Every year for the past couple of years I participated in an event put on by the Wedding and Portrait Society called Portrait Palooza. This event is a contest in where you have 10 minutes to shoot a bride in as many locations around the facility as you can and then you have 48 hours to edit and submit two photos.
The first year I participated I went all out and brought two monolights with softboxes with me and when it was my turn we ran to the location I wanted to shoot and and spent half the time troubleshooting my lights as something decided not to work with the triggers that I had and I was only able to get one shot.
While I was happy with the one image I got I knew that I didn't have a winning image. I was determined that I was going to do better next year.
For last years event I showed up early so I could scout the location and pick out where I wanted to shoot. For lights I decided to bring only one light an Alienbee 800 and a beauty dish. I tested my lights to make sure they worked about 10 times before it was my turn to go. I met my model that I was going to be working with and we started shooting. Since i only got one look last year this year I wanted to get three looks. Since I went through this before I was much calmer this time around and was able to get 4 looks within the 10 minute time limit. This time I was quite happy with the two photos I got and I thought I had a fighting chance at winning or getting an honorable mention.
While I did not win I felt a lot better about the contest and had high hopes going into this years event.
For lighting I decided to go with just a speedlight with a PLM to make it really simple so I could do the most with the ten minute time limit. I was in the 2nd group to go out and I had my three locations all scouted out. I met my bride and we went out to shoot. We got through the three looks that I wanted but I was not happy with the results. I was missing a lot of things that I should have seen when I normally shoot but since I only had ten minutes I missed most of the posing mistakes that I would normally catch if I had all the time in the world to shoot. The next day I submitted the edited images and waited to hear the results. I found out that my friend Maria had the winning image and I am extremely happy for her as she is an amazing photographer and the image was spectacular. As far as my images I will post them below. I will see you next week.
