We shot Diane and Benny’s wedding a couple of weeks ago and it was truly an unforgettable event!  There were tons of gorgeous details EVERYWHERE and a ton of fun to photograph!  It is always awesome working with my good friend Tami Winn as I know the wedding will be fun and very organized! Here is a full list of the wonderful vendors who made this a truly spectacular wedding…

Wedding Coordinator/Florist - Tami Winn Events & le Fleur Couture
Ceremony - First Baptist Dallas(Meghan Mazzola)
Reception - The Adolphus Hotel
Band - Bullet Proof Brass
Lighting - Lite Dallas
Videographer - Turquoise Video
Cakes - Frosted Art
Ice Carver - James Pappas
Magician - Steffen Banta
Photobooth - Booth Booth
Character and Balloon Artists - Merry Makers

Here are just a few highlights from the day…

Diane and Benny getting ready…

Diane’s dress probably has the most intricate detailing of any dress I have ever seen!

Diane gets some help putting the dress on…

The jewelry collection worn by Diane was AMAZING!

Since the wedding is over, here are  a few shots of Diane’s bridal session…

They had a GREAT first glance…

A couple of them together…

Benny in front of the Rolls!

LOVE this moment!

They had a HUGE bridal party, so I had to be creative!  Can you guess how I lit everyone?

Diane was all smiles walking down the aisle…

Benny looking at Diane as she walks down the aisle…

The kiss!

Alone time…

Diane and Benny and the Rolls…

LOTS of AMAZING details everywhere!

I really think that Diane’s ring is the biggest one I have ever photographed! Simply Gorgeous!

The first dance…

The room…

The exit…

Congrats again Diane and Benny!  I should have the rest of the photos online in a couple of weeks!

Over $4000 in Products and Prizes will be awarded to ONE very lucky participant! The first person to complete all of the following photo tasks below during the WPPI tradeshow will win ALL of the prizes below!! No second places here!! Actual proof of all the photos must be shown to either Alycia or Kevin to confirm the win. The photo taken with Alycia or Kevin MUST be the final task on your journey.(This is to ensure that they can verify all the photos and name a winner.)

Good Luck to All!!

1. AZURA ALBUMS(Booth #213) - You must take a photo with either Lek or Shelly Etwara while holding an album designed by Alycia or Kevin! Show tip - Check out the amazing new Cover options Azura has including the Leather, Ostrich, Gator, and Python just to name a few!!! ***PRIZE*** - Winner will receive a 40 page 12×12 Print and Bind Album valued at $450!

2. JEN’S FABULOUS STUFF(Booth #1125) - You must take a photo with Jen Hillenga in her booth. Show tip - Jen has some amazing collections of templates, designs, and tools for all photographers!!(Check out the really cool new Posing guides, love notes and tiara templates!) ***PRIZE*** - Winner will receive their choice of either Jen’s children or high school senior posing guide valued at $149!!

2. WHCC (Booth #1201) - You must take a photo of the back wall of Gallery Wraps in the WHCC Booth. Show tip - Check out the exciting new products that WHCC has in their booth! Very cool Image Boxes, DVD Cases, Mini Accordion Books, Gallery Wraps, etc…. ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a free gallery wrap, press printed album, image box, and CD Case valued at $319

4. POCKETWIZARD(Booth #201) - You must take a photo with Pocketwizard Product Marketing Manager Phil Braden. Show tip - Try out the awesome Mini and Flex units with full ETTL capability. Also, the new Pocketwizard Plus 2 Units will he here! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive 2 NEW Pocketwizard Plus 2 Units valued at $368!

5. WPPI(Booth #1375) - You must find and take a photo with WPPI Director of Operations, Arlene Evans. For those of you that do not know her, this is your chance to meet her as she is a driving force in putting all of this together! She will be all over the place, so find her and thank her!! ***Prize*** Winner will receive FREE registration to next year’s WPPI convention in Las Vegas valued at $399!!

6. TRIPLE SCOOP MUSIC(Booth #206) - You must take a photo of yourself wearing the headsets and listening to the music in the Triple Scoop Music Booth. Show tip - Take advantage of an incredible show special that Triple Scoop is having on the first 2 days of the tradeshow! They are having a 50% off show special and including free songs with any purchase! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a custom 10 song collection from Triple Scoop Music valued at $600!!

7. DURY’S(Booth #821) - You must simply take a photo of the Dury’s booth with the banner showing! Show tip - Check out the incredible Cheetah light stands!! You won’t believe how easy these things will make your life! Once you see it in action, you will have to add it to your gear! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a Will Crockett “Lights, Camera, Profit” DVD valued at $40

8. TRICOAST PHOTOGRAPHY - You must take a photo with either Mike Fulton or Cody Clinton of TriCoast. They will be easy to find as they will be speaking quite a bit at the tradeshow as well as at a platform class. Show tip - These guys are great at what they do and if you need some wireless flash tips, buy them a drink and they will teach you all sorts of good things! ***PRIZE***Winner will receive Tri Coast’s new Guide to ETTL Flash and their Finding Color Action Set valued at $175!

9. PHOTOIDENTITIES(Booth #1376) - You must take a photo with either Vera or Max in the Photoidentities booth. Show tip - If you are looking for a very cool blog or need some SEO help, check out these guys as they have some amazing stuff! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a FREE Photoidentities Blog as well as hosting for 1 year valued at $199!

10. GET OUT OF THE HOTEL! - Since we don’t want you to spend ALL of your stay in Vegas inside, we thought the following photos would be fun! You must take a photo of yourself with the Bellagio Fountains in the background as well as get a shot of the Vegas strip from the top of the Stratosphere Hotel at night. (You had to know we were not going to make this journey too easy!)

11. AFTERDARK EDUCATION(Booth #1776) - You must take a photo with Kevin Jordan or Dave Junion in the Afterdark booth. Show tip - The AfterDark series is seriously one of the best learning environments and concepts around! It is all hands on with some of the world’s top photographers! If you are serious about improving your skills, then check these guys out! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a FREE registration to any upcoming AfterDark Seminar this year valued at $400!!

12. DESIGN REVOLUTION(Booth #1153) - You must get your photo taken with Julie Klassmeyer in the Design Revolution booth. Show tip - These guys have some really cool templates and designs for TONS of different products! If you are a baby or child photographer, you will be in Heaven in this booth! ***PRIZE*** Winner will receive a DVD of Design Revolution’s NEW Photobox Template Collection valued at $125!!

13. RINGS to RATTLES WITH KEVIN AND ALYCIA - Your FINAL photo must be taken with either Kevin or Alycia and then they will declare a winner once all photos are checked for accuracy. Show tip - Kevin and Alycia will be all over the tradeshow area, classroom area, and hotel in general. so it should be no problem finding them! (You can also check their schedules at the WPPI website or tradeshow booths of the Sponsors for this contest.***PRIZE***Winner will receive KJ’s Dramatic Lighting DVD, Texture Set, Action Set and Alycia’s Kid Quote Templates, Formatted Quotes, Bella Baby Bundle, Romance Album, and Business Bundle all valued at $1175!!

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE!!

Ed Pierce of Photovision called me last year and said he would be interested in filming me for his awesome DVD series called Photovision.  I, of course, was thrilled to be invited, and we had a great time filming it!!  If you are a professional photographer and do not get Photovision, you are really missing out!  It is some of the most informative and well explained instructional tools out there in my opinion!

In fact, if you goto the website and enter the PROMO code JAIRAJ when you check out, you can get the whole 2010 series for only $39!!!(regularly $149).

In fact, you can see a sneak preview of my segments by clicking here….  Kevin’s Photovision Trailer

I am humbled to have been asked to take part  in a revolutionary FREE  Marketing Websummit on December 28 for photographers and am VERY excited about it.  28 of the TOP photographers in the world will be sharing their marketing tools and tips!  Photographers, click the banners above or below to register for free!  You won’t want to miss it as the list of names speaking reads like a WHO’s WHO of photography!

Here is a video explaining in detail the Websummit in even more detail!

P.S. If you’re not available on December 28, 2009 or want to get a head start on 2010 planning for your business, you can purchase the Adobe FLASH files of all 14 hours for $89 and receive access to the speaker presentations IMMEDIATELY. A pre-websummit special price of $59 is available until December 27. Just register before December 28, 2009, and you’ll receive this special offer!

P.P.S. The Joy of Marketing has partnered with PPA Charities to change the world - one smile at a time.  Join us in raising funds for PPA’s charitable partner, Operation Smile, whose network of volunteers work worldwide to repair childhood facial deformities including cleft lips and cleft palates.

Here is just a sneak peek of how much fun we had at Megan and Coy’s Wedding at Moon River Ranch Yesterday!!  What a great group!!  More to come soon!!!

I am truly honored to be featured on Pocketwizard’s website!!  For those of you that don’t know, Pocketwizard is one of the biggest names in the photography industry and their products are used by almost every photographer out there!  When I was in Vegas last month, the company approached me and wanted me to test the new Mini and Flex units in downtown Vegas and I gladly accepted!  The new units work VERY well and I have integrated them into all of my weddings since then!  The ability to have wireless ETTL with my flashes has really made my reception shooting a total joy!! In fact, all of my reception shots from the last few weddings have  been shot using the new Mini and Flex units!!

Here is a quick video from the Pocket Wizard site that shows me shooting the new units…

I get a ton of questions from photographers around the world every week, but by far the most questions I get have to do with how I light my subjects to get those really cool dramatic images!  So, we decided to release a DVD to show photographers a step by step guide to EXACTLY what I do!!

If that wasn’t enough, we went out and shot at the worst times of day(1pm to 4pm) in full harsh sunlight and then had a night shoot with almost no available light to work with!  We demonstrated how we could create amazing images no matter what lighting or location you are in.  As a wedding photographer, this is CRUCIAL as we sometimes do not get to pick our times and locations!

I go over all my equipment as well as well as all my shot settings for each image.  All shots are done with only one light! (Either a Profoto portable strobe or a video light.)  We photographed both a bride and a high school senior on the DVD as my style of photography works for both!

In addition, I threw in a couple of post processing videos to demonstrate what I do as well as a behind the scenes video look at me in action at an actual wedding!

The response to the DVD so far has been great and I thought I would extend our WPPI special of $99 through March 31st. (regular $125)  Just enter the code “WPPI” when you click the link below.

KJ”S Dramatic Lighting DVD

Here is a sample clip from the DVD…

Shooting in Harsh Light and Difficult Locations from Kevin Jairaj on Vimeo.

WOW, what an incredible 8 days in Vegas!! WPPI is our annual International Photography convention in which over 12,000 photographers attended this year! Alycia and I had one of the most hectic schedules of anyone there, but we had so much fun meeting everyone and teaching all of our classes! Here is a breakdown of our week…

Wednesday night - We had a chance to meet all of the PLUS class attendees at a cocktail reception as well as see some old friends! Alycia and I then had a WONDERFUL dinner at Emeril’s(courtesy of Skip Cohen) with some of the BEST photographers in the world!(Who I am proud to also call my friends.)

Thursday and Friday - We had the most awesome PLUS class!! I think we had folks from over 5 countries represented in our class alone!(The Marshall Islands, The Philippines, Malaysia, Canada, Guatamala, and the US!) Everyone was so eager to learn and asked some great questions!! Thanks also to our amazing Sponsors who gave us a TON of cool door prizes(I think everyone in the class won something!!)

I even got WPPI’s own Shauna Harris to do a little modeling for the class! Here is a fun shot in front of MGM…

Here is a shot of Alycia and I with our class on the last day…

Saturday - I judged the Print Competition this year and saw some AMAZING images!! The quality simply keeps getting better EVERY year!!  Since it was Valentine’s Day, Alycia and I went out to dinner at Craftsteak and then had front row seats to the Wayne Brady show at the Venetian!  First off, the steaks at Craftsteak were awesome to say the least!!   We will definitely be eating there again!

Next, we went to the Wayne Brady show and had a total blast!!  Wayne is so incredibly talented, it’s crazy!!  Almost the whole show is improv and I don’t remember laughing that much in a long time!!  He is such a great guy as well as we hung out with him a little after the show!

Here’s a shot of us with Wayne Brady…

Sunday - I judged the Print competition all day and then was invited by the great folks at Pocketwizard to test out some new products with a live shoot on the Vegas Strip!  I had a blast and the new stuff is totally exciting!!  In fact, I will blog about the products soon!

Monday - Alycia and I attended a cool focus group meeting during the day and then had our Platform Class at night!  We had a total blast with everyone and the feedback has been tremendous!! A special thanks to Laura, Lowell, Shannon, Starla,  and Melissa for helping us with everything!  I also want to give a special shoutout to the guys at Dury’s who went above and beyond to support us as did the folks at Azura albums!  Thanks also to all of our great sponsors who provided great doorprizes!!  The footballs were a hit and the Apple ITouch that WHCC gave us to give away went over quite well!

Thanks to Shannon for the following 2 pics of us at our Platform class…

Me answering  questions afterwards…

Kenny Kim got this one of me throwing some footballs during our program!  The footballs were a hit!!

Tuesday - Both Alycia and I spoke at the WHCC booth(Which looked incredible BTW!)  and then we finally had a chance to walk around the tradeshow for a bit before heading off to speak at a WPPI Townhall meeting that night.  We then had dinner with our WONDERFUL album company - AZURA Albums!  It was great getting to know Lek and Shelly better and the sample albums they made for us looked incredible!!  Here is a shot of the booth with our images and then all of us…

Wednesday - We spoke at the WHCC booth again and then walked around the tradeshow some more before attending the awards ceremony.  Our equipment supplier, Dury’s, seemed jam packed everytime we walked by!  We are not surprised as we feel that they are the best in the business and we wouldn’t get our camera gear anywhere else!!  Here are a couple of quick shots of Ron and his crew in action!!(Look at all the people!!)

We also took a quick shot of the Photoidentities booth(who provide my blog!!)  They used a bunch of our images as well and it looked really cool!  Vera and Max do a fantastic job with websites and blogs, so if you need one, contact them asap as they had some amazing deals!!

OK, so then we made our way to the Awards ceremony.  I didn’t really expect to win anything this year since I only entered a few prints, but I was pleasantly surprised when I won 2nd place in the high school senior category and 3rd place in the animal/pets category!  I was shocked to say the least, but I won’t complain!! =)

Here are my winning images…

It was a crazy busy week, but a ton of fun!  It was also great to see a lot of old friends and to meet new ones!  I am already looking forward to our trip next year!

I am VERY excited about getting to Vegas tomorrow!

….for all you photographers who are attending… Here is my speaking schedule for the week…I would love to meet you guys!! I can’t wait to see everyone, including my amazing vendors, sponsors, and friends!!

2/12 - Plus Class - Sold Out
2/13 - Plus Class - Sold Out
2/14 - Print Judging
2/15 - Print Judging
2/16 - Rings to Rattles Platform Class with Alycia - 6:15pm rm #319/320!
2/17 - WHCC Tradeshow Booth - 1:15pm-1:45pm
2/17 - WPPI TownHall Meeting 6:15-8:15 MGM Conference Center, 3rd Floor Ballroom.
2/18 - WHCC Tradeshow Booth - 1:15pm-1:45pm
2/18 - Meet the Speaker 3pm-5pm

Feel free to visit www.wppionline to get more information!

For my clients, I will check my email in the evenings and will still have my cell phone around in case of anything urgent.

Thanks and I can’t wait to see everyone this week!

I’m actually in my New York hotel as I type this as I have a REALLY cool engagement session in NYC tomorrow, but I wanted to post a few shots I took from our Rings to Rattles Workshop that Alycia and I had in Tampa the last two days! It was great meeting and getting to know everyone there and we made some good friends as well!

We all had a great time photographing Jaymie on Monday and got tons of great stuff! Here is quick sampling of the stuff that I was teaching at the seminar. Check out Alycia’s blog soon for a cool family she photographed as well!

I LOVE the mood in this shot!

The class LOVED learning how to shoot these!(Thanks Christin for letting us use your Maserati in the first shot!!)

We found some cool railroad tracks for the next two shots!

Thanks again to all the attendees as we had a total blast with everyone and can’t wait to see you all again soon!