Photographer Vanessa Joy And Videographer Rob Adams: Intro To Fusion

Vanessa and Rob teach you everything they know about incorporating fusion into a studio’s repertoire from shooting techniques to Animoto tips.

Fusion photography incorporates both photography and video to capture a special moment in new ways and bring it to life. Vanessa Joy and Rob Adams have channeled their passions into teaching more photographers about this novel approach.

Vanessa Joy is a renowned wedding photographer from New Jersey with an award winning studio. A precocious photography lover, Vanessa has been in the business for a decade. Vanessa works closely with her husband, videographer Rob Adams, and together they have won countless awards & been featured in many publications.

Vanessa and Rob are passionate about breathing new life into the industry with photo / video fusion. Together, they teach photographers about this new approach to photography and video. You can learn more about their ongoing tour and innovative editing products at PhVusion.com.

Technology in photography has been one of the best (and sometimes the worst) tools that us photographers can dream of, and the new video capabilities are no exception. With the functionality in the new Canon 5D Mark II, and 7D as well as the Nikon D3S and 300s and pretty much every new SLR that’ll be coming out, photographers now have HD video at the tips of their fingers. So should photographers ignore or embrace this latest development? Embrace and love it of course!

Now, I’m not all for photographers taking over the videographer mantle, but I am for photographers starting to incorporate fusion into their line of services. Fusion is not just slapping some video and photo clips together and hoping it comes out great; it’s the blending of photography and cinematography to create a dynamic, multimedia presentation combining the emotion of fine photography and the power of moving images. Think of the Harry Potter movies. Remember the moving images in the picture frames that had such a life-like feel to them? That’s what we’re creating. We’re creating moving photography.

In the seminars that Rob and I give on fusion, we like to spell it PhVusion™, there’s quite a bit of controversy about photographers using the video part of their cameras. In fact, I would relate it to the controversy of film vs. digital back in the day, all except that this is a no-brainer. When digital first came out, of course film was still better because the technology just wasn’t there, but now, the video on the new VDSLRs is so good that all the video professionals are using them. The TV series House is shooting entire episodes with the Canon 5D Mark II and even Star Wars producer Rick McCallum said that he can’t distinguish the video from the 5D Mark II and the $100,000+ HD video camera systems that were used to film the Star Wars Prequel Trilogy!

However, the truth of it is that in order for photographers to want to add something new to their art and go through the trouble (or not so much trouble as we’ll learn later) of learning new equipment and a new post-process, it has to be worth it. And by worth it, I mean it has to make you money, that’s the bottom line. Luckily, fusion does just that. Every photography genre from babies and seniors to mitzvah’s and weddings can benefit from this. What mom wouldn’t want to capture her first child both in stills and video; or a senior that wouldn’t want a super-sexy fusion piece posted on her Facebook? Incorporating fusion into your lines of services will help you stay relevant in the industry, make you more money for a little (and I mean little) amount of work, and give you a huge edge over your competition. Right now, you probably have the opportunity to be one of the first photographers in your area taking advantage of the new technology.

In the next few Animoto newsletters, Rob and I are going to give you everything that you’ll need to incorporate fusion into your repertoire from shooting techniques to a super easy video editing program called PhVusion Effects that allows you to edit your video to look as good as your edited photographs and prep it for upload to Animoto for the final presentation. In no time at all you’ll be completely confident in your ability to shoot, edit and produce an amazing fusion product that you and your clients will be WOW’ed over! To learn more about our tour and for a sneak peak at the upcoming software and some great ideas for PhVusion pieces go to PhVusion Effects

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