Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We wish everyone a safe and joyous holiday season this year. Thank you to all our customers for the wonderful experiences and memories and as always, thank you for your business. Merry Christmas everyone! and a Happy New Year!

Canon Powershot SX50 HS Sample Images

I have started my testing of the new Canon Powershot SX50 HS camera. I have included some sample images to show you the range of quality to expect. I bought this camera on recommendations from David Ziser's blog, Digital Pro Talk. I was also looking for a great walk around camera that would cover a wide range of optics,be lightweight and not break the bank. This camera has fit the bill so far. I find it very versatile for lanscapes, wildlife, and studio portraits if needed. The 12 megapixels is large enough to give me a decent usable digital file. I started off using RAW format thinking this would give me the most resolution, but I also find that using CS6 with Bridge in Adobe Camera Raw, I can tweak jpeg files just fine. The camera is a bit slow focusing but I think it is more me, I am not familiar with the Canon product yet. I have more images at our main site, The Portrait Gallery Niagara.

Canon xs50 hs ...WoW!

I am testing out the new Canon Powershot XS50 HS camera this week. I think it will make a great walk around camera. The optics on this camera are simply put...WOW! Here is an image I shot today, hand held, at the Erie County Botanical Gardens. One at 24mm and one at 1200mm, yes the 35mm equivilant to 1200mm, holy cow what a lens. Pretty awesome for a point and shoot camera. I have lots more testing to do but so far I like what I see. More to come soon.

How to Decorate your Wedding Reception Facility on a Budget.

Mr.& Mrs. Signs by Lisa Englert

I fell in love with these chair signs...but not so much with the price! We decided to recreate them to fit our wedding budget. First we started off by purchasing 2 wood plaques from Michaels (at 40% off) for $1.95 each. We drilled a small hole at in the top corners of both plaques (to hang them). We purchased a distressed ivory painting kit made by Rust-Oleum from AC Moore (with a 40% off coupon of course) for around $10 (we used this paint for several other wedding projects that we will be posting soon so it ended up being a really good buy!) We followed the kit instructions and painted the signs with the ivory paint. Next we sanded the edges and roughed it up a bit to give it a worn out look. Then we applied the antiquing paint that came with the kit, let it sit for 5 minutes, and wiped it off with an old cloth. This really added to the aged and distressed look. For the lettering, we printed the words “Mr.” and “Mrs.” in Edwardian Script IT font from Microsoft Word in the biggest font possible. We then enlarged them one more time to fit the plaques perfectly. To create an at home stencil, we then flipped the paper over to the blank side. We colored the blank side of the paper with a lead pencil where ever there was lettering on the opposite side. We colored the paper completely with pencil lead. Then we flipped it over so that the font side was on top and the pencil side was on the bottom. We positioned the lettering in the center of the signs and secured them with tape so they wouldn’t slip and slide. Next we took a regular BIC pen (any color) and traced the outline of the lettering. This transfers the lead from the pencil directly onto the plaque and gives you an easy to follow pattern. Once the patterns were completely traced and transferred we took them off and set them aside for reference. With a thin paint brush and black acrylic paint ($0.99 at Michaels) we painted the outline of the letters and then colored them in. After the signs were dry, we threaded approximately 24” of thick pink ribbon (purchased from Michaels with a 40% coupon) through each hole. We secured them to the chairs by looping each side around the chair and tying into a big bow. You can find more of Lisa's tips at our main site, The Portrait Gallery Niagara at this link.

Christmas Photos

We only have a few available openings left for Christmas Pictures. December 12th is the deadline to get your images before Christmas. Call now to get your appointment 297-3387.