When we made the leap to being full-time photographers, we knew that if we were going to make it as a business, we were going to have to stay in a perpetual state of forward motion. As artists, we place a premium value on any piece of knowledge that can move the images we produce for our clients from our vision into a reality of pixels and prints. Whether it's working on better or more creative positioning and posing or getting more intuitive with how light is effecting or COULD effect a shot, we feel we have to always try to make the next shot we take better than the last one we took, even if only infinitesimally.

I went to hear a photographer speak a while back who assured me that I was wasting my time if I wasn't seeking out the best possible photographers in the world making the best possible images to compare our work to. It's a lot easier on the ego to NOT do that, but he was absolutely right. If you ever start thinking, "Hey, this is good enough - I'm better than so-and-so other local guy," than you might as well put the camera down.

I'm typing all this to explain, in a way, how I came to be a big follower of David Tejada and his blog. I saw the images he was producing for his clients and I knew I wanted to study his work and learn what I could from him because he is at the very top of the industry. Luckily for photographers like us, coming into our own in this day and age, the information is out there because of guys like David who have devoted an untold amount of time and energy to sharing as much knowledge as possible, with the end goal being a better industry for all of us (and our clients to work with). He works his vision through the incredibly creative use of off-camera, hot shoe strobes, which made his work all the more accessible to us as we looked at the gear we had and the situations we regularly find ourselves in where speed and quick application of lighting can make or break a shot. Wedding days can not be re-shot, that first dance only happens once, ever, etc...you better get that frame right or someone else will get hired who can.

Anyway, my incredible long-windedness aside, I was reading David's blog a few months ago when he suggested that he would like to hold a workshop in the Toronto area since he had a speaking engagement at the Chautauqua Institution in June and had gotten a lot of interest from north of the border (David is based out of Colorado and his workshops sell out FAST). Brazenly I fired off an email saying how much we wanted to have him here in Buffalo and that we'd love to host the workshop if that was at all possible. Then he called me. Like, when my caller id said "Tejada, David" on it - I forgot how to speak a little bit. Luckily, he overlooked my brain malfunction and said he would feel out the interest in the area on a particular date and see what we could do.

Fast forward to Sunday, and there we were, all sitting in our little studio listening to him speak. Then, thanks to THE MAN, Derek Punaro, who got us access to the Buffalo Central Terminal, we had a jam-packed afternoon of shooting in one of the most amazing locations in town.

Here's a great TS shot Alyssa grabbed of David teaching. What he does for the practical application portion of his workshop day is shoot tethered to his MacBook and talk about why we might want to explore the particular lighting technique he's demonstrating while showing the direct results of creative choices he's making (one of the reasons he works exclusively with small strobes is the versatility that let's him determine his vision, not have it dictated by his equipment). He then passes out Pocket Wizards (a small, radio-triggering device for lights if you're unfamiliar) and everyone gets to go through the process themselves to not only see the results on their own camera (intensely gratifying), but to get a nice visual frame of reference for the technique being taught so it can be re-visited easily. The workshops are kept small and intimate, which made it really incredible. There was just constant dialogue.

The models we hired locally for the shoot were A-FRICKIN-MAZING. We got them some period, WWII-era duds to fit the setting and it just worked so well. Andrew, Annie - THANK YOU guys so much for being so wonderful to work with. In case you're wondering - that massive Octabox on the left is being lit up by one, single SB-800 strobe with another hitting the far wall and a third you can see kicking from the back of Andrew and Annie on the right.

It was my first time in the Central Terminal, and I was so excited. It's such a gorgeous spot, and it's one of those places that just makes you a little sad that we allowed it to fall into the disrepair it has. But at the same time, I know the restoration group is so dedicated that it will get brought back.

I loved this mottled-light technique and this shot of Andrew - one of my favorites of the day. I actually couldn't sleep the night after the workshop - I woke up about three hours in trying to think of all the ways we can incorporate these lighting techniques into our work, and I'm really excited to start playing with this.

Yeah, I won't go into the gritty details of it since I think I'm officially way over our word limit for this post, but it's a single strobe and you're just throwing different patterns in front of it to get a cool, dappled light effect. I think it's one of the techniques we can most easily apply when we're in a hurry and don't want to lose that all-important personal connection we work so hard to maintain while we're out shooting.

and I'll just leave this hottness right here....

That shot is sick, and this shot is probably my favorite thing ever. I love, love, love this. Annie, you were just perfect.

Yeah, to put it mildly there, hon :).

David encouraged us to shoot what was there in the set up and move around, changing angles and depth and shutter speeds get different results. Any brides out there ready to do this with us? :)

Then we played a bit with painting her with light - and these were my top favorites. (I know that every photo here is my favorite, but these two are my favorites ever)

And to give Andrew some more love before we wrap up this post (because we have another engagement post we have to get up tomorrow!) here's the final set-up of the day, octabox feathered off of him to his left with a reflector filling in on the right. I didn't shoot this set-up, but I'm positive Derek has some shots of it on his blog.

To everyone who came to the workshop (from Boston, Cincinnati, Toronto, Brooklyn and beyond), thank you so much for making it an amazing day for all of us. To David and Eric, thanks again for having us host your awesomeness and as soon as our brains stop vibrating like crazy from all the knowledge bombs you dropped and we head out to our next shoot, we're going to be shooting with small strobes more confidently than ever and seeing all that light we can control.

We had a bit of a crazy weekend, so we're blogging a little out of order - we shot Amy and Mike's wedding Saturday, but we had a really amazing day yesterday (blog post coming later this week) and were out of the office all day, so we had to wait to blog until today. We don't often get up into Lockport, so we were really looking forward to Amy and Mike's wedding - Lockport is such a gorgeous town with some stunning, stunning buildings, and it just happened that Saturday was the random dry day in the middle of last weeks' crazy rainfall. We met up with Amy and her bridal party at Ultimate Cuts for her hair and makeup!

Amy was an amazing bride to be around - she burst into laughter the entire day. She was so happy and so ready to be marrying Mike, that she just couldn't stop smiling!

I met up with Mike at his hotel where he and his groomsmen were putting the finishing touches on the tuxes and getting ready to head to Amy's family church (quite literally, her dad is the pastor there). Amy and Mike both live out of state now and they booked us a long time ago, so we had never gotten the chance to meet until a few days before the wedding. I like Mike a lot from the little I felt I got to know him. He's definitely a take-charge kind of guy in certain situations and he was a whirlwind, fixing collars, attaching cuff links and giving out gifts to his groomsmen.

He might have been a little frenetic in his pace, but he was staying really cool just minutes before the ceremony.

I headed over to Amy's parents' house, to get some shots of her in her dress with her family and bridesmaids, and she was absolutely stunning.

The morning really went so quickly - before I knew it, it was time to get to the church!

I ended up walking out a side door for a moment right as the girls arrived, too, and I loved the way they all looked so good together. Really, really good bridesmaids are always just as happy as the bride because they're so stoked their close friend has found another equally awesome person. A lot of times a photo just needs to be happy for me to be a big fan of it...

flower girl cuteness win!

As I left the guys and headed back to the front of the church to get ready for the ceremony to start, I looked back and grabbed this one frame of Mike laughing...I dig it a lot.

It really was a whirlwind day, and before we knew it Amy (who had my aunt as a French teacher - but of course she did, that's Buffalo!) was heading down the aisle.

Yeah, that was pretty random - but Lockport isn't the biggest place, either, and I think Aunt Linda got to be a pretty well known French prof :). The ceremony was short and sweet in the raddest little church. For all the times we shoot in dark, dark churches this was some positive karma via a ton of available light.

Amy's dad wanted to be a dad during the wedding, so he didn't officiate, but he did pop up and give a great speech.

And then one kiss, two perspectives...

So, right after the ceremony, the receiving line starts up, and I'm just shooting everywhere and I see the classic, post-wedding ring switch of the wedding and engagement band. It was a cute moment, and I love that I bet Amy won't take either one off for a long, long time...

Then we headed over to the Kenan Center for some bridal party shots, and it was the first time we'd been in there. It's a stunning mansion turned community art center, and I loved every thing about the place!

After the Kenan Center, we ended up at the Tuscarora Inn for the wedding reception. If you've never been up to Lockport, the Inn is this old-school social club that has been turned into a really great restaurant and event hall by a local family. It's class all the way and we really had a blast photographing there for the evening.

This shot is so appealing to me, Alyssa - perfect.

Thank you! I was pretty pleased with that shot too.

We had a hard time narrowing down our dancing shots because there were a ton of them being adorable that we wanted to blog right away, so we're having a dance-heavy post tonight!

What can we say, adorable couples make life easy! I'll call this one as my early favorite from giving the day's photographs the once-over to pull for the blog...

Amy and Michael - we hope you are enjoying absolutely everything about your honeymoon right now. Thank you, thank you for having us be a part of your wedding day. It was awesome, we had a blast and we'll talk to you guys soon :).

A long time ago, before I met the world's greatest woman from the world's greatest city, I lived in a Baltimore row house , downstairs from a really cool guy named Sean. His only downfall as a friend is that he would never shut up about his hometown (Buffalo) and how great it was. Well, my bad - now I know. Sean has a sister everyone calls Mojo. When I moved to Buffalo a few years ago, Mo and her husband' "X" (the family is big on nicknames, what can I say? A good 90 percent of my friends still call me, "Slim," too) made sure I had an awesome time my first weekend in my new city. I am forever grateful.

Fast forward a couple of years, and now we all have kids and only get to see each other now and again - so we headed over their place for an impromptu photo shoot with their ADORABLE baby, 13-month-old Adelaide. We've been photographing little Addie since she was a few days old...enjoy the photos and thanks for hanging out, guys!

Addie is a little ham in front of the lens - or maybe I'm just really funny-looking to kids...I definitely won't rule that out.

Alyssa is in the studio prepping for a client meeting, so this post is all me - I thought about making her little head avatar thingy say ridiculous things, but I'm afraid she'd cut me. She took this, and it's my favorite baby shot ever...

Thanks, again, guys and we'll see you soon!