For the past few weeks I've been waiting for our new toys to come in and yesterday they finally arrived!

Ok so you're prooobably thinking..."uh ok?!"  And yeah I guess Lauren's right when she says I'm a big nerd. Anyway, so what are these?  Have you ever heard of Pocket Wizards?  Remember our post on OCl or Off Camera Lighting?  These are what you use to remotely trigger your flashes or even remotely trigger your camera!  The best part is these are a 3rd of the price!  Not only that but they're super small and compact.  Definitely something you want especially when you're traveling shooting weddings.  Here's a shot I took last night at 3:30am (yeah that AM, not PM).  I put one of our compact flash cards in between the two just to show you how small they actually are.  And if you're wondering, the small one is the transmitter (goes on the hot shoe of your camera) and the larger one is the receiver (connects to your flash).

These are starting to get super hot and photographers all over are picking them up so if you're interested, it'll take at least 2-3 weeks to receive them.  To check them out just to the Alien Bees website. If you're starting to get into lighting (which by the way, is amazingly fun to play with) these are a must have! Speaking of a must have...if you're a bride to be, meet Red5Studios...one of the top talents in Wedding Cinematography. This past weekend, Loyd, our good friend from Red5Studios asked us to do a last minute portrait session for them for a special project that'll be revealed at a later time. So we threw around some ideas and we ended up, believe it or not at an empty movie theatre parking lot!  How fitting =) Why?  Well Loyd has this amazing talent that puts Brides and Grooms, their Wedding Party and even family into their favorite movie with a Wedding twist.  For this reason (and more) Bride and Groom’s all over the country contact Red5Studios.  They put you (the Bride and Groom) into your own short film…you decide on the movie, Loyd studies it, scripts it and then with you and your cast (ie Bridal Party/Family Members), he literally films it! If you have a few minutes, you HAVE to check this out...it's probably the funniest video I've seen them do yet.  It's their "wedding twist" version of Napoleon Dynamite that won the Ruby Award in the Concept Video production category at Video '08. Here's one of our favorite pics from our Saturday shoot...

On Sunday, we had the second half of our shoot.  Loyd wanted to capture a make shift production photo and for me, new territory.  Usually prior to a shoot, I/we envision how we want the shoot to go but for this type of a shot with five people! it was a challenge.  We ended up in my garage, something Loyd actually loved because it gave it that "home made video" type of look to it and after an hour or so of figuring out lighting, positioning, and going back and fourth examining each shot, I finally nailed it!  I finally got the shot I wanted!  It was pretty exciting because after about 50 or so shots, I knew as soon as I shot it, that was what we were looking for. It's amazing what one flash and a reflector can do for you in a cramped and dark home garage! =)

Thanks Red5Studios for picking us for your shoot!  We had a blast shooting it! I'll post more of our favorites later this week so stay tuned =) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Don't forget!  Our "Great Names Derive from Great Inspiration" contest deadline has been moved!!  The new deadline to submit your entries is now October 1st.  That gives everyone a good two months of inspiration! =)

If you want more information on our contest click here!

For our latest Wedding Day Slideshow, Click Here!

If you'd like to inquire about our services, email us at Weddings@johnlauren.com

If you have any questions you'd like to ask us, we'll do our best in answering them for you!  email us at John@johnlauren.com or Lauren@johnlauren.com