Green Lake Park in Seattle may be the city’s most popular location for those looking for a place to run or walk, but my personal favorite park of late is the 1.6 mile path along Elliott Bay that Myrtle Edwards Park offers. I normally side park near the “DNA” like Amgen double helix bridge that provides access from Elliott Avenue to the paved path of Myrtle Edwards Park. There usually aren’t too many people along the path, unlike Green Lake Park which can get busy with traffic from runners, walkers, cyclists and roller bladers. The best thing about running along Elliott Bay is the scenery continually changes. You can see the Olympic Mountains in the distance, sail boats in the ocean and amazing sunsets like the one pictured above. Seattle is pretty amazing.
The end of the path along Myrtle Edwards Park leads to the new SAM Olympic Sculpture Park. The picture above was taken after I had finished my run and my wife caught up with me from her walk. The picture was taken with our little Fuji F20 in the sunset setting. The camera was set to 10 second delay shutter resting on a concrete seat. The settings were iso 100 and f8. I don’t remember how long shutter speed was, but the concrete seat acted like a tripod so there wasnt any vibration. I cropped the picture slightly and that’s all! It’s got a slight 3D look to it I think, but the suns doing amazing things to the clouds, sky and water.
When we were walking back to our car, I noticed a photographer doing what appeared to be a “trash the dress” session with a handsome couple in the water. I couldnt tell if it was an engagement session or a follow up to the couples wedding day session, but it looked fun.
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Happy Independence Day everyone! I’ve been having fun with my new Sigma 12-24mm ultra wide angle lens the past two days. I took pictures with it having lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory with Rebekah, waiting in line at Cinerama for the start of Transformers, taking pictures at the new Seattle Art Museum | Olympic Sculpture Park, hiking with my dad at Chiriko Trail near Poo Poo Point on the morning of the 4th and taking some pictures of fireworks tonight at the 4th of Jul-Ivars Fireworks show at Myrtle Edwards Park. The lens is definitely a specialty lens. In general, it isn’t great for people pictures unless you want them looking long or funny. It’s pretty cool for trying out artsy stuff. I’m still trying to figure out the best use for it…
Photography by Todd & Rebekah Kim
Having lunch at the Old Spaghetti Factory in Seattle 12mm (above)
Pictures from Olympic Sculpture Park 12mm (below)
My wife looks even more beautiful close up!
Look at those tiny peons, I can crunch them with my fingers!
The 2 block line to see Transformers at Cinerama - It was more than meets the eye
Pictures from Chiriko Trail 12-24mm some pictures cropped (below)
Paraglider jumping off with view of Lake Sammamish and Issaquah (above)
If you’re interested google shows these two companies offering services:
Seattle Paragliding
NW Paragliding Club
4th of Jul-Ivars | Myrtle Edwards Park | Elliot Bay 2007 (below)
All the pictures below were taken at 24mm with the Sigma 12-24mm and cropped. My Canon 24-70mm lens would probably have been a better choice to use.
All Images Copyright 2007 - Todd H Kim Photography
Last year, Rebekah and I went to Gas Works park for the big fireworks show covered by King 5 TV. I remember it was so crazy because it was packed with people and it was a pain just getting there. This year we went to the 4th of Jul-Ivars show normally covered by Komo TV. There weren’t too many people there so I asked a security guard and he said, Ivar’s got sued by someone a few years ago when they fell during the event. I don’t know the details, but that is sad. There were hardly any vendors and it was pretty laid back. I didn’t even hear the music for the fireworks, but the show was still cool.
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After photographing an engagement session yesterday, I was going home and decided to stop by Seattle’s Pike Place Market to take a couple of shots with my new lens. This picture above was shot with a Sigma 12-24mm lens at 24mm | F/16 for 15 seconds. I think the lens is pretty sharp. The 12mm side is extremely wide and interesting to shoot at. I need to get used to shooting it at that angle. I wish the white SUV wasnt parked where it’s at on the left, but I didn’t feel like moving it.
I wasn’t happy with how I framed the color shot above at 12mm so I cropped about 1/3 of the sky out of the picture. It gives you an idea of how wide 12 mm looks though!
Photographer: Todd Kim
Copyright 2007 Todd H Kim Photography All Rights Reserved
It’s 7 AM and I’ve been editing wedding videos all night. I’m still very much a night person even though I’ve been trying to change that. Sometimes, it’s difficult to change no matter how hard you try. I found this picture that I took a couple of years ago. I think I’ll call it “One Nation Under God” Can a nation be changed? I am an American citizen, but I often wonder how my life would be different if my parents never came to America. In some ways, Korea is more modern than America. Seoul, the capital of South Korea, makes Seattle look like a small town. Yet, some of the insecurities of being small form the mentality of many Koreans that I know. Would I still be the same person I am today if I grew up in Korea? Would I be a better person or not? How would I be different? So many questions for someone who hasn’t slept all night. Here’s more. How will America change in ten years? How will America not change in 10 years? I better get back to editing those videos before my eyes get too tired. Rebekah’s alarm clock just went off.
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I just purchased a Joby Gorillapod! I first saw this amazing flexible tripod at a camera store and thought, “What a great idea! Why didn’t I think of that!”
Image courtesy: Joby.com
As a photographer/videographer I can see so many uses for the Joby Gorillapod. When doing videos, sometimes you want to keep the video camera in a location that has a good vantage point, but a traditional tripod won’t do. Using the flexible legs of the Joby Gorillapod to steady the camera and keep it level will do wonders! It’s obvious how terrific the Gorillapod could be for photographers, but I thought it could also be used to hold an off camera flash so I purchased the flash clip (adapter) as well. After I try it out, I’ll put up another post. Joby’s website is currently offering free ground shipping and with this promotion code: “GorillapodLOVE” You can receive an extra 15% discount through 2007!
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Image Courtesy: Garyfong.com
Gary Fong, inventer of the Lightsphere for camera flash diffusion just released his new invention called the Gary Fong Whaletail. You can read about it and watch a little video on Gary Fong’s blog. He’s joking around that it looks like a toilet bowl aka Fong John. I didn’t use the Lightsphere much, but I know plenty of wedding photographers who do. Gary Fong is a master of marketing. I could learn a few things from him. He owns a home in Seattle, Cali and BC…
Check out http://getbrushes.com/ Can you believe the picture above was done with the stroke of some brushes I downloaded from getbrushes.com
It is so fun to play with. If you use Photoshop you really should check it out. Best of all, it’s free for personal use.
We will, from time to time, post links to useful articles in the area of wedding etiquette. We may even write an article or two. Hopefully, we will get a nice collection going so people wont have to search all over the place to find useful information.
By Marc Gellman
Newsweek
Updated: 7:17 p.m. ET Aug. 19, 2005
Two weeks ago, in my ongoing attempt to improve the state of spiritual etiquette, I wrote a self-help column on how to deliver a eulogy. I hinted at that time that a column on how to give a wedding toast was on the way, and I immediately received in my e-mail satchel a needful e-letter from an e-woman whose e-husband was facing an impending wedding toast and hoped I could offer some advice as soon as possible. So, here goes….
My advice to toasters is pretty much the same as my advice to eulogizers except that you should always remember that the people you’re talking about aren’t dead yet. Like a eulogy, a wedding toast must be egoless, true and brief. Like eulogies, the point of the toast is to wish the bride and groom well and ask God to bless their marriage, not tell everyone everything about yourself and more about the bride and groom than they would want known.
The two main problems I have seen in disastrous wedding toasts (which amount to at least 99 percent of all the wedding toasts I have had the painful opportunity to hear) are that, one, the people giving the toast are already drunk and two, the people giving the toast are trying to be funny. Being successfully sober is much easier than being successfully funny, so unless you are professionally hilarious, like me, my advice is to go for the tender personal toast over the potentially funny but usually tasteless toast. Most male wedding toasters (best man, brothers and buddies) just can’t pull off either tender or personal toasts–drunk or sober. Fathers have a shot at tender and personal toasts, especially when they are marrying off their “little girl,” but even fathers tend to be stiffer and more stilted than they need to be or should be during a wedding toast. Women can do this in their sleep, but they tend to cry a lot.
I think it is also unwise to extemporize your toast unless you are a professionally accomplished public speaker. Even then, winging it is dangerous. Write it out and read the damn thing. Yes, it’s true that the emotional impact of a memorized toast is far greater than a recited toast, but what you lose in spontaneity, you will gain by not dissolving into a pool of sobbing incoherent goo, or saying something you just thought up that minute which will make the bride and groom hate you for the rest of their lives.
Also, if your written toast is more than one half of a typed page (single-spaced, 14-point font) it is too long. I have never ever heard a wedding toast that caused listeners to demand that the toaster keep on toasting for another 10 minutes. Less is more, just like a eulogy.
Another common mistake of wedding toasters is in assuming that it is funny or endearing for either the bride or groom or the guests or the waiters or the party enhancers or the valet parking guys to hear a list of the bride and groom’s most embarrassing moments. If any of your sentences begin, “Dude, do you remember the time we were trying to score chicks at Cabo Wabo?” rip it up and try again.
Another problem is sibling rivalries. Get it through your head that your lifelong envious bickering with your brother or sister is embarrassing, irrelevant, unattractive and almost always destructive in a wedding toast. Talk about the great things your sibling has taught you and how much you love him or her. Even if it’s a lie, who cares? Most people will not discover it until after the party and the people who do know that you hate your sib will think you finally made up–which you should do anyway. For a father of the bride who is offering a toast (I don’t know why more mothers don’t give toasts, but they don’t and it’s a shame), the obvious is the obvious. You should welcome everyone and tell them how much it means to you and your wife or ex-wife or both your ex-wives that they have all joined you for this joyous occasion. Welcome your son-in-law and his family into your family and tell his family how much you love their son and how happy you are that he will be spending every single holiday and vacation with your family and how he has willingly agreed never to see or speak to them again. Whatever you say during your toast, for God’s sake don’t end it with “Now let’s party!” or “Boo-yah!”
For nonreligious toasters, I beg you to try to stifle your atheism for a minute and include in your toast at least the formulaic phrase, “God bless you both!” at the end of your toast. If you are religious, you might include the old Jewish legend that, just to keep busy, God spends every day after creating the world matching up brides and grooms. Then say, “Today we are here to celebrate some of God’s best work.” If it is a Christian wedding, say that it is an old Christian legend. If anyone presses you for a source, just offer him or her another martini.
I like toasts that include the phrase, “I pray that you will be blessed to see the children of your children’s children.” However, you should first check out any fertility issues. I once said that to a bride and groom during a wedding ceremony and discovered later from the weeping bride that she was infertile. I was then quickly ushered out of the party by her large and angry brother, so the fertility prayer is something of a risk.
A final word about eloquence, the guests who hear your toast are not expecting Shakespeare because some of them even know, or heard on MTV, that Shakespeare is dead. However, I implore you to try to lift the rhetoric a few clicks above “You guys are totally awesome!” You can do it. I believe with all my heart in the power of natural eloquence. A good way to do this is to talk about what you learned from the bride and groom and from their love for each other. Speak about how their love has lifted up and inspired not just the two of them but you and all their friends and family, as well. Speaking about our family and friends not just as family and friends but also as our life teachers is a good way to elevate and honor the true place of family, friendship and love in our lives. You might also want to speak about the shared passions of the bride and groom. However, if their principal passions are shopping and drinking beer, forget this and go right to the old Jewish legend. Just speak from your heart about what you love about them, and then sit down.
I once said to the bride who was marrying a kid I had known since he was 2, “Melissa, I always knew David would marry you. I just didn’t know your name or your face until that day when he introduced you to me. But I knew it would be you; I knew it would be someone who would love his energy and his passion, his loyalty and his kindness. You were not only made for each other, you were made only for each other. And so my deepest hope and prayer for the two of you is that, in the words of D. H. Lawrence, ‘May you have the courage of your tenderness’.”
Something like that might work.
Anyway, Mazel Tov to all the brides and grooms and toasters out there, and now … Let’s party! Boo-yah!
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.
Original Article URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8989235/site/newsweek/
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My main camera of choice is the Canon 5D. It’s a 12 megapixel full frame camera. It’s a beauty to work with and I love it. My wife usually shoots with the Canon 30D. She gets better reach with that camera because of the crop factor and she always gets some amazing candid pictures! Anyway, I’ll talk about cameras later. I wanted to talk about how software makes a big difference. I’ve always shot RAW + JPG format. It can be time consuming to convert every single RAW image into JPG so I usually only convert my favorites. It might be hard to see the differences in output from these small images, but RAW images converted to JPG offer many advantages. I’ve always converted using Silkypix, but lately I’ve been using Adobe Lightroom and I like it a lot.
Copyright 2007 Todd H Kim Photography - Living Life Media - Photographer: Todd Kim
This is a JPG image straight from the camera
Silkypix RAW conversion to JPG
Adobe Lightroom RAW conversion to JPG
Same image with curve adjustment in Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom RAW conversion B/W JPG from Lightroom
Same B/W JPG with curve adjustment in Photoshop
I think I like the Lightroom version with the curve adjustment the best. The best thing about Lightroom is it’s a better workflow!
