We just got back from filming and running a photobooth for the wedding of Rafaela and Athus. They make a beautiful couple and had a beautiful wedding.
Here are a few shots from the booth.
Click here to see the full gallery.
A week after our first photo booth sucesses we had the pleasure to run another photo booth for Fabiana and Guilherme's beautiful wedding. Our custom photo booth broadcasts all the photos over our private WiFi network and many of the guests connected to share their photos with friends and family. Our Carpe Lucem photo booth is turning out to a blast for all of our guests and and us as well!
Last night we had the joy of photographing Marcelle's and Luciano's wedding. This time we encorporated a photo booth and as you can see below the guests had a great time with it!
In addition to our passion for photography, we also love playing with technology. With the photo booth had the opportunity to experiment with some cool new ideas customly built by Carpe Lucem! Nerd alert!!! This blog post is going to a bit more technical side after this point. So if that type of stuff bores you, feel free to bail out and check out the rest of the photo booth pictures.
Click here to see all of the photo booth pictures!
If you're still with us, allow us to explain a bit how our photo booth worked. After guest posed for a picture, their images would show up on our iPad to a centralized gallery. They also could upload photos that they've taken with their smart phones to the gallery as well. To make it all work, we used pocket wizards to trigger our flashes and an Eye-Fi card to transmit the photos via a Linksys wireless router we set up. We used a small "mini-computer" called a Raspberry Pi running the Linux operatating system to handle all of the backend work. It ran a customly built server application writen in node.js. The node.js server managed both the upload of photos and the web gallery.
To get the photos from the Eye-Fi card to the Raspberry Pi, we originally planned on using FTP. As it turns out, when using FTP with Eye-FI cards you must be connected to the internet. Our router did not have an internet uplink so that wasn't going to work. After doing some research we found opensource alternatives! We ended up using a python based open source program called eyefiserver. It communicated with the card and dumped all photos into a directory. We had another small program that periodically checked for new photos in the specified directory and when found, they were imported into the gallery. We made a smiple iPad wrapper app that loaded up the gallery web page for people to see their photo results.
From start to finish, we created this project in about five days so it is still a bit rough around the edges. In fact, on the drive over to the wedding, we were adding a few last minute final touches. For the most part, everything worked well but we weren't entirely pleased with the performance. Mainly, there was a bit of latency from the time when the photo was taken to when it appeared on the iPad. Also, the entire UI was written in HTML and jQuery mobile, and it seemd a bit cluncky. There also wasn't a nice way to see the latest photos ouside of refreshing the page. Anyway, we plan to improve on this system and incorporate it in future shoots so stay tuned!
Just heading back from a seven hour long wedding and what an adventure it was!
After driving to Gaithurburg MD, we immediately split up to photograph the bride and the groom in different locations.
In a very emotional ceremony, we could see the love that has kept them together for 13 years. We were so glad to capture such a special family on their wedding day.
We also set up a mobile Photo Booth and below are some of our favorites. There's much more to come, follow the light and stay tuned!
Andrei called us last minute with a concerned voice. It had been a long time since his entire family has been all together but the stars aligned and everyone was in town for the weekend. He did not want to let this opportunity to go by without getting family pictures. The only day that worked for both of us was one where we had another shoot later that afternoon. It was going to be a tight squeeze but we didn't want this family bonding moment to go by without being documented!
We were all set to meet at the National Arboretum -- a favorite location of ours -- to photograph the ten-member Barros family until we saw the forecast! The night before the shoot, the weather channel warned of scattered thunderstorms. We did not want to take any chances when it comes to lightning so we switched to an indoor setting. We met at Studio Arto instead of the outdoor location. The studio is easily accessible and allows the little ones to take a stroll while the adults were modeling for our lenses. It was a relaxed setting and a great family dynamic. Everyone was up for goofing off a bit which made for memorable family moments. How about you? When was the last time you documented your growing family or had updated your family album? Make sure not to leave anyone behind!
Juliana's absolute favorite place in DC is Georgetown so we HAD to photograph her there. We were blessed with amazing weather and great natural light. Juliana was truly in her natural habitat on M Street NW. As the sun began to set, we took out our portable lighting setup to add some dimensionality to the images. Enjoy the photos!
Our good friend Juliana wanted some portraits done with the backdrop being the Washington, DC city scape. With that, we hit the streets destined for Eastern Market, the Library of Congress and Georgetown. In the middle of the shoot, we had some rain and wind to deal with which forced us to tak a short detour into the Building Museum. I'm glad we did it becaues we were able to capture some nice indoor portriats with the beautiful architeture as a background. The elements definitely tested our will but we prevailed and produce some great shots. Juliana was more than willing to go with the flow and have fun while doing it. The rain prematurely ended our shoot so the trip to Georgetown had to be postoned. We hope you enjoy some of the final images as much as we enjoyed creating them and stay tuned for part two!
Besides the amazing shoot we had with the Gomes couple in the middle of a snow storm, not too many people request for outdoor photo shoots during the winter months. So when Evelyn reached out to us about the possibilty of doing an outdoor shoot at the end of February we had to ask her to repeat herself to make sure we heard right. We definitely heard right and she was definitely determined to make it happen. WeWe set up a time to meet with her at the National Arboretuem on a chilly Saturday morning. Evelyn was such a good sport, even in the below freezing weather. We got some amazing photos of the photogenic Evelyn. We even had a chance to play with some artificial snow. Take a look at a few of our favoraites below.
We love shooting on location. Being able to capture memories in a familiar place (such as your own home) can help to put you at ease when we're pointing a camera in your general direction. A conventional studio sometimes can feel cold or put people at ease but it offers complete light control to the photographer. When shooting on location, light control is a luxury that is harder to come by. Just because you're on location though, doesn't mean you can't get studio quality photos. Over the holidays, we photography Josh, Dori and their beautiful daughter Rose. They had an empty wall and a nearby window. We used the window as a fill light, and unbrella as the main light and another flash to whiten the background. Below is the result. Have a great day!
We at Carpe Lucem Photography hope that our clients had a great holiday season. We look forward in serving you and your family this year. Wishes of true joy, hapiness and light throughtout 2013!
Once again we had the joy to snap some photos from the fun and loving Pospesel family.
It's amazing how connected and caring this family is, and how spontaneous they are!
How can you hold your smile while looking at such perfect link among them?!
Happy holidays!
I don't know about you, but for us, everything seems to go into overdrive during the holidays. We took this photo of a motorcyclist zipping along his way yesterday and in some ways, it reminded us of how busy we tend to be around this time of year. It's so easy to be consumed with checking everything off on your todo list before the new year comes around that you don't get a chance to really enjoy time with friends and family. For this holiday season, stop and take a breath and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas!
The north east part of the unitied states got dealt a big blow with a mega storm (aka Sandy) that left thousands without power, lower Manhattan flooded and nearly 100 people dead. The storm's path through Washington, DC thankfully wasn't as devastating as many predicted. With that said, Sandy wanted to make sure to leave it's mark. Several trees in the National Mall area were effected as seen above. Stay tuned for more photos!
It wasn't but a few short weeks after we did a maternity session with Dani that baby Kyle entered the world. This little guy was enamoured with all of the new faces and just didn't want to fall asleep. When we finally got him sleeping, he definitely didn't want to doze off for too long. He was great to photograph and is an amazing addition to the family. For this shoot we experimented a bit in post. Let us know what you think!
Last week, we had the previlage of being the photographers for Alex's first birthday. It's a momentus occation for both Alex and his parents. It was evident that Alex loved his Lego themed party and we were glad we were there to capture the moment.
Click here to see the entire gallery.
A couple weeks ago, we had the chance to photograph this beautiful mom-to-be. Baby Kyle was a very active boy and kept on trying to show he was in charge of the session making mom laugh or surprised by his kicks. Mom and dad were very anxious to see your beautiful face.
Enjoy the sneak peek!
This past week we shot a wedding for a great couple. It was an outdoor event and the ceremenoy was very elegent and laid back. It was a pleasure and honor to be the photographers for this day of celebration. We still have a lot of photos to edit, but below is a sneak peak
The other day we visited the fish market on Main avenue,NE DC to help a colleague for a photography class.
It was surprising how nice people were and how easy it was to photograph them.
Take this man as an example, he has been working as a fisherman since he was twelve years old! He taught us to differentiate a female from a male crab.
Please "note the "nails", he said, You know how you girls like to paint them? So do the female crabs"
We also saw puffer fish (puffing), lobsters, fish fish and more fish... Better get going, the camera and us are starting to smell like fish.
Enjoy the pictures!
Many of the shoots that we do are done on location and our trusty Canon speed lights to illuminate the scenes. However, we recently got a chance to book some time at Studio Arto along with a fellow photographer (check his work out at http://www.robertnursephotography.com).
Although the set up was different to what we were used to, it definitely was a welcome change to work with studio strobes and nice large soft boxes. We were also lucky that the amazing Kate was gracious enough to model for us. We had a blast with this shoot and you can tell why. Kate is a natural, loves the camera and is super photogenic. Hope you enjoy the results as much as we did.
We had the amazing opportunity to snap some engagement photos of Darren and Darol. We couldn't have asked for a better couple to photograph. They were fun and naturals in front of the camera. It was clear to see that they are madly in love with each other and that made our job even easier.
The photo session took place in Solomons Island, Maryland. According to Wikipedia, Solomons Island takes it's name from a 19th century business man from Baltimore but the island has been inhabited since colonial times. It's a tiny island (we were able to walk it in about 30 minutes) but it's very beautiful and quaint. Take a look at some of our favorite photos from the shoot.
