check Mike's calendar from their iMac that's in the kitchen.

We were up so late on Wednesday working on his RAID system and I hadn't even found my hotel yet so Mike being the gracious and generous man he is let me crash on his couch. :)

Mike and Julie's kids are so cute! Aiden is a really fun 3 year old and precious Logan is only 8 weeks old!

Mike's house in Newport Beach taken with my Nikkor 10.5mm fisheye

Mike's place is in an awesome gated community in Newport Beach where you have to be 'on the list' to get in. Posh! The alley in back of their house is full of kids playing. You really get a sense of community. Everyone is so nice and they really look after all the kids.

Mike's living room where he meets his clients.

Underneath the coffee table Mike has his stack of sample La Vie and Leather Craftsmen albums. I love La Vie's books! Check out my La Vie album of Jenny & Tyree.

My flight out on Thursday evening was eventful too. I almost missed the flight! I forgot my powerbook AC adapter at Mike's place that morning so I ran back over to pick it up and say goodbye and I thought I had plenty of time to get back to the airport since everything is so close together there. I ended up barely making my flight! I walked up to the gate as they were boarding the last few passengers. Darn, no time to get a Starbucks.

On the Tarmac

I feel so blessed to have made friends with people like Mike and Dane. They have really helped drive me to be successful in my business and their friendships are dear to my heart. Thank you both for all your support.

It was a great trip! I'd love to fly out and custom configure a a solution for you too! Shoot me an email if you'd like to talk about your studio needs.

Apulent Events :: Shilshole Bay Beach Club Slideshow

2007-03-09T22:26:00.000-08:00

Check out the my new slideshow playing at Apulent's Shilshole Bay Beach Club!

Ryan from Apulent called me the other day and asked if they could display the slideshow of Tiffany and Bobby's wedding on their 37" Sharp Aquos LCD TV behind the bar at the Beach Club venue and of course I said sure!

I redid the slideshow with appropriately sized images so it looks great on the tv and dropped it off for Ryan. Next time you're at the club check it out or view it on my website (it's pretty big so be patient).

New Pictage Community Website

2007-02-23T21:39:00.000-08:00

Pictage launched their new Community website and it looks great! There's all sorts of information on the new community site including a calendar, PUG meeting details, a community image gallery and interviews with featured photographers. Upload some of your images to the gallery!

Pictage Aperture Plugin Now Available

2007-02-23T19:59:00.000-08:00

Pictage released their Apple Aperture plugin today, check it out.

Imitating A Scanner Darkly's Rotoscope Look

2007-02-21T21:42:00.002-08:00

Looking for an edgy look for that senior portrait? Check out this cool Illustrator technique for creating that rotoscoped look from the movie 'A Scanner Darkly' and the new Charles Schwab (Slate.com) ads on TV.

Aaron Sacco, a freelance artist and animator on the film shows us how to take a photograph and transform it into a 'rotoscoped' looking image in Adobe Illustrator.

Aaron says he expects to spend 5 hours or so on an image as complex as the one above so this isn't a 'quick and easy' effect. However, for the right image, it might be worth your time investment.

Canon Announces New EOS-1 D Mark III Digital SLR

2007-02-21T20:59:00.000-08:00

So most of you know I'm a Nikon user but I couldn't just ignore the fact that Canon just annouced a brand new version of the EOS-1 D dubbed the Mark III and it looks pretty awesome!

Highlights:

10 MP APS-H sized sensor
Live view LCD
Dual DIGIC III Image Processors
Priced in line with the Mark II N

It should be available this spring. Have at it!

Lexar Introduces Breakthrough 300x Speed-Rated Professional Flash Memory Cards

2007-02-20T14:28:00.000-08:00

Now that I've gone and purchased a wallet full of 133x 4GB Compact Flash cards and 4 cool stackable firewire 400 card readers, Lexar has to go and up the ante on me! Typical. :)

Lexar announced today a new breakthrough 300x Compact Flash card as well as a new firewire 800 version of it's widely popular firewire 400 stackable compact flash card readers.

Here's a snippet from their press release:

New UDMA-Enabled CompactFlash® Cards Capable of Minimum Sustained Write Speeds of 45MB/s; Significantly Improve Digital Photography Workflow

Fremont, CA , February 20, 2007 - Lexar, a leader in advanced digital media and accessories, today introduced Professional UDMA (Ultra Direct Memory Access) memory cards, the latest addition to the company's award-winning Professional line of high-performance cards. When paired with a UDMA-enabled device, such as Lexar's new Professional FireWire 800 Reader, UDMA cards improve the professional photographer's digital imaging experience by reducing the time needed to download captured images to a destination computer. In addition, the benefits of Lexar Professional UDMA memory cards extend well beyond card-to-computer transfer rates, to improved in-camera performance in several UDMA-enabled digital camera backs and digital SLR cameras expected to be announced later this year. Speed-rated at 300x, or capable of a minimum sustained write speed of 45MB per second, and available in capacities of 2GB, 4GB, and 8GB, new Lexar Professional UDMA cards deliver a 125% performance improvement over Lexar's previous generation 133x CompactFlash® product line when the card is used with a UDMA-enabled device.

While I don't think I'll be running out to replace my current set of 133x cards for these guys I will probably buy the new ones if I find the need for more storage space in the future. 300x is FAST and anything to streamline the process of getting images from camera to computer is worthwhile. Especially when you're at a reception creating a slideshow on the fly during dinner. :)

The new Firewire 800 card readers on the other hand... Those may need to find their way into my bag. I LOVE firewire 800. It's fast and reliable. How can you go wrong. I picked up a new Firelite hard drive at the Apple Store in Alderwood mall the other day and almost bought it just because they upgraded the interface to firewire 800. That's twice as fast as FW 400. Fast is good. I didn't buy it though, my Firelite FW 400 60Gb drive is still performing flawlessly and it's plenty fast.

February Seattle PUG meeting is this Thursday, February 22nd

2007-02-19T11:43:00.000-08:00

Hey Gang,

It's that time again. The February Seattle PUG meeting is this Thursday, February 22nd at the Macaroni Grill at Alderwood mall. We're starting at 6pm with some socializing. Then I have a great guest speaker to introduce, Dianne Greene. Dianne is the director of the Washington branch of the Association of Bridal Consultants and will speaking with us about working with wedding coordinators. We also have some great new things coming up with Pictage that you'll want to attend to hear about. New features and redesigns are aplenty.

Please RSVP by emailing me or filling in the RSVP form on the PUG website.

I can't wait to see you all on Thursday!

Jeff

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2007 - 6:00PM

Romano's Macaroni Grill - Alderwood Mall
3000 184th St SW # 922
Lynnwood, WA 98037
(425) 368-2875

Local Agenda:

Dianne Greene, Director of the WA branch Assc. of Bridal Consultants (ABC), will be attending our February meeting to discuss the ins and outs of working with wedding coordinators

Pictage Agenda:
* Online statement redesign
* New proof book interface
* Pictage Partnership with theweddingreport.com
Upcoming events:

Mark your calendars for these upcoming Community Events

PartnerCons: We will be holding 2 conferences this year.
Partner Con Chicago
May 8-9
Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare
5440 N. River Road
Rosemont, IL 60018
Partner Con Los Angeles
September 12-13
Sheraton Gateway Hotel LAX
6101 W. Century Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90045

The Conferences will be similar in format to last year’s Partner Con Los Angeles. Both of the conferences will have the same schedule and features, just a few different speakers from one to the other.

You can expect more info in the next couple of weeks. We will be launching the website in Mid February. I wanted to make sure that you all had a chance to block these dates out on your calendars before they book up. We will keep you updated on speaker information.
WPPI: March 26th – 28th
Please visit our large booth #335 and our small AD 3.0 demo booth #2201

Please join us for the Special Event at Napoleon’s Restaurant
Tuesday, March 27th from 6-8pm
Paris Hotel
Must be 21 to attend

We cannot wait to see you there!

Pictage is Creating an Aperture Plugin

2007-02-09T21:44:00.000-08:00

This will make my workflow even easier. Now I won't have to worry about a separate ftp client when I upload an event to Pictage. Yay!

Saying iDo: Weddings, the iPod, and You

2007-02-07T19:31:00.001-08:00

"You know iPods are popular. But after one of our editors recently became engaged and started to plan her wedding, we were shocked to find that the iPod has become one of the hottest wedding accessories today - iPods are now being used at every stage from initial planning to your eventual honeymoon on a beach. The amazing details are all here."

Check out the new article on iLounge.com. In it I talk a bit about ipods and how I'm leveraging them in my business for my couples. I think that Christina did a great job of reporting on how ipods are emerging in the wedding industry. I'll write more on this subject shortly. :)

read more | digg story

Ellen and Brett's Engagement Session

2007-02-02T16:21:00.000-08:00

Ellen and Brett met me at Pikes Place Market in Seattle a few weeks ago for their engagement session. We had a great time even though it was really cold out that day. Brr! Their engagement slideshow is up so go check it out. :)

Ellen is having Save the Date cards made up and she's attaching a wallet sized photo from their engagement session to each of them. She just emailed me an image of what they're going to look like. Aren't they great?!

Hi Jeff,

I thought I'd pass along this version that shows what the picture would look like with the card. I must say, I'm very pleased with how these turned out! The perfect Valentine's Day treat to receive in the mail. :)

Ellen

Jenny And Tyree's La-vie Album

2007-01-30T19:41:00.000-08:00

I finally found time to photograph Jenny and Tyree's La-vie wedding album this week. It's a beautiful red leather volume showcasing 100 of their favorite images. La-vie is my favorite album company by far. A LG90-100 album like Jenny & Tyree's is included in my top wedding option. They simply are the best!

Click on the image to see the slideshow.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1.0 Pre-Order Announced

2007-01-29T09:51:00.000-08:00

Adobe announced today that it's groundbreaking photography workflow application Photoshop Lightroom is officially out of Beta and should begin shipping in mid-February.

Lightroom has been in public beta for around 12 months now so this is great news!

Leveraging Adobe Camera Raw technologies, Lightroom allows photographers to streamline their RAW workflow. It's competition, Apple's Aperture, met with lots of user apprehension and disappointment with it's initial release and it wasn't until version 1.5 that Apple has straightened out many of it's kinks. Hopefully we won't have any of those headaches with Adobe's new product.

Check out the write-up on dpreview.com for more details.

I guess I need to go download the last version of the beta and kick the tires again before I place my pre-order.

Tiffany & Bobby's Wedding Album

2007-01-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

I finished Tiffany & Bobby's Album yesterday and I must say it was very hard to stop adding pages to it. There are so many great images of their engagement, rehearsal and wedding day! I called Tiffany's mom Debbie yesterday to share the design with her and she adores it! Yay! I think I made her cry again... It's tough work, the wedding photography business. :)

Tiffany and Bobby were married at Shilshole Bay Beach Club near Golden Gardens where we went on Sunday for the 'Trash the Dress' session. Tiffany and the girls got ready at The Edgewater downtown and they had the rehearsal dinner at Anthony's Home Port.

Click on the album spread above to view a slideshow of their wedding album.

Spring 2007 Seattle Bride Ad

2007-01-28T09:04:00.000-08:00

Seattle Bride's Spring 2007 issue is out and so is my new ad. You can check it out on page 41 of the magazine. I love this photo of Brittany and Gavin.

DirPedia Links to My Website ?!

2007-01-28T08:49:00.001-08:00

I was browsing through my website logs last night and happened across a link from dirpedia, an online Dictionary/Encyclopedia/Web Directory. Apparently I'm listed on their people page in the websites section. Cool! I don't know why I'm listed but I'm not complaining. :)

Mike Colón - Mentoring Session at WPPI

2007-01-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

The one and only Mike Colón is auctioning off a private mentoring session at WPPI this year on ebay! Cool Mike! What an awesome idea! He's even donating part of the proceeds of the auction to Thirst Relief International. So, if you've ever wanted a private meeting with Mike, the Southern Californian superstar, now's your chance. (You have to beat my bid though!)

I attended Mike's workshop in Newport Beach last year and it was awesome. Mike is a great guy and awesome at what he does.

Go! Bid! Now!

Seattle Bride Magazine - Best of 2006 Awards

2007-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

I was over reading Susie's blog and noticed a great post that I totally had to steal. :)

Seattle Bride Magazine is looking for your help in choosing the Best of 2006 vendor awards! Click on the link above to fill out their questionaire and make your vote count. Votes must be in by February 15th, 2007.

The results will be published in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Seattle Bride and will be announced at a special ceremony in the summer of 2007.

(Oh, by the way, there's NO WAY you're going to have answers for all of the vendors they ask you about. To vote for me, just fill in my name for photographer and right N/A for any other vendor you don't have an opinion on. Your vote WILL count.)

Thanks!!

Ashley & Derek's Wedding Album

2007-01-25T18:31:00.000-08:00

Ashley & Derek married on August 12th, 2006 at Blessed Sacrament in Seattle. They had a beautiful service in this charming brick Catholic church set in the University District followed by a reception at The Seattle Yacht Club. Check out Ashley and Derek's album on my website.

FIOS is Coming, FIOS is Coming !!

2007-01-25T17:51:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited! (Geez, I'm a geek...) For the last month or so I've been watching with anticipation as the road crews with spools of orange plastic have combed my neighborhood, locating underground power and sewer lines. That reel of orange plastic is the exciting part... Why you ask?! Because! That's the protective tube they lay fiber optic cable in the ground with, silly!

Right.. Still don't have you do I.. Verizon is rolling out a HUGE fiber to the home initiative to get lots of residential customers lit up with BLAZING fast internet connections. That's what all the jumping up and down is about.

In order to get connected to the sweet broadband of fiber, you have to have fiber running down you street, burried in the ground. The crews working outside my house marking everything mean I should be able to get FIOS service to my house in a month or so!

Yay!

Go check out Verizon's web commercial to learn more : http://www.verizonfios.com

Flower Girls

2006-12-20T21:44:00.000-08:00

I was going through my image library today trying to organize things a bit and I came across this image of a very cute flower girl from Ashley and Derek's wedding and it made my heart pause for a minute as I admired the innocence of childhood. I'd love to put her up someplace on my websie but I haven't figured out where.

My children are growing up so fast I can hardly believe it. My son Cameron had his first school play this month and he was so cute! (I have photos to prove it. ha!) He was a "King/Wise man" (Inside joke there, you see, Cam actually says "I'm a King 'slash' Wise man" if you ask him his role in the play.) It's hard to believe he's going to be five next month! How time flies by. Christmas is almost upon us and my daughter is talking incessantly and carries one or more books around the house about 80% of her day. I think she'll be a writer. Cam, well, he's going to be a photographer like his dad. :)

May God grace you during these holidays and may your travels be safe.

Rhode Family Portraits

2006-12-10T21:12:00.000-08:00

Ronda Rhode and her family were in the studio a few days ago for a portrait session. Ronda is a friend and fellow wedding professional. Check out her Floral creations at Select Floral Design. It was nice to meet her family. Here's a couple of images from the set.

Kate and Erik

2006-12-10T20:49:00.000-08:00

I shot Kate and Erik's wedding with Susie Hamidi a couple months ago. I haven't had time to post any images from their wedding but Susie just emailed me a few of her favorites that I shot that day. Here they are. :)

Chilean Wedding - Claudia And Alfredo

2006-11-26T09:56:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of flying to Santiago with my good friend Susie Hamidi a few weeks ago to photograph the wedding of Claudia and Alfredo, two wonderful people who flew back to their friends and family in Chile to celebrate their wedding. Here are a few photos from their day.

This wedding was intense! Chileans really know how to throw a party! Susie and I didn't leave the reception until well after 1am and things were just getting started for Claudia, Alfredo and their guests!

I want to say thank you to everyone we met in Chile. Our time spent their was short but very sweet. Everyone was so kind and generous with their time trying to help my wife and I along.

Claudia and Alfredo, thank you for having us along to document your day! It was wonderful!

Check it out! Leave me a voicemail online!

2006-11-02T21:14:00.000-08:00

Get Your Own Voice Player Manage

Day in the Life Portraits

2006-10-27T22:18:00.000-07:00

My father-in-law just sent me this article he found on msnbc's website and I thought I would share my thoughts on the subject of hiring a photographer for a long term assignment such as documenting your baby's first year.

The article is really quite good, you should read it.

I've done a few family birth stories and they're really quite incredible. Bringing in a professional photographer to photograph your kids every three months makes a lot of sense.

First off, you get a pro that can capture those moments like no other and on top of that, YOU get to be in the photos too. I know for example with my own kids, I take LOTS of photos of my son Cam and his little sister Paige, but RARELY do you ever see a picture of ME. Well, that's because I'm the photographer. When you hire a professional photographer to come in and capture your lives, you are given the great opportunity to be a complete family on film (well, digital film :) ).

We can capture you interacting with your kids, walking in the park, playing on the beach, running in the woods, hiking up a mountain, skiing, snuggling on the couch, you get the idea. It's those moments that are so very special in the lives of our families and it's an awesome challenge to capture them for my clients - I love it.

Anyway, I'd love to hear from you if you're interested in booking a session like this with me. Ring me at the studio and we can discuss your ideas.

In God's grace,

Jeff

Davis Tools ActionRunner

2006-10-25T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'm excited to announce that my friend Jim Davis-Hicks of Davis Photoraphy and Thirst Relief International has just released DavisTools Action Runner 1.0!

Why am I so excited about this product? Because it makes editing a wedding SO MUCH EASIER! Check out this comment I copied from Jim's blog:

Jim,

I love the ActionRunner for Macintosh. I have been an avid mac user for years, and ActionRunner works perfectly for me.

I shoot in RAW, and do much of my editing in a RAW Developer progam (Adobe Lightroom), and ActionRunner has become the perfect post-development tool in my workflow. Now, I can develop my images in RAW, and then, after they're exported to JPEG, use ActionRunner and your custom-designed effects/actions to give my photos more beauty, impact, originality, and all-around quality.

ActionRunner has added more power, confidence, and value to the customer to my RAW-JPEG workflow.

Thanks for following your idea and creating a tool that has had an immediate impact on my life.

Sincerely,

Graham Rouse
Rouse Multimedia

Is that awesome or what?

Now, the other reason why I'm so amped about this product is that had a hand in creating it! I took Jim's PC version and ported it to MAC! So, hold on to your hats! The Mac version rocks and you can buy it on Jim's website.

"Wait", you might be saying, "I thought you were a photographer, how'd you 'port' Jim's PC application to the mac?"

Well, that's because I'm also a programmer. Yes, yes, the man with many hats. :) So, after learning that his PC guys didn't have any experience creating code for the mac, Jim asked me to rewrite the application for the mac. The mac version works with Photoshop CS2 and runs out of a folder in your home directory.

Go check out Jim's website and buy ActionRunner! It'll save you hours of editing time! I used it on an event last week and I was blown away with how much time I saved being able to batch everything with ActionRunner.

Tiffany and Bobby's Slideshow

2006-10-04T10:46:00.000-07:00

I love my clients! It's such a blessing being able to make people happy for a living. I got this email from Debbie, Tiffany's mom, last night and it made me so happy.

From: Debbie
Subject: You're GREAT!
Date: October 3, 2006 7:21:59 PM PDT
To: jeff@jefflaplante.com

You are too funny! Love the blog! I have dozens of people checking the website every day :)

I’ve played the iPod so much I’ve had to charge it at least 4 times already! On Friday we are hooking it up to our TV at work so I can play it at lunch – everyone thinks you’re awesome!

PS…I just found out about two friends whose daughters just got engaged!! I’m giving them your flyer and card for sure! Can’t wait to see the rest!

Debbie

Debbie! You're the greatest!

I was planning on going downstairs to my office to get some work done after my wife and I got the kids to bed and as soon as I got Debbie's message I knew I'd be up late working on their slideshow so I could post it today. :)

Here are a few more from the wedding day.

Check out the slideshow!

Tiffany Et Bobby's Wedding

2006-10-03T01:11:00.000-07:00

Wow! I had a wonderful weekend photographing an amazing couple! Tiffany and Bobby were married on Saturday at the Shilshole Beach Club in Ballard and it was awesome!

Debbie, Tiffany's mom, planned the whole event and she did an oustanding job! I think she should become a wedding planner. She's awesome!

Friday everyone got together for the rehearsal at the club and then it was off to Anthony's restaurant down the street for dinner. The meal was fantastic and the company lively. :) Everyone had a good time and the rehearsal was easy.

Saturday, game day. :) I began the day photographing the girls at the Edgewater Hotel in downtown Seattle on the Pier. There were a lot of emotions and weepy-eyed bridesmaids and bride.

I have all kinds of great images that I want to post from their day. But for now I'm just going to have to tease you with this one shot and a promise to post more later this week.

The slideshow will be up soon too. I want to incorporate the rehearsal and the beach session into the whole thing before I put it up on the website. Don't fret, it'll be worth the wait. :)

Shooting with Jack Young - Kam and Gregory

2006-09-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of shooting with my good friend Jack Young this Saturday and what a great time we had! The weather was amazing! Who'd have thought we'd have a beautiful cloudless blue sky at the end of September?

Kam and Gregory were married at the Thornewood Castle on American Lake just south of Tacoma. This place is a stunning 16th century castle! Stephen King's made for tv movie 'Rose Red' was filmed there a few years ago. They remodeled the grand hall on the main floor. They did a stellar job!

Here's few of my favorite images from their wedding day. Be sure to check out Jack's site for the full wedding day story.

Thanks Jack for bringing me a long to shoot with you. As always, it was great working with you!

Congratulations Kam and Gregory! You two have a great sense of humour. I love that! :)

Blog All messed up....

2006-09-24T20:30:00.000-07:00

Hmm, looks like the hosting company I use for my website upgraded their management software over the weekend and hosed my blog in the process. I was able to republish from Blogger's archive but my uploaded images are *poof* gone. Now, if I could actually login to my management console perhaps I could restore the images from backup but that doesn't seem to be working either. I'll have to give them a call tomorrow if it isn't cleared up by then.

Tiffany & Bobby's Enagement Session

2006-09-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

I got to hang out with Tiffany and Bobby for a few hours yesterday. We headed over to the Arboretum's Japanese Gardens and I shot some engagement photos for them. Then it was off to dinner at a little Italian place nearby. It was fun!

Here's the shot we're using for their engagment wallet cards that I create for my couples.

Tiffany and Bobby are getting married this September and I can't wait to document their day! They're a great couple with a lot of great energy. It's going to be awesome!

The Jason Parker Quartet

2006-09-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

There's this great guy I met at the Brides' Club Wedding Expo in Seattle this last weekend, his name is Jason Parker and you have to check him out! Jason had a booth across the aisle from me and we had a great time talking this last weekend. His band plays local clubs in Seattle as well as wedding gigs. So, if you like jazz and want a live 4 piece at your wedding, give Jason a call!

He got up on stage both days of the show and played a set with his guys. Here's a couple photos of Jason and the bass player wailing.

Jessica and Dominic

2006-09-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of shooting a wedding yesterday with Susie Hamidi. Susie and I have had a great time this year photographing some awesome weddings. Here are some photos from Jessica and Dominic's day.

Dominic gave all of his groomsmen these cool cuff links.

I hadn't met Jessica until she stepped out of the limo at St. James Cathedral. She is a doll! So gracious and beautiful! You looked stunning Jessi!

This was taken down at Post Alley under Pike's Place Market. I love the lighting and the 'old world' feel of it.

Jessica! You're gorgeous! Oh, ya, Dominic, you're looking good too stud.

Jessica's brother got stuck with flower duty so Susie and I turned him into a hand model.

In all, it was a beautiful wedding with an awesome group of people! Thanks Susie for having me along. Thanks Dominic and Jessica for being such a joy to work with! Congratulations!

Ashley & Derek's Wedding

2006-08-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday was Ashley and Derek's Wedding!

We started out the morning at Derek's place where Ashley hang out with her friends and got her hair and makeup done.

I love this shot of her ring and jeans. :)

The weather was outstanding! Not a cloud in the sky. It reminded me of California. Ashley's dress glowed in the sunlight streaming in through their back door.

Ashley wasn't too nervous until right before the ceremony. Then you could see the butterflys creeping up on her.

I got this image of her just 5 minutes before the ceremony started in the back room of the church. She was so radiant!

The church was gorgeous.

Finallly on the way down the Isle, I caught a tear in Ashley's eye.

You can really see the joy in Derek's face as they listen to the father.

Maria & Robin's Wedding

2006-08-14T16:19:00.000-07:00

Maria and Robin were married on July 29th at the Seattle Tennis Club on Lake Washington. Here's a few photos from their day.

It was a gorgeous day. The slightly overcast sky became a giant softbox which gave us a soft even light for portraits.

This girl and her family were all dressed up in traditional Indian attire. I think she is very striking.

Fun with bubbles! :)

On the Race Track

2006-08-12T12:41:00.000-07:00

Most of you probably don't know that I ride a Ducati. In fact, I've had my 749D since 2004 and I still love it. I haven't ridden it much this year. It seems I've just been too busy with other things. Here's a couple of shots of me from last year that I just found while cleaning up an old hard drive. These were shot by my friend Leo Lam while we were out at a track day down at Pacific Raceways. Fun! I need to get out on the track again. :)

Grace Ormonde Ad

2006-08-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

I received my first issues of Wedding Style's Fall/Winter 2006 and I'm so excited to show everyone my new ad! Check it out!

Brittany & Gavin were so great! Thanks!

It's such an honor being able to present my work as one of 15 advertising photographers in this national magazine.

So head out to Barnes & Noble and pickup a copy!

Les Bleus Lost the World Cup.. But the Aftermath on Champ Elysees was Awesome Anyway

2006-07-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

We started out the evening by having a great meal up on Montmartre! Sara liked the wine... a lot. :)

Earlier that day we went down to Champ Elysees to shop and enjoy the day. Paige and Cam got this cool soccer ball that Paige and I are playing with.

Paige really likes it. :)

Allez Les Bleus!

After Dinner, Sara and I went back down to Champ Elysees to people watch and get involved in all the World Cup festivities. The first half of the game went really quickly! The crowd thought I was press and hammed it up for the camera since I was using the 200mm f2.0. At one point I even had three Paris Press photographers crowded around me drooling over it, asking me (in French) what it was and how long it'd been available. It was fun and made Sara and I laugh!

After the game ended and France lost, there was hardly any noise. People were shocked to be sure. They slowly turned from the TV sets that were setup in windows along the street and started walking towards the Arc de Triomphe. It wasn't long though until people broke out the flares and started setting off fire crackers in the streets. It became a mob seen rather quickly and Sara was a bit scared. The police presence was HUGE. They were all geared up in their riot gear, including body armor, shields, helmets and everything. At some point a few fights broke out around the arc and the police charged them to break it up! That was exciting as all the bystanders ran the opposite direction!

It was wild!

The Loire Valley

2006-07-08T16:19:00.000-07:00

July 7th.

Today we got up early and took a TGV train to the Loire Valley. On the way out of the apartment, Christi tripped down the last flight of stairs and badly twisted her ankle! It was horrible! We considered having her stay at the apartment and rest but ultimately she decided to press on. She was able to hobble along through the metro to Gare Montparnasse where we _barely_ caught our train. Seriously, it was only about 2 minutes after we sat down that the train backed away from the quai.

I think Paige got motion sickness from the subtle rocking of the train as she decided to spew on Sara and Christi about half way to St. Pierre des Corps. She managed to soak Sara in her new dress and made a big mess everywhere. So, Sara's new mission for the day was to find some new clothes to wear. She was able to go to the bathroom and wash out most of the baby spew but it still smelled pretty bad. Poor Sara! After that Paige was pretty quiet the rest of the day.

We rented a car at the train station, a VW Touran, and drove around the Loire Valley the rest of the day. We went back to see Chambord once again and of course it was beautiful. Christi had never seen it before so it was neat to share it with her. Cameron enjoyed climbing the spire and exploring the terraces. Near the Chateau there is a building where local wine makers present their wines. Christi and I each bought a bottle of of Savignon.

After Chambord we drove south to Loches, the closest large village to the chateau we were to stay in that evening. We walked around the ancient village of Loches and I found a little photo studio that did weddings. So, I decided to stop and talk to the owner and photographer Gilles and talk shop. :) It was interesting to hear how Gilles prices his packages and I was surprised to hear how inexpensive his rates are. He rarely does more than just formal portraits for his couples and he told me he doesn't really like to do 'reportage' of the wedding ceremony and reception because it takes a lot of time and he doesn't get that much money for it. For 15 prints in an inexpensive album he charges 150 euros. Add to that 'reportage' coverage and another 15 prints or so in the same album and he adds an additional 160 euro! That's it?! I was shocked. He relies on print sales to make up the difference. On average he expects about 2,000 euros per wedding after print sales. We talked about this and he told me he was going to do it my way next season. :)

Sara found some new clothes at Loches while Christi and I got lit at a local pizzeria on cheap wine. I didn't think 50cl was that much wine! We hadn't eaten anything all day and intended to eat as well but unfortunately it was only 6 and they don't serve pizza until 7! Oh well, drink up! Sara drove us back to the Chateau de Razay so we could check in. We still hadn't eaten and the Madam de la Maison made reservations for us at a nearby Auberge de l' Hote et Chateau named Montpoupon. The food was to die for and we all had a great time eating outside in the garden. I had la poisson and the ladies had the boeuf along with an interesting salad.

The grounds of Chateau Razay are beautiful if not a bit run down. But, I've come to find that most chateaux look a bit bleak outside. Inside, our room was very nice and very large! If fact, it's much larger than our apartment in Paris! I could stay here all week. I'm writing this from a large chair in our room with the natural light of the morning streaming in through our huge multi-pane windows looking out at the vast grounds surrounding the chateau. I can hear the pleasant chatter of birds outside, even a dove cooing and the occasional call of the resident peacock. :)

Today we're going to visit some Troglodyte dwellings and check out a few more chateaux before heading back to catch our train this evening.

France Wins Against Portugal - Off to the Finals!

2006-07-05T14:27:00.000-07:00

It's so awesome being in Paris tonight! The game just ended a few minutes ago and the streets are teeming with people celebrating the victory against Portugal! Viva la France!

Here's the view out of our apartment window! Sacre Coeur is gorgeous!

Yesterday basically slept off the time difference and wandered around Monte Marte for a few hours before crashing back into bed only to wake up ready to go at 3am.... That stunk. Thankfully we all fell back asleep until 9:30am. Woo Hoo! I never get to sleep in! The day took us to Musée d'Orsay where we soaked up some great impressionism. Then we headed to Notre Dame since Cam had been talking about it non-stop since we left the apartment that morning! :) He thought it was fabulous. Last but not least we hopped on the metro and railed out to the Champs du Mars and took a gander at Mr. Eifel's finest work, the tour Eifel. That thing is massive!

Bon nuit!

Ashley Et Derek

2006-07-02T19:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I met up with Ashley and Derek for their engagement session. We had a great time down at the market. Derek is hillarious and Ashely takes it in stride. ;) Pike's Place is a crazy place to be on a beautiful Saturday morning! I was hoping Derek would sit on the bronze pig and catch a fish from the fish mongers but that' didn't pan out. I did get Derek stuffing a whole slice of fudge in his mouth though. Ha! Here's the slideshow. :)

I can't wait to photograph your wedding guys! Have a great time camping!

-Jeff

My Little Girl

2006-06-29T15:58:00.000-07:00

The other day my wife left to run some errands so the kids and I were just hanging around the house. Cam feel asleep on the couch and Paige was coloring on a piece of paper at the kitchen table. I was sitting across from her reading emails and such on my laptop and when I looked up to check on her she was asleep at the table! Amazing.

I feel so blessed to have such great kids, an awesome supportive wife, a job I love and great friends to share it all with.

Here's Paige coloring before she crashed.

Tonight is the Seattle PUG meeting at the Macaroni Grill at Alderwood Mall! I can't wait to see everyone there!

Collin's Photo Shoot

2006-06-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

This last weekend I had Collin and his parents over to the studio for a portrait session. Here's one of my favorite images from the set. He's so cute!

Seattle Bride Magazine - After Party Dinner

2006-06-25T22:57:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone! That was fun! Let's do it again!

This last Thursday was Seattle Bride Magazine's Best of 2006 party downtown Seattle. It was a blast. I'm so glad I attended this year! :D

The party was chock full of all kinds of wedding professionals. I had the pleasure of meeting lots of talented individuals and I look forward to building relationships with them this year.

Well, as fate would have it, at the end of the night it was mostly photographers left to close the place up. So, myself, Me Ra Koh, Brian Townsend, Bleu, Ginger, Charlane Chase, Susie Hamidi and Janet Klinger went out for dinner over at Sazerac. (Great restaurant in the Monaco hotel.) We had a great time! Here's a few photos I snapped at dinner and one we had the waiter take of all of us.

Brian laughing it up.

Charlane

Me Ra

Susie (I love this photo of you Susie!)

All of us!

Meanwhile, Dani Weiss and the West Seattle Gang were having their own dinner party over in West Seattle. Next time guys, we'll have to plan that better and get everyone together at one table!

Grace Ormonde Wedding Style Ad

2006-06-12T20:59:00.000-07:00

This month Grace Ormonde's Wedding Style Fall/Winter 2006 issue hits the streets. I'm so excited! Know why? Because I'm one of 15 exclusive advertising photographers in Wedding Style magazine for 2006. Check the blog later this month for a peek at the ad I'm running. Until then, go buy the magazine and see it in print. It should be on newstands in a week or so.

Melissa and Marty

2006-06-12T14:55:00.000-07:00

Ok, so that was about the most fun I think a photographer can have at a wedding. I had the pleasure of photographing Melissa and Marty's wedding this last Saturday at Holy Family Catholic church in Kirkland and let me tell you, this family is awesome!

We had a great time! Melissa was radiant and Marty, well he cleans up pretty nice too. :D Just kidding Marty. Here's a few photos from the day. I'll have a slideshow up pretty quick. It's been very difficult to pick my favorite images! They're all good!

The ceremony was beautiful in the sanctuary. We had all this diffused natural light streaming in from the gigantic skylight above the altar.

Susie Hamidi shot second with me and what a joy it was to shoot together. Thanks Susie! Let's do it again! Oh, wait, we are. Next week... Well good!

June PUG Meeting: June 29th

2006-06-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Gang!

So, I've changed up the meeting space for the PUG group. This month, (and hopefully from now on if we like the place) we'll bee meeting at the Macaroni Grill in Alderwood Mall. It looks like a cool place and the bonus is they have a banquet room for us all to be loud in.

Check out the PUG website for all the details.

If you're going to attend, please do me a favor and email me or go to the PUG site I linked to above and fill out the sign up form. Thanks!

This month we're going to hear all about Susie Hamidi Photography. She's an awesome person and I'm very proud to call her my friend and colleague. Susie and I are shooting 3 weddings together this year. The first one is this Saturday and I can't wait! Check out Susie's work at her website: www.susieHamidi.com

I had the pleasure of flying down to sunny California and spending the week with Mike Colón at his 4-day intensive workshop in Newport Beach and I want to share my experience with all of you. Mike is an incredible person and a great photographer. I feel very blessed to call him my friend. I'll share some cool tricks he taught me and some words of wisdom about marketing.

On the Pictage side of things, we'll cover the new event cards that are being released, check out the new Album Designer 2.0 and I'll explain the new sponsorship program.

So, mark your calendar and plan on attending! Bring a friend even! It's going to be great fun.

THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 2006
6:00PM

Location:
Romano's Macaroni Grill - Alderwood Mall
3000 184th St., #922
Lynnwood, WA 98037
425.368.2875

Local Agenda:

* Studio Spotlight with Susie Hamidi Photography
* The Mike Colon Experience - Newport Beach 4-day Intensive Workshop Review

Pictage Agenda:

* Event Card Release
* Album Designer 2.0
* Sponsorship Program
* Marketing Tip - Selling w/ Event Cards

Nikon Releases new D2Xs Camera Body

2006-06-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Check it out! Nikon released a new D2X camera body today! This one is designated D2Xs and includes a few new features and updates over the previous D2X model.

Summary of D2Xs improvements

* Electronic viewfinder masking when using High Speed Crop
* Colour Matrix Metering II adapted for use in High Speed Crop
* New wide angle TFT monitor
* New longer life battery
* New Black and White mode
* Adobe RGB Colour space available in all three Colour Modes
* Additional Custom Curve options
* Extra 1/3 step ISO boost settings
* Refinements to Auto focus performance
* New in camera Trim function
* Modified Auto ISO control
* Extra options for the Function Button
* Extended continuous shooting
* New Menu GUI color scheme
* Image Comment, number of characters increased.
* Save/Load settings between multiple D2Xs cameras, additional settings in EXIF
* Simplified settings management
* Image Authentication system compatible
* Battery warning during Mirror Up
* Additional GPS information
* Modified USB portwith new USB Cable Clip included

The High-speed crop mode mask is pretty nifty. I'd love to have that on my D2X. Here's a photo of what that new feature looks like.

Check out DPReview.com's review for all the details.

The Mike Colón Experience

2006-05-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

So I'm about a week behind on updating my blog but better late than never.. :)

Last week I spent the week with Mike and 8 other awesome photographers in Newport Beach, CA attending Mike's workshop. It was a blast! Above is a group photo of all of us down on Hollywood Blvd. Gavin and Brittany were our models for two of the three shoots we did during the workshop. They were great sports! Can you imagine having 9 massive telephoto lenses pointed at you while walking down the strip?! It was really funny because all of the lookey loos (is that how you spell loo?) were asking "Who's that? Are they famous?, etc." Ha!

I'll post some of the Hollywood photos soon. For now, here's some images from the beach shoot with Brittany and Gavin!

Samuel Portugal

2006-05-14T21:31:00.000-07:00

Our friends Sarah and Esteban had a baby boy! I've been waiting for a week for her to pop! She was quite over due and as such, I missed the birth. Within an hour of showing up at the hospital Samuel was born! That was quick! We all went over to the hospital the next day to see Sammy and his proud parents. Check out Sammy's slideshow.

Check out their family website to see more photos of Sammy and the rest of the Portugal family.

New MINI Cooper S - Waa Hoo!

2006-05-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

So, we went out this weekend and traded in the VW GTI for a MINI Cooper S. I've been looking at them ever since Charlize Theron zipped around in one in The Italian Job. (Fun movie!). Unfortunately, even 4 years after the new MINI started shipping, they're still 8-12 months out to get a new one. Of course, that means the used Coopers are selling for just as much as the new ones! Nutty.

Isn't it cute? Red actually wasn't my first choice but you kind of have to take what's available when you're buying a MINI. I wanted a British racing green car with a white roof and white bonnet stripes but we ended up with a chili pepper red, white roofed Cooper S with the bonnet stripes and a factory roof rack.

I didn't even have to talk Sara into it. She saw it and said, "ok, let's buy it.". Wow, that was easy!

I didn't even realize it was a six speed until Sara's Dad, Doug, rode with me on Saturday evening! For such a small car, it's fast and handles like a go-cart! I love it!

Gabrielle Hatsue Sasai's website

2006-05-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

A Couple of weeks ago I had David, Aisa and baby Gabrielle in the studio to take her 2 month portraits.

The session went very well, even with a bit of fuss from Gabi. :D

David and Aisa attended a birth class reunion this weekend and I gave them a CD of Gabi's slideshow at their request so they could show it to the group. How cool is that?!

Here's the email I received from David after he had a look at the show:

Again Jeff...your stuff blows me away! Aisa is going to be so pleased. The studio shots came out way way better then I was thinking. Only thought it was not going to because Gabi was fussy :). By any chance can you optimize the movie so I can place it on my gabi.47degreesnorth.com website?

Thanks again!
D

I love it when my clients write and tell me how much they love my work! I mean, who wouldn't like to receive praise like that?

Here'a a link to Gabi's website where you can view her slideshow.

The Beach

2006-04-30T14:27:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful weekend! We all went to Deception Pass on Saturday and had a great time playing on the beach and hiking around the park.

Cam found some cool sea shells on the beach! He likes beach combing and I believe he hiked out with about a pound of sea glass and shells in his pockets!

Paige thought the water was a bit on the cold side but she liked the way the rocks felt between her toes.

Apparently she tried eating some of the corse sand too as you can see around her chin in this photo.

We brought our Great Dane Zoe with us on the trip. She LOVES the beach. I shot this photo of Cam and Zoe in the woods on our way out to the beach with the fisheye lens. I love the look on Cam's face! :)

April Seattle PUG Meeting

2006-04-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hey gang!

The meeting last night was awesome! Here's a few shots of us at a cool little wine bar a few blocks from the library. I was so impressed with the people that own the place that we're going to have our meeting there next month. They were so nice!

I got a new 10.5 fish yesterday in the mail from B&H so I decided we could all be fishy last night... :D

We had some new people last night which is great. Here's Stefanie Arneson, Heather Elliot and Frank Melchior along with myself, Janet Klinger and Michael Good. Frank's an aspiring photographer with a solid portfolio. I think he'll be a great wedding photographer. Heather is a wedding and portrait photographer in Seattle. Stefanie is a natural light portrait photographer in Seattle.

Heather was showing off her portfolio on her ipod. :D

I can always count on Janet to liven up the party!

Melissa came up from Torrance to talk to us about Pictage's accounting system and how to read your statements. That was very informative! We also talked about Pictage's new album designer which is due out in a few weeks.

Thanks everyone for coming!

-Jeff

Apple Unveils new 17" Macbook Pro

2006-04-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

Ack! Apple released the new 17" Macbook Pro today! I've only had my 17" Powerbook for a few months and they spring this on me?! Well, at least my G4 is speedy enough for me right now but a shiny new Macbook Pro may find it's way into my life sometime in the future. We'll see how long it takes Adobe to make a universal binary of Photoshop CS2...

Thirst Relief International

2006-04-19T21:47:00.000-07:00

Consider the staggering statistics published by the World Heath Organization: 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water, representing 17% of the global population.

1.8 million people die each year of diarrhoeal diseases alone; 90% of those deaths are children under the age of 5, and 88% of diarrhoeal disease is attributed to unsafe water supply, inadequate sanitation, and hygiene.

With your help, we can change these statistics and save the lives of millions worldwide.

"The human right to water entitles everyone to sufficient, safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses"

Thirstrelief International is working to save lives. Check out their website and do what you can to help. This is a worthy organization that needs your help.

-Jeff

My Sad Little Girl

2006-04-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of my little girl Paige that I took yesterday. She was mad because her mom went to the store without her. So, what do I do? ..Run up to the top of the stairs to comfort her? No, not me. I'm a photographer. I go grab the camera and document the moment. :D

This shot was taken with my new Nikkor 85 f1.4 that I picked up at WPPI. I love this lens!

WPPI

2006-04-15T22:36:00.000-07:00

WPPI was a blast! It was so great to see so many of my friends there and hearing Gary Fong, Mike Colon, Denis Reggie and David Jay, Kevin Kubota and so many other great photographers speak was really awesome. The OSP party was cool except for the crappy piano bar which Pepper Nix certaintly had strong feelings about. :D Unfortunately, I didn't stick around long as it was entirely too smoky in there for me.

Brian Hartman from PhotoElan shared a hotel room with me and we hung out all week going to the trade show and meetings together. Brian is an awesome photographer and I'm so glad to call him my friend.

Brian and I sat down for a quick lunch with Dane Sanders from Simple Photo Minute on the 12th and we talked about pod proofing and a secret project we're working on which is really going to knock your socks off! Stay tuned for more on that front!

Apple Introduces Boot Camp

2006-04-05T22:40:00.000-07:00

Public Beta Software Enables Intel-based Macs to Run Windows XP

Cool! Coming up in OS X 10.5 you'll now be able to dual boot your mac with OS X and Windows XP! People have been dreaming about doing this since Apple released the new Intel based macs. Now's going to be a sanctioned reality.

Personally, I'm just fine with OS X, thank you very much. :D

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2006/apr/05bootcamp.html

March Seattle PUG Meeting - 3/23/06

2006-03-08T11:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've nailed down the details for the March Pictage User's Group meeting. Due to some unforseen difficulties with the Shoreline Public Library's room reservation policy I've decided to make this month's meeting a spotlight on my humble studio in Everett. I know it's a bit a drive for some of you but I promise to make it worth your while. I have plenty of space and parking for all.

My address is 10203 29th Ave SE, Everett, WA 98208. Google maps does a fabulous job of getting you here. Plan to come around 6pm, we'll kick off the meeting at 6:30.

Along with a studio tour and samples of my work on display we are also going to discuss the RAW workflow of Kevin Kubota since he was just in town and how it compares to Gary Fong's techniques of shooting JPG only. I will also be detailing my RAID array system and explain why you too should have one. :D

So please, bring a friend, this group isn't all about Pictage. It's about like minded photographer's sharing their ideas and creativity.

I hope to see you there!

-Jeff

Aisa and David's new Baby, Gabrielle!

2006-03-04T21:15:00.001-08:00

I photographed Gabrielle's birth story today! I barely got my espresso machine turned on and my cup filled with milk when I got a phone call from Keith, David and Aisa's good friend. "Aisa's in labor, 8cm, come to the hospital!" Wow! 8cm! I grabbed the camera bag and headed out the door, kissing the kids and my wife Sara on the way out. It was about a 20 minute drive to the hospital. I found their room easily and met all their friends and family. What a great bunch of people!

After 3 hours of pushing and a little help from the doctor, Gabrielle came into the world at 3:15pm today and is a healthy 7 lbs 2 oz. Aisa guessed her weight exactly!

Gary Fong and Hanging Out with David Jay

2006-02-23T21:37:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm tired. Yesterday I went to the Gary Fong 'One Step Ahead' seminar and had a great time! I met a bunch of new Pictage members there while signing them up at the Pictage booth. I'll be sure to get an email out to everybody I got a card from yesterday. You guys have to come to the PUG meeting next month. Susie Hamidi from Morelight Photojournalism will be telling us about her awesome studio. The next meeting will be March 30th, 6pm at the Shoreline Public Library. If you need directions or have questions, send me an email.

Gary's talk was excellent of course and like DJ, I am definitely going to think more about album designs going forward. There's a lot going on in our industry and we need to make sure it stays strong and thriving.

It was totally a surprise to look up from the Pictage booth and see DJ standing there! We sat in the back and listened to Gary speak and quickly made plans to hang out afterwards. Little did I know it'd be 12:30 before we wrapped things up with Gary and his crew and went in search of a bite to eat. DJ told us all about his trip to Brazil and his work with the Thirst Relief Team. What an awesome trip!

Here's a link to DJ's blog where you can read his account of yesterday.

I think I collapsed into bed about 3am this morning and was up at 6:45 this morning. I'm running on empty but there's still more stuff to get done around here. For instance, check out the new ipod proofing page on my website. I'm really excited to offer them to my couples this year. They're fabulous.

New Website

2006-02-16T08:29:00.000-08:00

Jeff LaPlante Photography

Ok! It's been live for a few days now but I figured I should blog about my new website! It's here! I finally got some time to revamp everything. Tell me what you think! :)

I know there are still a few minor bugs with Internet Explorer to work out but that should be fixed fairly quickly. If you have any issues with the site or just want to tell me how great you think it is, send me an email. :)

Seattle PUG Meeting

2006-01-31T23:20:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I'm a little behind the curve in writing this post about our first Seattle PUG meeting but hey, I've been busy. I also had a bridal show this last weekend. I'll save that for another post.

Here's a photo of Susie, Janet, Sara and myself having fun across the street at Sazerac after the meeting.

Thanks for everyone that came. I think we accomplished a lot and I met a lot of great people. I look forward to building great friendships with all of you.

Sara! You rocked! I still can't believe you made me take a cab from your hotel to the bar though. You're a nut!

Come See me at the Everett-Lynnwood Bridal Show

2006-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Everett-Lynnwood Bridal Show is next week end!

If you didn't get a chance to come and visit me in Tacoma last weekend then don't miss me at the Everett-Lynnwood show! I'd love to talk with you about your wedding plans and talk about photography. See you there!

Everett-Lynnwood Wedding Expo
Quality Inn & Suites (formerly Holiday Inn)
101-128th St., S.E. Bldg. A, Everett, WA
Phone: 425-337-2900
January 28-29, 2006
Saturday; 10 am to 5 pm
Sunday; 11 am to 4 pm

Fashion Show Daily at 2 pm

Konica Minolta Pull Out of Camera Business

2006-01-19T09:12:00.000-08:00

On the heals of Nikon's annoucement that they are Stopping production of all but two film cameras, Konica Minolta announced today that they are throwing in the towel on their stake in the photo market.

Konica bought long time camera and technology company Minolta in 2003. Now they plan to sell their digital camera business to Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony. They claim it has become too dificult to compete in the current camera market and have decided to focus on their photocopier market. Konica Minolta has also axed it's color film and paper products and expects to end their production by March of 2007.

Tacoma Bridal Show

2006-01-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

Wow, I'm tired. This weekend was the annual Spring Bridal show in Tacoma, WA of which I was a part of. It was great meeting a lot of you at the show.

Aside from the Seahawks game on Saturday afternoon that slowed things down a bit, it was a great show. (At least they won!) I handed out around 125 DVDs showcasing my reception slideshows. If you missed the Tacoma show, come see me at the Lynnwood show coming up in two weeks!

If you'd like your own copy of my DVD just email me with your address and I'd be happy to put one in the mail to you.

Nikon's Death Knell for Filmies

2006-01-12T08:47:00.000-08:00

Well, it's official. Film is dead.

In a press release yesterday, Nikon has decided to 'reshape it's film camera assortment'. Simply put, they're killing off almost all of their 35mm film camera bodies. The only survivors will be the F6 flagship model and the tried and true FM10 manual body. This is a sad day for film loving Nikonians. Also to get the axe are Nikon's large format lenses and Nikkor enlarging lenses.

Hopefully this will also create lower prices for future DSLR products from Nikon.

So, if you're a film lover and a digital hater, better go buy that F5 or F100 while you still can.

Press releases:

http://www.nikon.co.uk/press_room/releases/show.aspx?rid=201

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=130907&TICK=NIKON&STORY=/www/story/01-11-2006/0004247596&EDATE=Jan+11,+2006

Editing Alex & David's Wedding

2005-12-29T23:29:00.000-08:00

I had the pleasure of working with Alex and David this month. As I sit her editing their wedding photos I am struck by the love that I see in their lives. It's truly awesome what I get to do for a living, capturing people in love. What a beautiful couple. Until I get some more of their photos edited, have a look at their reception slideshow.

Photo Published in Woodinville Weekly

2005-12-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

The Woodinville Weekly paper published a photo of one of my clients today. Check it out! Monika is battling breast cancer and came to me a short time ago to photograph her and her kids in my studio. The image the paper published is from that session.

Goodbye Expeditors

2005-11-18T18:57:00.000-08:00

Well, today was my final day at Expeditors, the company I've worked for for nearly 8 years. It's been fun. You're all a wonderful bunch of people and I'll miss all of the friendships I've made there over the years. But, it's time for a change and I'm really excited about that too!

2006 is going to be an awesome year.

-Jeff

Paige's 1 year Photoshoot

2005-09-20T01:29:00.000-07:00

Slideshows are too much fun! My daughter Paige turned 1 year old a month ago. Here's a couple of choice photos made into a slideshow for you all to enjoy. Isn't she CUTE?!

Trisha & Ron

2005-09-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

Trisha and Ron were over this weekend for their engagement session. We had such a great time! Here's a slideshow of their session.

Janee et Gib - Slideshow

2005-09-16T23:44:00.000-07:00

David Jay's new program showitweb rocks! Here's a slideshow I made of Janee & Gib's wedding.

http://www.jefflaplante.com/slideshows/JaneeEtGib

Phew, Finally time to post about the Pictage Partner Conference

2005-09-12T21:20:00.000-07:00

What a great time! I can't hardly believe how many great people I got to meet last week at the Pictage Partner Conference in LA. David Jay, Mike Colon, Denis Reggie, Pepper Nix, Millie, Jack Young, Davina Fear, Liana and everybody else, it was a pleasure!

I got to listen to David Jay, Dane Sanders and Pepper Nix talk about marketing, the nature of Open Source Photo and how to network and build referrals with others in the industry. Fascinating! I learned so much!

I can't wait until next year!

Shooting with Dane Sanders

2005-09-05T16:14:00.000-07:00

Wow, what an incredible weekend!

I'm so stoked to have had the privilege to shoot with Dane this past weekend. Janee and Gib's wedding was in Hayden Idaho on the lake and it was completely awesome! Here's just a teaser of the photos I captured on Saturday. I'm sure Dane will blow me away with shots on his website shortly. We took over 3000 images combined during the course of the weekend! No kidding! :)

Now, wait until you see Dane's stuff! It's truly incredible. The slideshow he made during the reception with David Jay's showIt software was a HUGE success. I mean HUGE. I'm definitely buying it as soon as I get my paypal account figured out. I changed banks and now I have to reauthorize my account or something...

Anyway, I'm editing away on the images now, I'll post more later.

Janee & Gib's family are awesome! Thank you all so very much for allowing me to be part of your excellent party! You truly are magnificent people.

-Jeff

New Glass

2005-03-11T22:23:00.000-08:00

I caved. There it was, staring at me through the glass case in Glazers, pleading me to take it home. So, I did. I've been looking for a fast 200mm zoom lens for a while and when this Nikkor 80-200 AF 2.8 ED D lens showed up and my local camera store I couldn't resist. It didn't help that I just got a bonus from my primary employer. :) This lens is really pretty great. I've only had it for a week and the high speed tele bug has bitten me bad. Ebay found me a nice Nikon 300mm AF ED F4.0 lens yesterday. Ouch, had to have it to. I've got to get a check in the mail for it tomorrow. Checks? Who uses cashiers checks on ebay anymore? Oh well, I guess not everyone has a paypal account.

So, combine these two lens and my also recently aquired Tamron 1.4 pro teleconverter and my helicopter ride in Hawaii next week should be very rewarding. I can't wait.

2004-12-23T21:22:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

KMFDM DOT KOM

2004-11-23T14:40:00.000-08:00

KMFDM DOT KOM

So, I've been a KMFDM fan since 1991. This is a very loud, very opinionated, industrial band which contributed to my hearing damage in the early nineties.

Last friday they finished their latest tour with a show in Sascha's hometown, Seattle. It was at the Fenix. I had to go.

The Fenix opened at 8pm. My friend Scott from work and I met there around 10pm. No since getting their early, KMFDM didn't go on until 11:30 or so.

Ok, LOUD! Very Loud! I could feel my liver quivering to the bass drum. Cool.

It was a good show. The tortureous part was listening to the warm up act, DJ Acucrack. The guy has energy but man, it's mostly noise.

KMFDM was in prime form although I think Sascha was a bit pissed or something. maybe he's always like that, I don't know the guy personally. Lucia, KMFDM's most recent female voice is an interesting, sexy minx. She has a great stage presence and can really scream. I'm listening to her debut solo album on my ipod now and you'd never think, listening to it, that she'd be part of KMFDM. What a different style. Of course, I'm sure Universal had a hand in taming her sound on this album. Obviously she is quite talented and diverse to be able to pull it off.

I haven't kept up with KMFDM since MDFMK came out so I went out to Silver Platters and picked up Attak and WWIII yesterday. Good stuff.

Did I mention that I was partially deaf for half of Saturday? Next time these middle aged ears are getting some ear plugs. But I'm still going to go again.

Desmo Northwest Calendars Are Selling Well

2004-11-19T07:13:00.000-08:00

Desmo Northwest - Home

So the calendars are selling very well. I have a listing on ebay and between the desmonorthwest site, me, Leo and the models, they're selling quickly. Eliza, one of the models in the calendar, has a link up on her site too.

Looks like I'm going to do a wine bottle label image after the holidays. I'm excited about the project. It should be fun.

2005 DesmoNorthwest Calendar

2004-10-23T22:12:00.000-07:00

DesmoNorthwest 2005 Calendar

Photographed by Fashion Photographer Leo Lam and fine-art photographer Jeff LaPlante, with talents from the Pacific Northwest including models from Gloss Model Management, this is the first calendar produced by DesmoNorthwest.

12-month. Limited Edition.

$12.95 (only 1,000 printed)

Pre-order now! Expected shipping date: Nov 6th

Order Now!

*Shipping is one low fixed rate to anywhere in the US regardless of how many you buy!

For international orders, please contact me.

Ok, Let the sorting begin

2004-08-30T09:21:00.000-07:00

Leo and I finished shooting the last two models yesterday. Wow, what a great bunch of girls we had to work with. I want to personally thank all of them for their time. Now we have to start bickering over which shots make it into the calendar. :) Fun stuff.

Yesterday we shot Stephanie and Kristen on a blue S4R and a Red ST3 on loan from Ducati Seattle. I'll have photos up in the gallery here soon.

Out with the green, in with the new model galleries

2004-08-10T19:42:00.000-07:00

Alright, the ugly green background on my new gallery installation is outta here and I've uploaded some shots of the 5 models Leo and I have shot so far for the Desmo Nortwest calendar we're working on.

There's Jamie, the dancer

Erika, the actress

Leah, the painter

Eliza, the Illustrator

and Mariko, the student

New Gallery Installed

2004-08-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, it's installed but I haven't tweaked the template yet so it's all ugly and green at the moment. Eww. I'll fix it all up this evening. Right now it's time to work on the gazebo some more. It's really nice outside.

Cleanup, Isle 5 & Splinter in the Eye

2004-08-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

So we waited around half the day for the cleanup crew to arrive but they finally did. They worked for a couple hours shovling up all the dirt. They even brought in a front-end loader to cart it all off. Then they washed the street down with a huge tanker/sprayer. It looks great out there now.

Cam really liked watching the loader and tanker truck. One of the construction crew even let him use his push broom. It was very cute.

I got some work done on the gazebo yesterday with Doug's help. We got the roof framed up and started putting the first row of slats on. Then I got a HUGE piece of sawdust in my eye and that pretty much finished me off for the night. Ouch!

I know, "big baby", you're saying. It's surprising how delicate eyes are! Usually I can just wash out my eye under the tap and everything's fine but not this time... Oh no, not this time...

I tried dunking my head in a bowl of water and rolling my eye around. Didn't work.

So, I ended up going to the drug store to get an eyewash kit. Tip for you all: buy one of these and keep it in the medicine cabinet. This worked like a champ. It's basically a bottle of saline and an little plastic eye cup. Fill up the cup with the solution and press it up to you eye. Tip your head back and flush out your eye. I did this 3-4 times and wow, that's much better. :)

Rain & Yardwork

2004-08-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

We had quite the flash flood storm here yesterday. Our street was an inch deep in running water and our back yard was flooded. Yikes!

It receeded pretty quickly but it's still soggy in the back yard. The new development going in up the hill from us is to blame for all the mud and gunk in our street. They deforested the green belt up there. There's no surprise all the water ran down our street. Our neighbor called the developer and they're supposed to send out a clean up crew.

If it dries out some today I'm hoping to get some work done on the gazebo.

DesmoNorthwest Calendar Shoot

2004-08-06T22:24:00.000-07:00

Leo and I are full swing into shooting the DesmoNorthwest calendar for 2005. Here's a photo of the Ducati 998 Matrix bike from Ducati Seattle. Don't mind that lightbox in the reflection.... This is just a test shot. :)

Gallery 1.4.4 now Available!

2004-08-06T20:07:00.000-07:00

Gallery 1.4.4 now Available! :: Gallery :: your photos on your website

Cool! A new version of Gallery is out. Time to upgrade....