Author: Chris Smith

While I was at the Family Circle Cup tennis center yesterday, I enjoyed walking around and seeing some of my photos on display. Obviously these aren’t all mine. Since I’ve only been one of the official photographer for the past 7 or 8 years, I wasn’t shooting when Chris Evert won it, for example. But most of the more recent ones are shots I made. Anyway, it’s quite an honor, and a very humbling experience, to realize I’ve been a part of preserving the rich history of women’s professional tennis. How blessed am I to be a small part of this great tournament?!?

The Family Circle Cup is ALMOST HERE! Crowd favorite, Patty Schnyder, was out practicing this morning. Last year’s Champion, Samantha Stosur, just arrived into town. The wonderful folks at the tennis center welcomed her with a birthday cake since today is her big day. 🙂 The Daniel Island News ran one of my images of the Aussie on their cover with the heading “Play it Again Sam”. It sure would be a nice birthday present if she could win it for the second year in a row. But there’s some pretty stiff competition this year. So come on out and cheer for your favorite player as the drama unfolds!

My good friend and fellow photographer, Gary Coleman, invited me to join him on a big photo shoot last week.  We spent the 12-13 hours a day in chilly New Hampshire photographing this AMAZING collection of Classic Cars.  The hours may have been long, but we had a BLAST!  Gary and I always have fun working together and this week was no different.  Each new vehicle they’d wheel in, our jaws would drop, and we’d look at each other like “we get PAID to do this?!?”.  Anyway, enjoy the fun time-lapse video along with some of the final images at www.chrisandcami.com/blog. 

Today’s the BIG DAY!  Our church has been planning for months for our Third Annual Mission Fest.  It’s going to be so much fun!!! 

We’ve got face painting, jumbo slides and jump castles, snow cones, and a dunking booth!  We’ll be serving all-you-can-eat oysters, chicken, hot-dogs, and all the trimmings!  There will be rockin’ tunes as various bands take the stage!  And the live and silent auctions have tons of AMAZING DEALS you don’t want to miss!  All the money raised goes to funding our church’s mission work as we serve others in need. 

This year we head to a village in Tanzania where we’ll be conducting health & hygiene programs, building water purification systems, teaching English, organizing arts & crafts for the children, visiting hospitals and orphanages, and sharing God’s love with everyone we meet. 

For a short informational video, pictures from last year’s fantastic event, where we’re located, and more details…check out http://www.c3charleston.com/mission-fest.  If you can’t attend but would like to support us with your kind donation, click on the “Give” button at the bottom of that page.  Mission Fest is from 4:00-8:00 this afternoon.  So come on out.  We’d love to have you!!!

Here are some of our CRAZY C3 FAMILY you might meet!  🙂

We are honored that South Carolina Federal Credit Union has chosen to feature us this month:

Chris and Cami Smith are current South Carolina Federal Credit Union business members. With approximately 20 years experience in the photography industry they decided to launch their own small business in the Lowcountry. Their creative eye and attention to detail capture life’s moments in a unique and artistic way.

South Carolina Federal is delighted to serve their business’s financial needs, they have found the array of business products and services to fit their needs. “We enjoy the convenience of being able to check our accounts online, our paychecks can be automatically deposited into our personal accounts and we can drop off checks anytime using the night deposit,” Cami said.

To learn more about this business spotlight visit www.chrisandcami.com

Being invited to Jamaica with Meagan & Alex to photograph their beautiful destination wedding at Beaches Negril Resort & Spa was a real treat. They are such a neat couple. I enjoyed getting to know them through their Engagement and Bridal Portrait sessions.  And both their families are so warm and generous. After a couple days, Cami & I just felt like part of the family. In fact we celebrated my birthday dinner with them the day after the wedding! 🙂

The wedding day was so much fun! I loved the “island style” ceremony theme they had selected…sand-dollars, sea shells, fans woven from sea grass, and other unique beach themes were sprinkled throughout. Plus of course everything happened on “island time”…no stress, just fun!

Even though we worked hard while we were there, it was so nice to get away and enjoy the warm Caribbean sun and crystal clear turquoise water. The place is a photographer’s paradise! The lighting there is just AMAZING…partly due to the natural fill-light reflecting off the 7-miles of white-sand beach. Between the various destination weddings we’ve photographed in the Caribbean…St. Thomas, The Bahamas, Jamaica…Cami & I agreed that Negril was by far our favorite spot!  To see more of their photos, visit www.chrisandcami.zenfolio.com. 

Could that conclusion have been influenced by how much we LOVED working with Meagan & Alex…mmm…maybe. 😉 Meagan, you were an absolutely STUNNING bride! Alex, I hope I didn’t pick on you too much. You were AWESOME! Congratulations to you both!!!

Cami & I were honored to be Meagan & Alex’s photographers for their Destination Wedding at Beaches Negril Resot & Spa in Jamaica last weekend. We just finished editing all their photos. But before we put those up, here are a few “Scenes from Jamaica” to set the stage. 🙂

Seven miles of white-sand beach, crystal clear turquoise water, balmy breezes rustling the palm leaves above…these aren’t vignettes from a dream…these are scenes from Meagen & Alex’s gorgeous destination wedding that Cami & I were photographing last weekend.  Their wedding was held on the beach in front of the beautiful Beaches Resort in Negril, Jamaica!

We just returned from the trip and CAN’T WAIT to share some of their gorgeous wedding photos with everyone!  But we’re still editing.  So in the meantime, here are some of Meagan’s Bridal Portraits from the French Quarter and Waterfront Park in downtown Charleston.  Isn’t she a stunning bride?!? 

Caroline Wozniacki, World No. 1 and 2009 Family Circle Cup finalist, has officially committed to the 2011 Charleston event.  Wozniacki joins Samantha Stosur, Jelena Jankovic, Maria Sharapova, Shahar Peer, Nadia Petrova, Daniela Hantuchova, Melanie Oudin, and Sabine Lisicki in a world class player field assembling on Daniel Island.  Marking the tournament’s 39th consecutive year, the Family Circle Cup is scheduled April 2-10, 2011 at the Family Circle Tennis Center in the Best Tennis Town in America, Charleston, SC.

“Caroline Wozniacki has set the world on fire in the past two years as she continues to make her mark on women’s tennis,” said Eleanor Adams, Family Circle Cup Tournament Manager. “She is rapidly becoming a figure who transcends the game and we are thrilled to welcome her back to Charleston.”

Throughout her six-year WTA career, Wozniacki has notched 13 singles titles, 248 singles victories, over $8.5 million in prize money, and became the 20^th woman to top the rankings when she overtook Serena Williams’ World No. 1 position on October 11, 2010. As the first Dane, male or female, to hold the top ranking, Wozniacki finished the 2010 season as the World No. 1 player.  The 20-year-old from Denmark has started her 2011 season off by reaching the semifinal of the Australian Open, claiming her 13^th singles title in Dubai and making an appearance in the finals of Doha.

“I am excited to return to Charleston – a tournament that offers a lot of competition and fun, both on and off the court” said Wozniacki.  “This is an event I’ve come close to winning in the past, and I’m looking forward to another shot at this historic title.”

Last week I had the privilege of photographing Kimberly & Michael’s maternity portraits. Lucas will be their first baby. So it was fun to see their excitement and to preserve these first images of little Lucas’ bump for them. 🙂

One of my images of last year’s Family Circle Cup Champion, Samantha Stosur, is being used for this year’s main stadium banner! As one of the Official Photographers of this Premier WTA Tour Tournament, it’s always an honor when one of my images is selected for this 40×47 foot display. Two more banners of past champions should be going up soon.

With only a few more weeks until the 2011 tournament, I’m already getting geared up! It may be a lot of work. But as a tennis player myself, this is one of my favorite assignments of the year!!!

Ocular Surgery News assigned me to photograph an “Environmental Portrait” of Dr. Edward Wilson, M.D., for the cover of their magazine. He’s the director of the Storm Eye Institute at MUSC. More than just a portrait of a person, an Environmental Portrait should tell something about the person. So we posed Dr. Wilson in one of the examination rooms. Everyone that’s ever had an eye exam will instantly recognize the instruments in the background, giving a visual connection to what Dr. Wilson does.

The natural light in the room was horrible.  So I brought in some creative lighting to make the portrait more interesting.

First I added a main light to my right by firing a Nikon SB-800 through a Lastolite EZYBox.  Why a softbox instead of an umbrella?  I knew I wanted to light the background.  Selecting a softbox allows me to better control the spill of the main light onto the background.  An umbrella splashes light everywhere and would have contaminated the color of the light I was going to use in the background.

Next I added a warm Accent Light behind Dr. Wilson to my left.  I used a 1/4 CTO warming gel on another Nikon SB-800 and fired it through a Honl grid to give me a warm shaft of focused light.  This light helps separate Dr. Wilson from the background and accents his hair, the shadow side of his face, and his back shoulder.  The grid helps contain the direction of the light, again preventing it from contaminating my background light.

For the final shot, I added a blue gel to a third Nikon SB-800 and put a dome diffuser over that.  The light was placed behind Dr. Wilson and aimed at the wall behind him.  Images involving technology, science, and medicine can be greatly enhanced with blue light due to our mental association of deep blue colors with the high-tech world.  Plus the sharp blue contrasts with the soft warm tone of Dr. Wilson’s face, making our subject stand out.

All images were photographed with a Nikon D3 with a Nikkor 24-70 f2.8 and a Nikon SB-900 on it to control the remote flashes through the Creative Lighting System.  Each flash was triggered via a RadioPopper Px unit to eliminate the line-of-site limitations of the CLS.  I shot at 1/200sec, f2.8, at ISO 200.