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Photo District News has announced the winners of their fifth annual Top Knots: The New School of Wedding Photography competition. If you've got any interest in wedding photography, you'll want to take a look at the winning images here.

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger

From Malta to the Caribbean and lots of places in between, today is a day to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.  Lots of people think it’s Mexican Independence Day, which actually comes in September. The fact that it's not an official holiday in Mexico also comes as a surprise to many of us North of the border, but it hasn’t stopped some of us, whether or not we’re of Mexican descent, to use it as an excuse to eat tacos and do shots of tequila.

We’re using it as an excuse to take some pictures, how about you? If there is a Cinco de Mayo celebration where you are, get out there and take some shots! 

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger 

Hey there!

We've had a restful and restorative holiday and now we're back to work. If you placed an order over the Passover break, first of all, thanks. Second, we'd like to ask for your patience while we catch up on the back log of orders placed during that time. All the orders will be processed in the order in which they were received; please add an additional 1-2 days onto our normal processing turnaround time. For specific questions about your order please contact photolab@adorama.com.

Thanks again for being AdoramaPix customers!

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger

We'll be closed all next week in observance of Passover. Our site will be up and running and you can place orders, but no orders will be processed until we come back from holiday on Monday morning the 28th of April. At that time, please allow an additional one to two days processing turnaround on all orders.

Happy Passover!

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger

Customer Profile: Dennis Small

For this week’s Customer of the Week, it’s all about a single moment in time, and above all else, capturing what he sees.  He spent the majority of last year capturing those single moments in stunning shot after stunning shot of wildlife in a local park. He thrives on the great outdoors, whether it’s the heat of summer or dead or winter, and what really turns him on is seeing something in the photo that he didn’t see through the view finder. He calls it “the weepy eye moment.” We call it great photography. Check out Dennis Small, our Customer of the Week.

Your happiest photo accident?
Shooting into the sun exactly opposite of what I should have been doing and captured a once in a life time shot.  Since then I try to not follow rules.  The more things people tell me I should try the more I am convinced to try the opposite. Among the people who I believe take some great photos; no two of them do the same thing.

Your biggest photo dilemma?
A friend begged me to do his wedding. I told him I don’t do people however, they wore me down. I made no guarantees. I had bought a flash but had not used it before.  I took a few shots in the house a couple of days before. The day of the wedding I drove about 50 miles to HOLY HILL CHURCH which was a big white tent shaped like an old military style Quonset hut. Inside it was pretty chilly and a salamander was started to heat the place. Three fluorescent lights hung about 12 feet over head. No windows. I was sweating bullets. With the building not having heat and then the salamander warming things up the ceiling began to rain the moisture. You could hear the drops on metal chairs. Because the noise interfered with the ceremony someone turned off the heater. Instant camera fog made shooting impossible. There was no place to stage any photos, nothing good like a regular church. They happened to have this blue velvet curtain that separated the stage area.  The curtain really helped offsetting the cast shadow with all the white. At the time I hadn’t done many people pictures and less with a flash indoors. I do mostly candid type photography so I had never thought about trying to set wedding pictures up. My wife went along and she helped. To my surprise I was able to get some decent photos and they were happy. Not me. I thought about all the things I could have done better. Will I ever do a wedding again? Only if I am a guest and everything is candid! 

Your favorite photo of yours and why?
An egret flying with the shadow of its head showing through the wing.  I only had my camera a few days and not knowing much of anything took the shot into the sun as the bird lifted off and was flying low across some grasses and small stream. The camera was on full automatic, trigger down and good thing it was. 

Where do you live?
Enola, Pa.  Lucky me that my family located so near the Susquehanna River with so many smaller streams, wetlands and a few land preserves that provide a large diverse group of models.

What do you do for a living?
I took a buyout and retired from the 9 to 5.  I carve birds and do custom woodwork which I planned to pursue as the next career until the camera became the main time consumer. I hope it becomes much more.

Tell me something you plan to do today.
I am cutting the leg off one of my camouflage pants to use on the lens to help me get closer to my quarry.  Then I am going to paint my tripod with bow paint which I think will be a lot more flexible than using coats and cheaper. 

Till next time,
Amelia Levine
The AdoramaPix Blogger

 Sotheby's auction of The Quillan Collection on Monday raked in $8.9 million in the first day of a big week in the world of art photography sales. Records were set for Weston prices, as well as for Paul Strand. Read the story here.

Till next time,

Amelia Levine
The AdoramaPix Blogger

Art and photography intersect at the Getty Center now thought August 10th in “The Artist and the Camera.”

On display is David Hockney’s Pearblossom Hwy., 11 – 18 April 1986, #2, a large photo mosaic made of individual photographs.
While you are at the website you can explore the show and other goings-on at the Getty Center here.

Be sure to check out the current projects section where you can get involved in creating a documentation of photographic materials from back in the day, before digi.

Till next time,
Amelia Levine
The AdoramaPix Blogger

Congratulations to the Washington Post, who took six Pulitzer Prizes this year. For photography, the Prizes went to Reuters photographer Andrees Latif for his shot of a Japanese videographer fatally wounded in a street demonstration in Myanmar and Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor for the account of a family's struggle with a parent's terminal illness. Congratulations again to all the winners.

You can see the whole list here.

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger

The Tartan Day parade was a blast! Check out the photos I took!

Pretty, yes?

And check out these guys ...

I especially like the leopard print thing the drummer is sporting. Anyone know what it's called?

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger

Last week, I blogged about Sotheby's acution of "Leaf," the photogenic drawing thought to be possibly the earliest photographic image. In today's NY Sun, Marion Maneker writes about the spate of photography auctions that will be held in the coming week. Notable among them is the Quillan Collection (which also happens to contain the since withdrawn "Leaf") for its scope of photographic history, and the Phillips acution with prints from Bert Stern's famous "last sitting" with Marilyn Monroe and a collection of Diane Arbus prints discovered in a storage locker in 2002.

Till next time,

Amelia Levine

The AdoramaPix Blogger