Read more...

Moving to Wordpress

Some time over the next week I'm going to be moving this blog over to Wordpress. I may end up having to temporarily take it down. If so, it will be back up within a day or two.

Read more...

We have a winner...

Thanks everyone for the entering my contest! I'll post another contest on my blog within a couple of months.

I printed everyone's names and cut up the paper, very old fashion style. I put them all in a container, shook and let my hubby do the drawing. I decided to do a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd prize.

The winner of the mini portrait session is Amancia Kaushal. The second place winner is Ariel Lowery, who will receive a 50% off portrait session coupon. The third prize, a 30% off coupon, goes to Marla Rapp. Congrats!

Read more...

Win a Mini Portrait Session

As you probably know, my business is pretty new. I am in the process of creating an email list of clients. This list will receive emails with promotions and business updates.

Everyone who signs up for email updates, will be entered in a contest to win a free mini portrait session. I will do a random drawing on August 15th.

If you are interested please post a comment here, or email me. Please include your name, contact information, and who you would like photographed.

Read more...

Things I learned from shooting my first wedding

Well, it's a week later and I finally finished processing the images. I shot just over 400 and have uploaded 150 to the couple's private gallery on my Zenfolio site.

Through the experience I learned:

• It takes 2 hours of digital darkroom time for every 1 hour of shooting (at least until I get faster, or maybe always). This means a 5 hour wedding would be 15 hours, plus travel and preparation time, so really almost 20 hours of work.
  
• I should have a precise information about what the couple wants in terms of shots, especially during the ceremony. This includes knowing where it is acceptable to be. For example, how far up the isle can I get without it feeling intrusive?
  
• Knowing the names of important people, such as the maid of honor, parents, ect., in advance would be helpful.
  
• I understand why people do formals before the wedding. Having enough time is really important and being able to have control of the situation.
  
• Control - taking control of the situation and being able to politely tell people what I need them to do in order to get the shots the bride and groom want.

Read more...

Wedding Photography

I photographed my first wedding on Sunday. I think it went well. I am still processing the 400+ images I shot, and have found some I really like so far. The ceremony was lovely. Due to it being at the edge of a cliff I had a bit of trouble getting as close as I'd have liked to during it, without being disruptive. Luckily I had the 85mm lens which on my dslr becomes a 127mm (approximately).

The bride has specifically said she wanted to enjoy her wedding and not spend a lot of time being devoted to pictures. Considering this, I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. It brought up some interesting things for me to think about. For instance, to me this meant I shouldn't stop the wedding party when walking down the isle, leaving the ceremony, which resulted in not getting the best shots of everyone. I would specifically ask a couple how they felt about this next time.

During a quiet moment in the ceremony I heard my camera beeping. I had never even noticed my camera's beep before. Luckily I caught it before anyone else did and found the setting to turn it to quiet. The other major obstacle I encountered was gathering people for shots. I definitely learned I need to be more aggressive at this in the future. Again this was a call between how much interruption the bride wanted verse how many formals she really needed. In this situation I choose to get as much as I could and let her know should she decide she wanted more formals later on to just let me know.

Would I do it again? Sure, it was exhausting but fun and I'm excited to hear what the couple thinks of the photos. Speaking of, I should get back to processing images.

Read more...

Aperture

I rented a Nikon 1.8 85mm lens for the weekend. After using it I understand why the photo store rents them for $17. I absolutely don't want to give it back! It's amazing and this will be high on my list of business items to purchase.

For those that don't know anything about aperture, it is the size of the lens opening during exposure, also known as f-stop. When using a really wide opening, like 1.8 it lets more light in enabling the use of a faster shutter speed. More importantly to me, it only focuses on a small part of the image.

Check out how only the baby's foot is clear and the rest of the image softens as it gets further away.

Read more...