The Asheville Ad Club Addy's

Saturday night I received a gold Addy award for the book that I shot for  Lark Books called Keeping Chickens - part of the Homemade Living series. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I thoroughly enjoyed working on this book with my "teammates" author Ashley English, art director and stylist Chris Bryant and editor Nicole McConville. The gold means I go on to the regional Addy's, if I understand it correctly! I have made some good friends and business contacts through the Asheville Ad Club, so I'm certainly glad I joined. Below are some of the photos from the book that I submitted:

Digital Photography Coaching

I had my first day of one on one photography training yesterday with the delightful Corrie Woods. Corrie and her husband, Jay Lichty, are in business together selling the beautiful hand made guitars that Jay crafts - their business is Lichty Guitars. Corrie photographs the making of each guitar in Jay's studio, the final products as well as the various musicians that come to try out his soon to be famous guitars, so Corrie needed a few tips on getting the specific type of shots she needed. We talked about lighting, composition, depth of field and working with people. We also discussed naming and archiving files, choosing what type of file to shoot (jpg, raw, tif)  and different types of imaging software. Corrie already has some experience so she grasped what we talked about instantly - I can't wait to see what she does next. I loved the experience! I'm available for this kind of work, so if you or anyone you know is interested, feel free to contact me.

Lightroom Makes It Easy

I have been working on a fun personal project this week - a book documenting my third wonderful year with my boyfriend, Steve. It started out with a simple idea - I would just make a card featuring photos from some our experiences from the past year, but then before I knew it I was designing a cover for a custom made box I recently discovered that you can order from WHCC. Once I had that "shipped" online, I started tinkering with the idea of creating a book. Nothing big, just a simple book. However, in the process of reviewing the hundreds, maybe thousands of photos I've taken, I realized that if I was going to put this much time just editing the photos, I needed a bigger story, and thus, a bigger book. So, two days later, after working at a frantic pace, I finished printing a sweet little collection of images from our past year together - with the goal of doing one every year in the future. Of course, the book was designed to fit inside the box I had ordered.

What made the entire project less overwhelming was the wonderful product made by Adobe called Lightroom. I had just upgraded to version 3, and what a worthy upgrade purchase that was. I was able to create collections that I could quickly drag selected photos to, and I could easily move them around to put them in the right order. The new print module made it very easy to lay out the pages, and I was able to print two pages on each sheet of paper which were centered so that it just required a few chops on the paper cutter to make the pages the same size and correctly lined up. Finally, I took my book to Will at Henco in downtown Asheville, and he quickly punched the holes to make a spiral binding. Voila! Done.

I've already created a new folder called "Year Four" so that I can just drag images there to eliminate the hours of editing next year. Maybe next time I'll spring for one of the WHCC beautiful bound books.

Now Offering Private Tutoring!

Over the past week, I've had several friends and former clients ask if I would give private photography lessons to them, and I thought "Why not?". Many people have specific needs that they just needs someone to help them with - be it photographing employees, products, documentation for a blog, etc, archiving their images, etc. Therefore I will be offering private lessons beginning this week. For more information, you can contact me at lynne@lynneharty.com or call me at 828-777-7073.

Introduction to Digital Photography Workshop in Cashiers, NC

I am planning a weekend photography workshop in a beautiful private setting in Lonesome Valley - Cashiers, NC May 13-15th, 2011. We will be learning about the basics of digital photography while enjoying springtime in the mountains, and shooting in places that cannot usually be accessed unless you live in the community of Lonesome Valley. You will have a real opportunity to explore and photograph a place that is not usually accessible to the public. Lynne will give you lots of tips to take better photographs of people, still lifes, nature and landscapes by learning about composition, lighting, point of view and depth of field through presentations and hands on experiences.

 Enjoy homemade goodies for breakfast Saturday and Sunday, as well as a delicious picnic lunch in a private natural setting at the base of Laurel Knob - surrounded by rhododendron and ferns. The weekend will be a one of a kind experience sure to be informative and enjoyable for anyone who loves to take pictures and be in the outdoors. The cost is $395 per person for the weekend - affordable housing is available on site. For a flyer with details, click here.This workshop is limited to 10 people, so please sign up soon!

Print Signing at the Biltmore Estate Wednesday November 3rd

Thankfully the Carraige House gift shop on the Biltmore Estate is going has started carrying my Biltmore series of prints (in addition to Traditions). I will be there tomorrow, November 3rd, to sign prints and meet people as they put up the "big tree". Christmas already? I am sure it will be exciting to see all the holiday decorating begin on such a massive scale. I've never seen the Biltmore Estate during the holidays, but plan to this year!

LYNNE HARTY PHOTOGRAPHY: 24 hours uplugged

LYNNE HARTY PHOTOGRAPHY: 24 hours uplugged: "My boyfriend and I have been threatening to go camping for over a year and a half - as that is how long ago it was that we purchased our ten..."