Family news :: First of all, thank you everyone for your thoughts, prayers, and condolences during our time of loss in the past week.  I shared this with my mom and she was brought to tears by it. Thank you.  I’m back in Atlanta until Friday then we fly out to Dallas for Craig’s memorial service there.  Craig was born and raised in Dallas so there is a huge community of family and friends there waiting to pay their final respects and Meg and I are flying out to be with family there.

Speaking of family news. It is interesting to me to see a weird progress on my facebook wall.  Over the last 6 weeks it has tracked from friends and colleagues congratulating Meghan and I on our marriage to condolences for the passing of my step father to congratulations again for… a new baby on the way!  We didn’t waste anytime at all did we?  We just found out on Sunday.  I came home from shooting a wedding and she asked me to close my eyes and put out my hands. She placed that EPT stick in my hands and “Surprise!”

Meg’s sense of smell went up about 100 notches this weekend along with other first tell tell signs of pregnancy.  So she, ya know, peed on a stick and without question, she is baby positive!  The cycle of life continues on.

DVD news :: We FINALLY have tracking numbers for our next round of supplies.  We’ve been waiting and waiting for this next round to get out the door.  If you have been waiting since the 23rd, they start shipping out tomorrow.  Thank you for your patience.  Trust me, we are as anxious to ship as you are to receive! We air shipped enough supplies to get all orders placed to date ready to ship out this week plus another 100 or so after that.  The back-end of the shipment will be in by the 14th and I figure we will have enough to last awhile.  The rest of it is coming via the pony express or something evidently.

Studio news :: I’ve never been happy with this studio space right now.  If you have followed my white seamless tutorial you’ll know that I’m in a pretty cramped space.  The leasing company that owns my current spot just had an opening at another property a little closer to downtown.  It isn’t much more square footage than what I have now but it is an open floor plan instead of a two story like I have now.  It also has much taller ceilings!  Tall enough AND wide enough to build a cyc wall!  If I can move my lease to that spot then we are building a cyc!  I’ll document the process here on the blog so you can see what goes into that process.I’m off to meet with my friend Scott to get a bid on the cyc wall.  Thank God this space is owned by the same folks I rent from now so I can just move my lease without paying deposits and all that jazz. Otherwise a move would not be in the tea leaves right now.

BTW - The image above is a shot I’m on the fence about from my shoot with Jay Clifford last week.  Jay, as some of you indie darlings may remember, was the front man for Jump Little Children.  He’s doing well with his solo career now.  What do ya’ll think of the image?  Like it?  Love it?  Hate it?  I feel all those things about it right now.  Then again, I am an artist.  :)

Thanks again everyone for all of your support and encouragement.

Cheers,
Zack   

It is with heavy heart that I have to report that we lost my step father this morning. Craig had been suffering from ALS over the past year and a half. It is a nasty disease that leaves your mind but takes your body. I haven’t lost a lot of close people in my life. My grandfather was the closest person I have ever lost and I regret so much that I never made a portrait of him. I just have these grainy disc camera photos of him to remember him by. Nothing that really says who he was or what he was about.

When I was working at Kinko’s I nearly lost my job twice. Both times for the same reason; enlarging prints for someone’s funeral. I would meet a customer at the counter and with red puffy eyes they would slide a dog eared, scratched 4×6 print across the counter. This person in the photo had just passed away and they wanted a 16×20 made to place by the casket. It wasa always some horrible photo. Never a great portrait. There would be a laundry basket in the corner. The drapes on the windows were stained. Reflections in glasses. Scratches on the print. I would take the job, put everything on hold and start to work on the scan in PhotoShop. This is a soul’s last known image on earth. They deserve better than this. My manager didn’t think this way. Scan and print. That’s it. I revolted and continued working on images for funerals. She wasn’t cold hearted enough to actually fire me for the few hours I would spend on those images but she wasn’t at all happy with me either.

That planted a philosophy I have on every single photoshoot. “I’m shooting for this person’s funeral.” I better make images that people will want to see and remember this person by. Something that shows who they were and what they did and how they were living their life pursuing a dream. I’ve made as many visits as I could over the last year to my Mom and Craig. They live in Elkin, NC. I knew this year I had to get Craig to sit for me. I had to photograph him before I lost him. Craig was a retired homebuilder and was now preaching at a church near Elkin. He was born and raised in Dallas, TX but moved with my Mom to Elkin for a slower change of pace and to be near my Mom’s family there. He loved the community and the church he landed in had him start preaching because they were in need of a new preacher. That dying little church began to thrive.

Knowing that things would escalate quickly I had prints made and shipping arrangement taken care of well in advance. Also knowing how many people loved Craig in his community, I had dozens of 8×10 prints made of this for folks to keep.

On my last trip up there a month or so ago I photographed Craig watching the kids play in the backyard. Goodbye Craig. My gosh we are going to miss you. You’re home now though. Finally in a place bigger than your home country of Texas. Are you photographing those you love? I’m not. Not like I should be. I have a big long list of people to get started on. You always think you have time. Sometimes you do. Most of the time you don’t. Had I not known that we would be losing Craig this year, I probably would have never gotten around to making the images above. Sad isn’t it? Me. A photographer who can’t turn a camera on to his own family. There’s your challenge for the week. Family portrait time this week.

Cheers,
Zack

PS - Needless to say I am leaving the studio for the next 3 or 4 days. All normal business will proceed later this week or the start of next week. If you ordered your DVD last week before it sold out, it will be out the door by tonight if it hasn’t already gone out the door this weekend.

We are pretty much at full capacity right now (read that as I’m in this studio for the next three days without seeing the sun.)  That brings us to the end of what we have on hand for stock.  Orders for more were already placed last week.  That should have us shipping again by mid to end of this coming week. If you ordered before 6:45pm tonight, your order will be out the door by Monday at the latest. You can choose to order and be held in the que until all our stuff gets in or you can order once we go live with it again.  

You can order the DVD here…

www.OneLightWorkshop.com

Thanks!

Cheers,
Zack

PS - I hate Windows.  We have to use a PC for shipping.  I hate it with every fiber in my body.  Yes, it is Vista.  Yes, I know I should get XP.  Do you hear any OS X users talking about how much better OS 9 was?  Nope.  You don’t.  I hope I survive the weekend. 

The OneLight DVD has launched! Get all the info here…www.OneLightWorkshop.com

Weeeeeeee!

Cheers,
Zack

I ran a flickr contest based on my white seamless tutorial here on the blog. If you are a new reader, you can find the multi-part photography tutorial in the technique category. I had a very difficult time placing the top 3.

Actually, I had a difficult time placing third place because the first and second place winners stood out. My rule for judging this contest was the image had to pop out at thumbnail size. If it didn’t catch my attention in a small format then I wasn’t going to be interested in seeing it larger.

So, on to the winners.

:: First Place :: Floyd Palitang :: www.palitang.com

Floyd shot such an amazing series on these athletes that I had to show two. You can find the series here.

Floyd’s post production is just a bit too heavy handed (contrast and sharpening) for my taste (it’s subjective) but the series of images and the intensity that he captured far outweigh the amount of post production on these images. It nearly knocked them into second place but they are just so dang good and there are stories begging to be told about these images so I kept it in first.

:: Second Place :: Dwayne Hills :: www.dhillsphotography.com

Are you kidding me? Look at that fabric. Look at those colors. The expression. The moment. It just freaking pops up and slaps you in the face. You HAVE to look at this photo. The beauty of the simple white background is there is nothing competing with the subject here. With the simple use of the crop tool to change the composition, there are numerous ways to use this image. Love it. It almost got first place. By a hair it slid to second.

:: Third Place :: Ryan P. :: www.RyanPphoto.com

Simplicity rules. It just does. Such simple light. Simple background. Simple styling. Yet massively compelling. Well done.

Honorable mention :: Man About Tao

Honorable Mention :: Angela Lopez :: www.posewell.com

Honorable Mention :: Danny Ngan :: www.DannyNgan.com

Well done everyone! Well done. You made my job hard! So…

First place has won a 50″ Westcott Apollo softbox or a copy of the OneLight DVD.
Second place wins a 28″ Westcott Apollo softbox or a copy of the OneLight DVD.
Third place has one a copy of the OneLight DVD.
All three HM winners will receive a year Pro account with Flickr on me.

Congrats!

Cheers,
Zack

This is Gracie and she is anything but “gracie”.  She is a 5 month old Labradoodle that we took in a few months ago and have not let go of.  

It took a lot of wrangling to get her to sit for this photo.

Cheers,
Zack 

The Lovell Sisters are back this year for a new shoot as they get ready for a fall release of their new album.  We are having a great shoot.  I’m pre-editing the shoot now while they are in hair and make-up.

BIG thanks to my darling Meghan for finding this location and lining it up for today’s shoot! 

This is Erik rocking the props at one of the locations we rented for today.

ETA - Another shot of Erik…

Cheers,
Zack

I have been in Seattle and Portland all week while Erik was working 14 hour days shipping the pre-sale orders of the DVD out into the world.  I’ve been on the edge of my seat waiting to hear the initial thoughts from all of you who got in on the pre-sale.  They are now coming in.  Here are a few of my favorites…

“Zack,I just received my DVD’s in the mail. I just finished reading the booklet that came with them. The part about your family kicked me right in my heart, it brought tears to my eyes. I put my booklet down and wrapped my arms around my two year old little boy. Thanks for so much more than a DVD on photography.“ 

—————–

“I just got my dvd in the mail today….wow!!! I just wanted to tell you that I have bought other educational dvds….and then felt cheated over what I got compared to what I spent. Not so with you!!! Everything about the package…the presentation, the quality, the information- top notch!! I feel like I got more than my moneys worth…and it is incredibly obvious you put your all into this. Thank you!“ -

—————-

“I am on disk two of the DVD already. Man this is the best investment I ever made. I have been a real TTL advocate for some time now but I am going to see what Manual mode can offer me in my shooting style.Thanks for such an amazing DVD. You’re the man!”

I would love to hear from you!  Hit me in the comment section!The DVD will be released to the public next Thursday.  I’ll announce it here, to the email list, and on the OneLight Workshop site.

Cheers,
Zack   

Ok.  We are just waiting on shipments from the three vendors supplying all of our DVD material.  All the stuff is wrapped up and starting its way to us.  I just sent out an email to the email list folks.  If you didn’t get that email tonight then you need to check your spam filter.  It is coming from zack @ zackarias.com.  I can’t wait to start shipping these!

Number 2 on the list… We’re throwing a mixer tomorrow night (7/30/08) for John and Dalisa Cooper.  They are conducting a workshop in my studio this week and we are welcoming them into town tomorrow.  Everyone is invited.  Come one, come all.

7/30/08 - 7:30pm till

115-B New Street
Decatur, GA 30030

I have more news as well but I’m currently having to “borrow” some Internet where I am at the moment and can’t keep a signal long enough to post pictures. More to come! I have had one busy amazing week!

Cheers,
Zack

I have had an amazing time out here with the Boulder OneLight!  Big thanks to Stacy Z and her awesome husband, Brad, for bringing me out to the Rockies for a great workshop.   I’m exhausted and I have to be up early to catch my bird back to Atlanta.  More later.

The photo above was shot after Midnight. Great skies today and tonight!

Cheers,
Zack