G10 magic!

Weapon of choice in some situations: The pocket sized G10 Snapshot camera.

IT'S NOT THE SIZE THAT COUNTS, IT'S HOW YOU USE IT

...and I'm talking about photography here...

Okay, when I say "It's not the size that counts, it's how you use it," I'm not trying to imply any sexual innuendo or joke here, I'm referring to the art of photography. It's a rather common occurrence to find a professional photographer utilizing the power of a large camera when shooting models, scenery, and weddings. While shooting with a large camera does have it's advantages, it still comes down to the camera operator.

One of my favorite cameras to shoot with for the past two years has been my snapshot G10. It fits in my pant's pocket, delivers incredible quality, and pretty much matches the power of most digital DSLR's when dealing in outdoor locations. I do own a Nikon DSLR, and to tell you the truth, the G10 is still my camera of choice when it comes to shooting digital shots because of it's portability.

Still not sold that the G10 can deliver great shots? Take a look at these two shots taken just a few days ago from that same snapshot camera.

The color is enhanced a bit to make the shot pop.

Contrast was added to this shot to bring out the colors. In both pictures, exposure was perfect.

The reason I can deliver great shots on the G10 is because I understand exposure, posing, and story telling rather well. Underlying truth here, it's not the brush that creates a great masterpiece, it's the artists. Many photographers will try to sell you their equipment, but equipment isn't everything when it comes to art.

I employ the G10 on my cheapest wedding package, the patriot package. I will periodically use it in my other packages to shoot family photos. Film though, is still my photographic medium of choice. If you love these colors, just wait till I post the film shots!

Anyway, hope all is well! I'm off to bed.


Steve Young
The G10 Wedding Guy

COLOR CORRECTION?

This is what I look at when I edit :)

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE COLOR BABY
..is the sky really that color....

So it's another 2:13am late night blog and I have just wrapped up a good two hour video editing session on my computer. That means I edited a wedding ceremony, checked to make sure all the sound levels were perfect, and made the color of my presentation...believable.

If you've read my biography on my website, you probably know by now that I am an ex-Hollywood screenwriter turned wedding guru. If you didn't know that...now you know. (And according to G.I.JOE, knowing is half the battle!) Because of my artistic history, this turns me into somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to my craft...or in this case, crafts.

If everything goes according to plan, it takes me roughly about 3 days to complete a wedding video presentation. It takes me roughly 1 day to edit the ceremony and to color correct it, 2 to piece together all the b-roll sequences to the ceremony, and the last day is spend rendering the completed piece to DVD or Bluray. One of the questions I often get asked by professionals and clients concerns the equipment that I use for my weddings because the footage looks awesome.

In all honesty, I use the highest grade prosumer camera there is out there on the market. The quality is quite good, but once it's color corrected, it really gets nice.

Here are some examples of how footage on my cameras look like with and without color correction.

Raw HD footage...plain and boring.

Adding color, the right colors, make all the difference doesn't it...

There are not many professionals in the wedding or movie industry that know how to color correct footage correctly. In fact, color correction in the movie industry is an entire industry within itself. Luckily, I am probably the exception to the rule as I can turn almost any footage into gold. By just hanging around the right people in California, I learned through observation and osmosis how to restore color in film footage utilizing a program called Avid Symphony. In the past 5 years, the tools in Avid Symphony had trickled down to Avid's editing line, Media Composer, a program I use religiously to edit. Now I can turn dull HD footage, into some real pieces of work that look as though they were shot on a 200k camera.

One rule though applies to when performing any type of edit, especially when it comes to video or film editing. Story is king, everything else comes second. This means that the story actually affects how I edit, including how I color correct. When the mood of the wedding gets warmer, I always add a little more red, pinks and yellows, to subtly enhance that "love" feeling. This of course goes unnoticed, and is recognized more by your subconscious than anything else. After all, editing, technically, is a subtle invisible art. If you do it correctly, no one notices you did a great job.

Every "cut" is color corrected, and color matched to the other active cameras. How many cuts are their in a wedding video? Too many to count! Let's just say the process of color correcting is rather tedious.

Talking about cutting, or editing, this too also an art that you've probably heard of when it comes to video. I'll talk about this art form in my next upcoming articles. Hope I didn't bore you!


Steven Young
The Wedding Guy

Brian and Billie!

Brian and Billie! from Steven Young on Vimeo.

BRIAN AND BILLIE

...fresh off the editing queue....

Introducing Brian and Billie, my latest completed wedding video. I really really loved Billie's stylistic "pin-up" hair and make-up. This was the first bride for me that dared to push the limits of wedding make-up, and guess what? It worked. Maybe Billie can start a new trend?

The ceremony is also a good one, so make sure you watch the video! This is tearjerker. If you keep watching the video after the ending credits, you will catch the raw footage of the marriage license signing. I think I will start adding that raw footage at the end of each wedding video. Technically, that into itself is a wedding ceremony too! Just the federal one...for tax purposes.

Steve Young
Hawaii Weddings

FILM AND AIR PRICE STUFF

AIRLINE PRICES GOING UP? REALLY?
...yes, on average by 13%!!!!!......

Have you noticed that the price for air travel are heading skywards? Last week, a couple inquired about travel to Honolulu from Birmingham, Alabama during March of 2012. Their travel agent quoted them $1500 per person. The cheapest price they could find on Expedia was $1200. The cheapest price I could get for them was $800. Yes, it's cheaper, but still...what the hell right? If a couple were to book early, in my experience, they should be able to land a $450 of $550 airline ticket. Not right now.

According to a recently published article, North American airfares have jumped 13% on average, with some cities citing airfares rising up to a whopping 28% price increase from last year. The airlines cite rising fuel cost and rising demand.

I honestly am not sure if prices will go down later this year. So if you're planning to come to Hawaii to marry, make sure you book those tickets asap before prices start to really go up.

FILM FILM FILM
Film still is king

The summer movie season is in full swing, and so far, every blockbuster movie that has hit the big screen was shot on Kodak film. Many amateur videographers, especially those in the wedding industry claim that their digital SLR's are capable of shooting the same quality of movies, but they have no idea what they are talking about because many of them never worked in the movie industry...(like me!) Many photographers also claim that digital pictures can match the quality of film. All hogwash.....

Well, why don't you be the judge? The following pictures were taken from one of my latest weddings.

This is a 24 Megapixel unedited digital picture

This is the same digital shot, touched up to add a little more color, contrast, and warmth.
All digital photos must be touched up in order to make it acceptable to the client.

This is shot on film and is not touched up at all.

Film just naturally makes everything feel more alive. Skin tones accurately replicated. Let me back that up. All tones, not just skin tones, are more accurately replicated in film than digital. Digital does not give a photographer true color tones, but a base to which a photographer can add color to try to come close to CREATE true color tones.

Shooting directly into the sun with a DSLR... DIGITAL SHOT
Do you notice the sun is a gigantic fireball?

Shooting directly into the sun on a film camera. Notice the sun is not a gigantic fireball.

Another advantage of shooting with film is that it has a very high tolerance to contrasting light situations. If a photographer overexposes a digital shot, he looses detail very quickly. But if a photographer overexposes a negative, he actually gains detail. This becomes very apparent when shooting directly into the sun with a digital camera. Digital cameras just can't shoot sunsets very well.... The sun just turns into this huge ball of fire because of the high contrast nature of the shot.

Okay, so beauty is in the eyes of the beholder right? To me, film is still king. It's obvious to me...how about you?

Anyway, this is my two cents for this weekend. I'm heading back to video editing hell. Talk to you all soon!


Steve Young
Your Hawaii Wedding Guy

ANOTHER VIDEO AND AN UPDATE.

Stephen and Tracy from Steven Young on Vimeo.

STEPHEN AND TRACY!

So here's a new video to keep you tuned in. I'll be posting a new love story pretty soon. Sorry, I've been swamped with work. Plus, I'm writing a wedding location book! Yes....I'm back in the writing game. I'm in the research phase, which is rather a pain-in-the-ass and exciting. The book will focus on beaches on Oahu, and will be filled with pictures, tons of pertinent information on which beaches are great to get married at.... It should be completed by November of this year, and ready for online publication by the beginning of 2012!


Steve Young
The Wedding Guy

Signing the marriage license...

Making it legal, and getting engaged? YES! from Steven Young on Vimeo.
Mother makes it legal, daughter gets....engaged?

MAKING IT LEGAL IN HAWAII
...a very very simple process....

Getting married in Hawaii is extraordinarily easy. All you need is a picture ID such as a driver's license, passport, or state ID, and well...that's it! There is no waiting period, no blood test, no need to post your name on a bulletin board to see if anyone objects to your marriage! Yes, that is actually still part of the marriage license process in England. The minister, of course, needs to be commissioned by the State of Hawaii. And regarding witnesses, you honestly don't need one because the minister can actually be the witness for his own ceremony. I realize a lot of wedding companies will claim you need to pay for a witness, but it's hogwash.

To get the marriage license, you can either head to the Department of Health, or to an independent agents house if you want to get your marriage license after hours, or on the weekends. Once you obtain the marriage license, all you have to do from there is to bring that license to your wedding with you. After your wedding ceremony, my minister and you and your then husband, will make it legal by filling out the blanks on the marriage license. This is where the bride, or the groom, has the opportunity to change their last name. In all my history of planning weddings, only once did I ever have a groom take his bride's last name.

After all the signing is done, my minister will mail off your license to the Department of Health. The Department of Health will then process the marriage license and turn this into a certificate of marriage. That process can take up to 200 days! I know what you're thinking.... 200 days! Don't worry...if you turn in the green paper that comes with the marriage license, plus $10, they will take about 3 to 4 weeks to get your marriage certificate to you.

So, did you watch the video yet? It's a video clip of one of our couples making it legal. Then, at the end of the video, her daughter gets the surprise of her life. It was truly a special moment! I don't get to be there for many engagements. In fact, I think this was my first one that I video taped.

Till the next post...


Steven Young
The Wedding Guy

Another Wedding Video

Nigel and Jameela from Steven Young on Vimeo.

ANOTHER WEDDING VIDEO!
...Nigel and Jameela...

Here's yet another video for you to look at. I completed this video earlier this year, and I believe I didn't post it to my website yet. Nigel and Jameela were an awesome couple. One of the challenges of photographing these two were their extreme height differences. Nigel is literally one foot taller than Jameela!

Actually, I think challenge would be the wrong word to use here, because shorter brides always make for cuter pictures. They can pull off "tip-toeing to kiss" shots quite well. Also, by placing them two inches closer to the lens, that pretty much compensates for their difference in height.

Well, I'm off to watch some tv... It's 1:40am in the morning and I think I should get betting to bed soon!

Steve

INSANE TRAFFIC VIDEO

3-Way Street from ronconcocacola on Vimeo.

INSANE NEW YORK CITY TRAFFIC VIDEO

I have quite a few couples who are from New York City. They continuously tell me that New York drivers, bicyclist, pedastrians, are probably the worse in the country. You know what, after watching this video, I have to believe them.

THE CAR IS THAT WAY

The car is that way

RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM A HALF-AWAKE WEDDING PLANNER.

Today I realized that I work faster than the speed of light. Whenever I shoot into the sun, I have to use a full flash to make sure my subjects are more than just shadows. And well, it takes sometimes 15 seconds for the flash to recycle. So technically, I work faster than the speed of light, and I have proof. I guess I can say I'm superman.

Lately, I've been realizing that I have a huge ego as I have figured out how to address myself in the fourth person. This is something NFL receivers have yet to do, which makes me feel even more of a man. How do you address yourself in the fourth person? Well, it's quite easy. It goes a little like this. "Well, if I were that wedding couple, I would have booked (insert name) to shoot my wedding." See, it's that easy.

All joking aside, I'm quite a humble person. I just know that I'm the best photographer-planner-videographer-know-it-all-in-Hawaii and I'm quite upfront about it. It's what I do to make the world a better place. Oh wait, let me address myself in the "fifth person." If I were a News Reporter, I would interview a bride who would say that Steve Young does his best to make the world a better place.

Of course, all what I say is in good humor. I kid...I kid....and guess what, I don't have any kids. Okay my fellow brides slash stalkers, time for me to get lazy and watch some horrible b-movies on TV. As you can see, I'm a funny funny guy....


Steve Young

SUPER 8 MOVIE: MY TAKE

Super 8 is "Stand By Me" with a pissed off monster

SUPER 8: THE MOVIE REVIEW, NO SPOILERS
...not for everyone...

It's 3:38am on a Saturday morning and it's time again for a late night post. This time, a non-wedding related post!

I saw the movie, Super 8 tonight. Three out of the four people who went to see the movie tonight didn't like it. I was exception to the rule. I thought it was a "good enough" movie. It wasn't an awe inspiring movie, but it was good. I think I liked it because I have a movie background, and a lot of the scenes that many considered boring were filled with screenwriter nerd talk, so I pretty much felt at home. To sum up Super 8 in a nutshell, take the innocent kids of E.T. and combine it with the storytelling of Cloverfield (I didn't enjoy Cloverfield by the way)

If you hav to choice between seeing X-Men and Super 8, I would go with X-men. I didn't see X-men yet, but I have a feeling it'll be better. If you didn't see Thor yet, I would see it because that is a good movie. And Hangover 2, that was pretty funny as well.

I'm not really much of a movie goer, but I do watch a handful of movies at home. I watch them for two reasons. One, to be entertained, but two, to make sure screenwriting craft stays in tune. As many of you know, I used to be a screenwriter, and if you don't use it, you lose it. And everything I do in the wedding industry stems from my screenwritng skills believe it or not.

Anyway, I'm off to bed... Hope you all have a great weekend!


Steve Young

HEY LOOK, IT'S ANOTHER WEDDING VIDEO

Harold and Gwen from Steven Young on Vimeo.

HAROLD AND GWEN
..their wedding video...

Guess what I'm doing right now at 1:53am in the morning. Editing yet another wedding video. Ever since I switched over to HD video coverage, which was about a year ago, I truly have been selling a lot more video packages. I have to admit, videotaping weddings in HD truly changed the game for me. To be able to compose pictures in a 16:9 format that was similar to film, well, it just made everything so much easier! Plus the resolution is just incredible. Editing...well, that's another story. It's a pain in the butt. It takes about three days to get one of these 15 to 20 minute videos done. The editing isn't too hard, but it's the rendering that just ties up the computer for 5 hours at a time!

I have another wedding today that includes video....yay! haha. Do you sense a little sarcasm in there? Haha...nah. To be honest, shooting video doesn't bother me anymore. These HD cameras are small enough for me haul around in a little tote bag. And the tripods are these cheap light ones (gotta get those for the beach). Lets just say, the technology has gotten so much lighter...

Alright, I'm back to editing...you can hit play on this video.


Steve Young
The Video Editing Wedding Guy

Did I ever tell that I was close to bald?

Just taken yesterday, that's me on the right, with lots-o-hair on my head.

I WAS CLOSE TO BALD, BUT I'M NOT ANYMORE...
I may have actually found a cure

It's 2:19am and I'm blogging just to blog. Anyway, here's a topic that just popped into my head. Did you know that I was pretty much close to being a completely bald person about one and a half years ago...maybe two years. And now, I pretty much have more hair on my head than I had when I was in my 20's? I'm not kidding here.

I started going a little thin in my mid-twenties. By 28, my hair was so thin, I couldn't style it at all. At 32, I didn't have enough hair on my head for a comb-over and I decided to wear a hat most of the time to protect my head from the sun. So what happened?

Well, one late night, I began surfing the web for hair transplant doctors. I found one doctor which I thought was really great. His name, Dr. Scott Alexander, an honest and caring doctor who practices hair-transplantation in Arizona. I sent him pictures of my head and he told me that my balding was so bad, that I would need two hair transplants....or I could try these to fix this with medication. I told him I would try the drugs first.

Dr. Alexander put me on a daily dose of Propeica and then told me to use Rogain in conjunction with it. I had used Propecia before and had horrible results. I used a form of Rogain before and that too yielded poor results. But Dr. Alexander was insistent that these two drugs had to be used to together to yield great results. So I got myself on the Propecia regimen, then bought 15% minoxidil from amazon.com. The 15% minoxidil was 10% stronger than Rogain, and I only had to apply it once at night instead of twice a day like Rogain.

Well, to make a long story short, within a month I had grown back quite a bit of hair. When month 3 came around, I had enough hair that at certain angles, it looked like I had a full head of hair. When 8 months came around, I pretty much 80% of all my hair back. It has now been a year and a half since I started my treatment and I literally have more hair on my head than I did than when I was in my 20's. My hairline has receded in the front and I may think about correcting that with a minor hair transplant, but other than that....everything looks great.

So men, if you're looking for a cure for baldness...try propecia and 15% minoxidil. It honestly works if your balding hair has turned into limp baby hairs and has gone fine on you. Places that you are completely bald and have no hair follicles...well, in those areas, you won't grow any hair back. Take note that if you do stop this regimen, you will lose all your hair that you grew in. So yes, I'll be on these drugs for the rest of my life.

Wanna also here something cool? I told a few of my couples about it, and guess what? When the grooms showed up on their wedding day, they had a full head of hair.... amazing isn't it? If you want more info about it, just ask me.

Anyway...I'm off to bed.


Steve Young
The Wedding Guy...with hair!

Looking back....

Me with my clients. Another happy customer...I think? haha..yes...of course

I'VE BEEN PLANNING WEDDINGS
FOR OVER 14 YEARS

Today is June 7th, 2011. And today, I will be planning, photographing, and video-taping my 1483rd wedding. Can you believe that? That's a big number. Some of my competitors always downplay the number of weddings which I plan because most of them are not "gala-style" weddings. While this may be true, as I only plan 1 or 2 "gala-style" weddings per month, the amount of planning that goes into an elopement is exactly the same as a gala wedding. The only difference between the two weddings is that with the gala-wedding, I just work with a rental company and caterer, and well, that's it. Some of my competion loves to jab at me because I'm truly never on the vendor side of the business, but more so, always an advocate for the bride...

Anyway, time truly flies by. Just today, I was looking at some of the articles I wrote when I was a novice in this industry. Man, was I an idiot. Well, maybe not an idiot, but there's just no way I could ever compare myself to the planner of the yesteryear, to the wedding guy of 2011. Holy crap, did I just address myself in the 4th person? I didn't even think that was possible.

You wanna know something really something strange? With as little knowledge that I possessed in 90's about the wedding industry, it was still "plethoras" more than my competitors. Fast-forwarding to the present, the wedding industry has truly changed. 15 years ago, wedding videos were still being delivered in VHS format. Now everything is HD, streamed on the Internet, and video cameras are almost obsolete, except in the professional broadcasting industry. There's a lot of new blood in the wedding industry, and they are bringing their own modern twist to weddings. Some of it is awesome, a little of it is bad...but eventually, the bad will twiddle itself out.

Well, I'll be updating a lot of my articles throughout my website. I just need to. Many articles are just outdated and a complete redo is needed. I also have to update the about me page as well. I just have a lot of updating to do..... Looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend!

Anyway...these are things just on my mind... Don't mind me, I'm just free-blogging. Is that even a term? I think I'll do this free-blogging a bit more...


Steve Young

A WEDDING VIDEO...

Mike and Anna's Hawaii Wedding from Steven Young on Vimeo.

A VIDEO AND AN UPDATE

Hey, well guess what? I haven't posted a wedding video in awhile. Actually, I have tons of videos, I just haven't posted them to my blog. If you want to see more videos, follow this link ----> http://www.vimeo.com/dreamweddings/videos I post most of my wedding videos in their entirety on there.

Mike and Anna got married on January 1, 2011 if I can recall accurately. I do remember shooting over 13 weddings in the course of 4 days during the New Years, and I was deathly sick. I had a fever of about 103, and there were times where I just wanted to puke my guts out. In fact, if I can recall correctly, I did puke my guts out on the way to a wedding...ha ha. Out of the 13 weddings my company booked, I was able to make it to 12 of them. I just couldn't muscle up the strength for the last one and had to call my good friend Mark to cover for me. So...take in mind when you watch this video, I was actually extremely sick. Everything still came out nice though.

From a recent wedding...

What have been up too lately? Not much...just editing a lot of wedding videos. That and watching a lot of movies on Netflix...and, working out. Exciting life huh? And to think, a producer wanted to make a reality show about me a year ago. Man, that would have been cancelled within a week....

We had some of the worse weather in Hawaii that I had ever seen in a long time this weekend. But now, everything seems good. We actually did a wedding on the beaches of Waimanalo during a lightning storm on Saturday. Now that was interesting. I couldn't catch any lighting on camera though. I'm just not that quick.

On other news, I've been writing a few long articles that will be critiquing the wedding industry rather harshly. Honestly, with the new blood coming into the industry, I see it evolving in a good, yet bad way. There's a double edge sword here. I'll explain it further in the articles. These articles have been difficult to write because there's a lot of great information in there, and I just want to make sure it's as entertaining as it is informative.

Okay, well..peeps...I'm outta here.

Steve Young
The Wedding Guy