Tomas Mendoza Photography

Congratulations to Whitlee & Josh!!!

Definitively there is no better Valentine’s present than an “I DO”

We are grateful for allowing us to be there and capture some of your Wedding’s precious moments. Enjoy

Some of us grew up with the notion that if we did something wrong we’d go to Hell and that we’d burn in an endless fire pit

Now, in the past I have said that if Photography was a religion the camera manual would be the Bible, so… what would burn a Photographer the most?

Those who shot film might remember all the precautions we took to protect our precious film such as filling the refrigerator with rolls of film instead of food
It is also true that developed rolls would be placed in archival sleeves to make sure we could print pictures centuries later

For the most part, we don’t shoot film anymore but follow the same logic. We keep our memory cards as protected from physical damage the best we can and transfer the pictures to our computers as soon as possible, organize them and store them away. But is there a ‘Happily ever after’?

It was 1997 when my first laptop crashed and I took it back to the electronics store where I bought it to have fixed. They knew best, right? Well, they sent it to their repair center and a couple of weeks later got a call to come by the store. Two weeks without a laptop was too much so I was giddy as my children on Christmas morning
However when the store clerk informed that my laptop was ‘non-repairable’… Well, hate to admit I started crying just like my one-year-old son

Oh Hell hath no fury… like the loss of Pictures

We use at least two cameras, multiple lenses, redundant flashes, bunch of batteries and several memory cards…if something fails, we have a reliable backup. All because Mr Murphy says everything will fail… and fail they will. It’s a fact of life

We’d like to think it will happen to somebody else but, whether Mac or Windows, computers crash. Don’t need to like it… another fact of life

What we do (or don’t do) before the crash will set us on a Highway to Hell or send us to Picture Nirvana

A couple of weeks ago someone mentioned they had a computer crash and took their computer for repairs. The technician said they had to send the Hard Drive to a high-tech, static-free facility to recover all their pictures and that would cost a couple Thousands… at least
We just shot a wedding and last week was editing pictures and walked away to take a break. My one-year-old decided to play under my desk and turned power to my workstation… Yup, my computer crashed and crashed hard. Spent two hours after the workshop bringing the workstation back to life and deleting corrupted pictures
What if my workstation couldn’t come back to life? Another workstation or even my laptop could finish the job without lossing a single picture

External hard drives used to cost thousands… not so anymore
Next time you are roaming the electronics sections (before drooling over the HD TV sets) check out the External Hard Drives. If a Hundred bucks is too much allow me to ask, how much are our pictures worth?

Can you imagine telling a young bride “Sorry, I lost all your wedding pictures”?

Oh, Hell hath no fury… like the loss of pictures

Wasn’t Christmas just last weekend? Where have the first two months gone to? Have I been able to keep up with my New Year’s Resolutions?
The truth? We’ve been busy to care.  Time seems to fly when you have fun and do the things you love
So, where should I start?
December was packed with Photo Sessions, pictures to edit and prints to deliver that never got to buy anything for my beautiful partner… So, today I ordered a camera for my supportive wife who deserves my heart

Since we got questions about editing pictures we begun offering a Photoshop Workshop (link) this year and these two months we have been busy preparing for classes and printing assignments… We sure had fun at the workshops

So, how come I didn’t get anything for my Valentine

Well, we shot our first 2010 wedding on Feb 13 and have been busy editing all the pictures before deadline

My wife came with me to shoot the wedding


and the best part was yesterday when I came across a nice picture. I actually thought “Man, I’m good” until I saw the metadata and realized I didn’t shoot the picture: My wife did!!! (just don’t tell her)

Everything was fine…until I tried to upload pictures to my server and discovered that my host had updated the web server and I couldn’t connect…until tonight I was finally able to connect :)

An assumption we need to get out of the way is that in Digital Photography there is no Happily ever after. That’s right! Keep in mind that first you have a concept of a picture then you prepare and take the picture and finally you begin post-production
This last stage is as important (if not more) as the rest of the process. Post-Production covers pretty much everything we do with the picture once we release the shutter.
This is the Hardware and Software I use for Photography. On the hardware side: PC with Windows XP with dual P4 3.2 GHz CPU, 4GB of memory, Dell Flat LCD, Epson Printer and a bunch of External Maxtor One Touch Hard Drives. On the software: Photomechanic, Photoshop CS2, Fotofusion, Memories on TV, Genuine Fractuals, Panorama Maker, Tiffen DFX, JAlbum, Dreamweaver, Mcafee, Backup Exec, Nero and various recovery utilities.
Workflow has to be as systematic as possible so I use PhotoMechanic to ingest my pictures to the corresponding month/year. I do this every day or after I’m done with a ‘project’. I use Photoshop (and plug-ins) to edit pictures when needed making sure I keep the originals and work on copies ONLY. Most importantly, I have all my data on a separate Internal Hard Drive so if Windows get hosed I can re-install Windows and not loose a single picture. Also, I make backups to external Maxtor Hard Drives

Use a dedicated Drive and store by year

…then, store by month

How do I shoot Quality pictures? Once the frame is properly Exposed in terms of Aperture, Shutter Speed and ISO Setting then the last element to consider is Composition.
At this stage it is you who controls and ultimately decides how the image will look after post-production. It is time to release your creativity and compose or organize the elements within the frame to convey the mood as you see fit. Keep in mind that Cameras don’t make pictures, People do.
We get to review and further discuss and practice composition techniques previously mentioned. We get to shoot practice shoots of the same subject from multiple angles and distances with ambient light, flash and using light modifiers

f6.3, 1/400 sec, ISO 100, 200mm, Overcast afternoon

f2.8, 1/30 sec, ISO 200, 75mm, Window lighting