dealing with fonts

I don't know about you all but I'm a font JUNKIE!!! I have so many on my computer I don't even know what I have anymore. But, I have a handy little tool to help me out. It's a font lister. It lets me input the text I want and scroll through all my fonts to see what I like. Download it here!

Using a speelite off camera

I remember how scary it was when I got my first flash -I had no clue what to do, how to set it up or how to even get it to turn on. I've come quite a ways since then, but one of the things that took me the longest to figure out was how to set it up for off camera studio work. This site was a huge help to me in figuring out all the technical stuff so I thought I would share with all of you - http://www.juliagreerphotography.com/sb-800-article.htm.

{New blog w/FREEBIES}

I have finally got a blog all set up with all of my templates that I sell as well as a few freebies. Check it out & let me know what you think.

CLICK HERE to be transported to my new "Template" blog.

20% off your first order @ Moo

I have been wanting to try out Moo's business cards so I'm excited about this promotion that runs until the end of January.
20% off coupon code is

"E7YANZ"

This coupon is only good if it is your first order with Moo.

Thanks to Penny Murray for sharing this!

Do you ever get stiff portrait subjects?

I have found that many of my portrait subjects - especially the adults - are so nervous, stiff, and uncomfortable in front of the camera that I can't get natural shots. I ran across this great article with tips to avoid that, so I thought I'd share it...

http://digital-photography-school.com/the-human-side-of-photography-4-tips-for-natural-looking-portraits

CatchLights

I shared this somewhere else, but thought I would share here too. This is my all time favorite catchlight photo. This was taken in open shade in my backyard. Look closely in his eyes. I moved him around until I could see great light in his eyes and then started shooting. I am also adding in my first photo when I noticed and discovered what catchlights were. I have loved this photo of my oldest since the day I took it and it remains a favorite (he was 2 weeks old).

Someone new.

I love browsing other photographers work and I love when I stumble across someones work that I have never seen before. I just finished looking at Deidre Lynn's site and I love it. I love the site and the huge images, navigation is easy and her images are beautiful! I don't do weddings...mostly out of fear but I still think her work is amazing.
<3 Heather

Blogging and Facebook

I am so anxious to get a blogroll on here so we can see when each other updates their blogs and we can comment on them. I just posted some icy cactus pictures that I took a while ago. I'm trying to blog once a week, but if I don't have sessions, I can't think of interesting things to blog about. Any suggestions? Here are the cactus.

I've loved my blog, but I don't seem to get the traffic that I want on it. I've had a facebook account for a while, and added some seniors I did portraits of last year, but didn't quite know how to utilize it. I spent the majority of my evening last night setting up a Business page off of my facebook page. I've heard tons of photographers get lots of traffic through facebook because you can tag your client with pictures and it shows up in their accounts and sends traffic back to your account. If anyone wants to see it (and become a fan) it is here. My biz Facebook

I am doing the Senior Rep thing for the first time. Late in the year, but I am photographing 3 girls next week in hopes that I'll get Senior Sessions in March and April from them.

**Edited to add, I just bought this Senior Solutions Guide. It's on sale through the 16th. Haven't looked through all of it, but its great for marketing to seniors, and posing ideas, etc.

Kristen

Look around and wait

I can remember bringing my camera with me and taking hundreds of photos on any particular day. I had gotten in the habit of just snapping away. I then would get home and one of two things would happen. I would either not load the photos on my computer because I had so many it would just take up too much of my time or I would load them and just become overwhelmed by the number of photos that I had that I would never make it through all of them.

I tried to find an example and came up with this. This summer I took my camera to the beach so I could get some photos to turn into canvases for our home. In the past I would have seen this spot and just snapped away coming home with 50 shots of basically the same thing. And, truthfully who needs 50 shots of the same location (but I bet everyone is guilty of this).

So I scanned around the environment and tried to form a vision of what I was looking for and what "I" thought would make a great picture. I could not help but notice all the American flags in the bay with this one in particular blowing in the wind. Then I started to notice all the sail boats in the area. So, I waited for a sail boat to make its way down until I could see the American flag framed in between the sails.
This is the shot I had been waiting for. So I took a couple of shots and changed my angle slightly with each shot. That was it. A total of 8 shots of that location and then it was time to move on.

Here is the shot I walked away with and I just love it.

JEANNETTE CHIRINOS GOLD {my intro}

Hi everybody, my name is Jeannette Chirinos Gold and I'm from Venezuela. I am a mother of 2 boys, 3 years and almost 2 months baby. I started my bussines Jeanette Chirinos Photography about 2 years and i did it with Pregnant women and new born, I really love to take pictures and love to learn from the people around the net here, which have been very inspiring for me.
I hope I can be for you too some time not that far!
here's a pic of me and my 2 kids



If you wanna check my blog, click here ====> JC Photography

I was thinking what to post, but nothing better as an introduction of ourself, that way people can know who we are!

See you in the next post and have a wonderful evening :)

my baby is 6.. and an example of using a hairlight

so i couldn't just go and make this completely personal, lol, figured i'd better throw something useful in as well!
i took some photo's of my daughter last week, trying to get something i could use for her birthday invitations, and hey, if i got something frameable, then that would be great too! so i had her put on her white undershirt, put her on my black fleece backdrop, set up my main light as normal, and added a hairlight. for the hairlight i used an alien bee 800 on its lowest setting with a 20 degree honeycomb grid. i had the hairlight high and on the same side as my main, pointed directly toward the back of her head. here's the resulting image converted to black and white:

Sometimes you just need to have fun!

I know sometimes I just want a break from trying to get my pictures to look perfect...which they never ever do lol. Here is a fun site when you are sick of editing and just want to play!
http://photofunia.com/

Latest Maternity

One from my latest maternity!! This one was just too cute not to share! :)

Moon and clouds

My husband woke me up at 2:30am sun. wanting me to take pictures of the moon and the cool clouds. The moon was very bright and made a purple ring around it. I tried to get some funky shots. I hope I succeeded! My dh thinks it looks like the eye of a transformer, lol!

Lightroom presets

I found some lightroom presets tonight that I really love and they are so simple to load. If you get a zipped folder just unzip it and remember where you put them. Then go to lightroom and click on user presets and then right click on import. Then just go to the folder that has your stored presets in them and click on them to add. So much easier than loading actions in photoshop. Obviously actions and presets aren't for everyone, but for those who like them I thought I would share.

The first is

http://www.bohemiansecret.net/index2.php (just amazing and all based on black and white film)


and the second is

http://wonderlandpresets.tumblr.com/ (some really cool ones here as well)

Blogging photos...

There are so many great (free) blog themes out there...for those of us who like to share a few photos here and there, or give clients a sneak peek into their session...but if you're like me, you couldn't find one that just "fit." My suggestion, after doing this myself...find a buddy...someone with whom you like to work...and just tweak it. Maybe it isn't right the first time, maybe not even the second, but if you have a friend who's willing to tweak thru things with you...it can be a lot of fun, and result in a fabulous and personalized blog!

Want to see the results of this weekend? Visit me here. And remember...you friend doesn't have to be a web guru to help you figure stuff out!

A Shout Out! Julie Cook Portraits Phoenix, AZ photographer

I just wanted to post a quick shout out to one of my fav peeps! KIM TOWNSEND

Not only is she a great friend, she ROCKS at all things web related. Need a blog update, help installing a blog theme, a new website, she even makes templates and other things. Anyways, I love her and she is seriously helpful. Seriously. :)

go check her out!

www.kimtown.com

Just playing!

My daughter was playing on the computer and I got a few cute shots of here. I was working on filling the frame with her face and using negative space. Here was one of my favorites.

Tilt-Shift

This is mostly for fun, if you can find a useful way to use I'd love to see the results, maybe something that needs more selective focus. Tilt-shift cameras are expensive and are often used in landscape work, but on the right photo it can create the illusion of miniatures. It works best on photos from a wider angle (further away) and somewhat downward, and even better without people.

Here's an example:

Before

After

Here's the link to the action if you wanna play (it's half directions, half action) *link fixed now*

Terms of Use: Have fun but don't redistribute, sell, or claim as your own.

BTW I can't take credit for taking the photo. My mom took this photo on a trip to Ireland, I just color-corrected, sharpened and cropped it and then ran the action.

Kayla

My Family

I just wanted to drop in and share a bit of my family. I tried to do a little photo session of my son but he didn't want anything to do with it, 99% of the photo's he is looking away from me or crying...oh well! That's when I decided to get some pictures of our pets. Here is my little family!

[rfp]-When life hands you lemons......

Take pictures!

Today we had even more snow and the snowflakes were so pretty I couldn't help but reach for my camera and my macro lens.

Focus Lower

I have worked hard to nail down eye focus when my little ones are wearing hats (especially with brims). My tips is to focus a little lower than you think you should. I focus on the nose to get the eyes in focus and not the tip of the hat. Here is a shot with a very shallow DOF, but notice the eyes are still in focus.

One way I'm driving traffic to my blog...

first of all, sorry i've been MIA! it's been a little crazy around here... but anyway, i was racking my brain about what i could post that would be helpful when it finally came to me.. i want to share one way i'm boosting traffic to my blog and hopefully my website. i'm running a favorite image of 2008 contest on my blog! i chose 30 of my favorite 2008 images and posted them. i then set up a poll (you can do this for free through polldaddy.com) and sent an email blast to all my customers announcing the contest. in the email i told them about the contest, what the prizes are, when it ends and then put a direct link to make it super easy for them to go vote. about 1/2 way through i sent another email to everyone who had an image in the contest reminding them of the prizes, letting them know who was winning and telling them that really anyone could still win and to send the information to all their family and friends. at this very moment i've had 914 votes in 10 days! i know that some of those votes were other photographers, but i'd like to think that most of them are future clients!
if you'd like to see how i set mine up, click here.
~Hope

Outdoors

Just sharing a couple of outdoor shots from yesterday. These are from a tree right outside our back porch. Some pp in pse 5 .

Fonts.

I am a font addict. It is really bad lol I actually need to go through my fonts and get rid of some because they make my photoshop soooo slow when I am trying to use the type tool. Anywho font sugar has some great fonts.I think Lily Wang is going to be on of my new faves!

Enjoy:)