Prints That Win: Back Alley Beauty

When Chicago, Ill.-based photographer Michael Novo attended a destination wedding as a guest several years ago in Monte Carlo, he captured a brilliant shot of the bride on the stairs with a point-n-shoot camera. Everything was perfect: the lighting, the composition, the ambiance and of course, the bride. Excited about his newly discovered talent, Novo came home from Monte Carlo and immediately purchased nicer equipment. However, as he started delving deeper into the world of photography, he realized that perfect shots don’t just happen.

“I learned that I couldn’t rely on the light to just be right. I had to create the perfect lighting. I got lucky before, having the right lighting and right setting,” Novo says of his initial foray into professional photography.

After treating it as more of a hobby and dabbling a bit, he decided to show his work to some trusted friends in the industry. They offered some constructive feedback and suggested that he take classes and compete. Novo started working with a bog-box studio with two additional local area photographers, doing 40-50 wedding per year. Initially, he was hired as the third photographer, eventually moving up to second, and finally earning the Lead photographer position. Although he was gaining experience with the studio, the much-needed training was still elusive.

Finally, after about two years of event photography, Novo discovered a couple of photographers who drew him in with their style. He attended two separate 5-day workshops with Knoxville-based Bryan Allen. Allen’s Savannah and Knoxville workshops were beneficial in helping Novo learn the artistic aspects of photography. Working with technical specialist Kevin Kubota helped him learn more about the lighting and editing facets of the industry. He continues to work with both mentors and will be joining Kubota for a motorcycle tour through Italy later this year.

Through all of the training, workshops, event opportunities and practicing that Novo has accomplished over the years, the best piece of advice for improving his craft came from Grand Master of WPPI, Jerry Ghionis. The advice? One word: “compete.” As Novo learned when he first started competing, “you really aren’t as good as you think you are, but with each competition, you learn something. About you or the art, or the competitors. You go in against the best of the best. There are no levels, no ‘beginner’ groups. You are immediately tested and pushed to your limits. That’s how you improve.”

His wedding portraits are created to bring out the personalities of his clients, and that’s just what he did with his Sunset Print Award-winning print “Back Alley Beauty.” As a first-time recipient of the prestigious Sunset Print Award, Novo said the opportunity to capture the happy couple as they walked into their nuptials was too hard to pass up. “It’s important they see their style in the images. I’m taking the photos for them, not for me.”

Looking at his body of work and seeing the joy he brings to his clients on their special day, Novo realizes he’s come a long way from that first destination wedding image he captured. For him, it’s not how often one of his images is viewed, it’s about evoking emotion. As for his signature style, he says, “You might view it [an image] often, or you may view it rarely. But you will always feel it.” As long as you feel it, he’s done his job.

Prints That Win: Ambers Anticipation

During her junior year in high school, Abbie Thomas fell in love with life behind the lens while taking a photography class. She always knew photography was in her blood – thanks to her grandfather – but once she started getting hands-on experience in class, she knew this was her calling. At age 17, a friend asked if she would photograph her wedding. Without any experience, and only a high school’s class worth of training, she borrowed her grandfather’s camera, loaded it up with black and white film, and shot her first wedding.

“It was the first time I’d been able to capture a wedding from beginning to end,” Thomas says. “Sitting down with [the bride and groom] after everything was over was amazing, to see the joy on the bride’s face … I just knew this is what I wanted to do.”

Years later, her wedding portraiture work has evolved into award-winning art. For the Sunset Print Awards, Thomas submitted her PPA Northeast winning photo “Ambers Anticipation.” Thomas was inspired by the amber waves of grain when entering the portrait into competition. This wedding shoot was especially personal to Thomas: She used to babysit the bride, Claire, when she was just a girl, and she captured Claire’s youthful exuberance in her senior portrait.

When Claire got engaged, the family knew that no other photographer would illustrate the day the way Thomas could. She was given free rein by the bride to do what she does best: witness the wedding day from beginning to end. To have played an integral part in so many highlights of Claire’s life, Thomas wanted to ensure that everything was perfect at the wedding.

Printing and Sticking Custom Wedding DVD Photo Covers

Custom DVD Cover by Mark Hawkins Photography

Mark and Kelly Hawkins own and operate a high-end wedding photography studio in Green Bay, Wis., where a personal, customized experience for the bride and groom is job one. To elevate their print products, the couple invested in a Canon iPF8400 wide-format inkjet printer they picked up from LexJet and their personal printer specialist, Rob Finkel.

LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric DVD CoverMark has also struck up a friendship with Andy Wredberg, owner of AW Artworks in Sun Prairie, Wis., whose work shows up regularly here at the LexJet Blog. Andy helped Mark take the printer upgrade plunge, a plunge that Mark says made a big splash.

“We only shoot about 30 weddings per year and we want them to get the highest value possible, so the more customization we can do, the better. The Canon is such an easy printer to use, and the Photoshop plug-in that comes with it also makes it super-simple,” Mark says. “I told Rob yesterday that the bottom line is that when I hit that print button it’s exactly the way it looks on my monitor; the LexJet profiles are dead-on with pretty much every media type. It’s mind-blowing. Time is money, and I don’t want to waste time, ink and material, and with this printer I don’t.”

Mark Hawkins PhotographyAfter a wedding, Mark and Kelly deliver two main print products: a wedding album and a wall collage. Mark says that one of the reasons they got the printer was to deliver bigger and better wall collages to their clients.

“What spurred the purchase of the iPF8400 was to do some higher-end artwork; not just canvas wraps, but art paper and boutique applications for the wedding market. There are a lot of cool uses for a variety of print media in the wedding market. People spend all this money already, so they should have nice custom printed products,” Mark says.

The client also gets a DVD of all the photos from the wedding, but Mark ran into an issue when he ran out of DVD cases. The new Canon printer and LexJet Print-N-Stick Fabric came to the rescue, not only giving Mark a workaround on deadline, but a new way to present DVDs to clients.

“We were out of the cases yesterday, so I used some scrap art paper that I cut to size and folded in half, printed a nice image from the wedding on one side and the photo release for the DVD on the other side that gives them permission to do whatever they want with the images. That way you don’t have to use another piece of paper to print a release, so it kills two birds with one stone. Plus, the Print-N-Stick makes it easy to take it off and reapply it if I don’t align it correctly,” Mark says. “I love having a fully customizable product that gives us an opportunity to recycle and re-use materials that would otherwise go to waste.”