Props

I really struggle with this. I have recently started a collection of hats and scarfs. And, I also have invested in some chairs as well. I have a sleigh that I really like for the younger ones. And, I have a white furry rug that I often use. But, I am wondering what if any props do you use and what are your favorites and where did you get them?

Here is a card a made for a family this Christmas. It features both the sleigh and the white rug.

The Moon

The moon.....

50% off book sale at ACI!

This is another great deal, especially if you already have clients ordering a book, get yourself a studio sample free! You could also make your self a portfolio book and get the second free, leave one at home for sessions and one in your car incase you are out and about and run into potential clients:)

ACIlab is running the sale until March 15!

<3 Heather

Cool Vintage Textures

I just love all of the generous and creative people you find on blogs. They are so fun and imaginative and always get my creative juices flowing. I stumbled upon Dubtastic's blog today and downloaded some of his georgeous vintage textures. I used one of them on this picture from Garner State Park - we just love that place. Anyway - he has the textures on his Flickr photostream - no strings attached - but a thank you and share of what you created is always nice.
Have fun,
Darlene

Photoshop fun

Have a vision, but can't get it just right for some reason? Try to create the effect after the fact. In my head I could see my son walking in the distance into the fog, but couldn't get the shot I wanted because the environment just wasn't safe. But, I made it happen anyway. The 2 with daddy have been merged and tweaked to equal the final photo.

The first 2 are SOOC



Final Photo

My new backdrop!

Well sorta backdrop....this is the tapestry I ordered from Urban Outfitters and posted about earlier in the week. It came yesterday and it is pretty thin, a lot thinner than I was expecting, see through even. I was kind of skeptical to shoot with it but it worked out great! I love it! Now I want to pickup a few more. For under $20 shipped...you can't beat that. This is my oldest, she'll be 8 in one week modeling my new petti from Sams! ISO 100 f/ 3.2 ss 1/125

Playing catchup.......

I'm sure i'm not alone here.... I always find myself wanting to go out and get more great shots and try new ideas etc etc... The problem is that I come home dump the images on my hard drive and there they sit. I will usually go in and play with a few images if i'm super excited about them but almost always I end up having some great images that go unedited, unprinted and they just sit on my computer waiting for ME!!! My big goal for this year is to open up at least a few files EVERYDAY and do quick simple edits and clean out my computer of all the stuff I know I will never print or need to save. I'm SO backlogged!!!! So i've been doing edits everyday, trying to catch up!! And sadly i'm editing from last summer, even more sad is how much further back I could go on the desktop PC!!! I'm sure i'll never get entirely caught up but hopefully i'll make some headway this year!!! Maybe we should all work on going through our old files a little each day??

Here's my Daughter Madilynn, taken LAST summer 4th of July....

Challenge yourself

2 years ago we went to the air show and I took my camera. It was full sun and full of fast moving planes and a lot of reflecting metal. I don't think I came home with one salvageable photo. This summer I went back and was more prepared. It happened to be almost the same weather conditions. I had studied taking photos in full sun and learned how to up my shutter speed to capture fast moving objects. I just wanted to post a sample of some of the photos from that day. I was so proud of myself when I got home and almost all the photos were usable. I had given myself the challenge that the following year would be different and it was.

{The view around my home}

I only used brighten/contrast & sharpened for the web with these two. Both taken about 2 miles down the road from where I live.

Back up, back up, back up

So yesterday I had a hard drive die on me. Yuck, no fun at all. It was a fairly new one and still under warranty, but this has still turned out to be a major pain in my rear end!

I recently backed up all my client stuff, so business wise I was ok, but unfortunately there were several folders that hadn't been backed up with personal stuff and templates - all the data was lost. I'm currently looking into drivesavers to see if I can recover anything, but the cost is going to be huge!!!! The initial quote I received was between $1000 and $1900....yikes! So I can't emphasize it enough - as boring and as big of a pain as it is, back up your files.

Do it now while your still thinking about it! :)

Stock up on studio samples!

The first of the year is the perfect time to give your studio or your samples a fresh look! Why not get them on sale! Here is a perfect sale! This even includes gallery wraps! Check it out!! 30% off sale on 16x20 and larger prints at one of my favorite labs, CPQ Professional Imaging... And if you have not ever signed up, you can get a $50.00 print credit!

How are you organizing?

How do you organize old files and new ones? I was thinking of having an '08 binder and putting all old model releases and order forms and such but thought a folder might be nice. Or one of those cute little boxes?

How are you organizing for 2009? I need some inspiration tell me folks.. how are you doing it?

Forever

I am currently enrolled in the New York Institute for Photography. I believe if you love something you can never know enough. I wanted to learn the more technical stuff. So here is one of my first assignments. Even though I have been a photographer for 2 years you can always learn so even though these first lessons seemed easy I still felt like it challenged me to look for more and be more creative since I do know some of this stuff already.

So the purpose of this image was to show great depth of field. (more sharp, less blur) So this is what I ended up with. I loved how these tracks just seemed to go on forever. I will be sharing my favorite images from my lessons from time to time and I really wanted to share this one. You can see more images on my blog: www.littlefacesphotography.blogspot.com

{View out the Kitchen Window}

This is what I saw last night out of my kitchen window while I was cooking dinner.

A beautiful sky.

We had an amazing sky at sunset last night. The colors were just fantastic.

*Intro* Kyla Branch Photography

Hey y'all I'm Kyla Branch of Kyla Branch Photography. You can check out my site or blog at www.kylabranchphotography.com I'm from the south, Louisiana to be exact. I started my business a little over a year ago. It has been a joy and a dream come true. I've learned so much since I started and am still learning new things every day.

I been married 9 years today! I have 2 little boys they are 7 and my baby will be 4 in a few weeks. Time flies when your having fun!

I hope I will be able to contribute and Inspire someone the way others have for me.

Hope to get to know everyone soon!

Tree Bark Texture

If anybody would like the tree bark texture I posted yesterday, here is the link to the full size file. Please feel free to use however you wish.

Bark Texture

Using Available Light

Took this one yesterday and was not what I was expecting. The weather has been amazing, bitterly cold and bright blue skies. The lake had frozen over, so I had planned to get some clear sunny winter pictures. When I woke though, it was grey and foggy with a fine drizzle, so I decided not to take my kit and just take the camera to get some "blogshots" if anything presented itself.

What a surprise when I got to the lake, it had a most magical ethereal quality and the light was superb, different to the bright blue skies, maybe even better. I only had the "nifty fifty" f1.8 so had to work it to get the shots.

The point of this post, other than to share this shot? We don't always need a collection of lenses, or "the right" lens - if it's there and we have some glass, we can capture it. If the light is not as you expected it, it doesn't matter, work with what there is - it may even be better.

I know this is not new stuff, but knowing it and living it are sometimes not the same thing :)

Quick moving ice storm

As much as I love photographing children, I love nature just as much I am finding. Here are some I took today after a quick moving ice storm. It was starting to rain just as I got out there.

It feels nice to shoot something that is not moving sometimes

My girls

These are my daughters Rachel (top) 7 and Claire 3. I have not taken a picture with my DLSR since my last session on 12/15. I rarely take pictures of my kids any more because #1 they hate it and #2 I'm SOOOO picky about my images I can't stand any photos that don't need processing and it still takes me awhile. So if I were to average, say, 50+ photos a month of them like I used to then all I'd be doing is editing them which takes the joy out of taking candids. So my goal through March 1st (when I plan to start scheduling sessions again) is to take more photos of my kids, practice being more chilled out with them about it, and get better at using my DSLR for candids like this. I know these aren't great portraits but they are accurate candids of my kids.

That's all for now!

{Helpful Websites}

I have found loads of helpful websites but these are the two I keep coming back to:

Photography Tips by Alexis Miller - it has tutorials, tips & tricks. It also has some gift ideas w/instructions.


Phaunt Actions Blog by Kylie Banks - it has some wonderful tutorials & helpful advice.

I hope these are as helpful for you as they have been for me.

___________________________


This is my youngest daughter Ruth. She is just too funny sometimes & a few days ago I happened to capture it.

Keep up with your to-dos

I found a neat site to create an online to-do list. You can access it from any computer, you can email additions to it, AND you can share!

Remember the Milk

Packaging & Promotions.

One of the things I want to accomplish this year is getting new packaging. If you are looking for packaging for your own business, I am so in love with a ton on Bella Grafica I have no idea yet what I will settle on.

Also I wanted to share this link to a store on Etsy, pixelbypixel I just stumbled across these recently, but how cool would those be to hand out and help get your name out there? Who doesn't love a scratch off? You could do several sets with different designs and different promotions for the various areas of your photography (seniors, weddings....). Fun!

Trying to learn strobe lighting

Hi there! Elli from Montana again...

A friend got me started learning off camera flash lighting. What a fun adventure! I'm still gathering the equipment I need, but I finally found a  model who doesn't fidget, doesn't complain, and doesn't require bribes!

Here's my first acceptable shot...

A lot of what I have learned so far is from my friends over at One Photo Source forum, but I've also started digging into the Strobist site...sooooo much information there!

When feeling uninspired but still want to get out and take some pictures, consider building a collection of images that could be used as texture or digital backdrops for compositions at a later date.  Best to organise these in a specific folder so you know where to find them when necessary. If you collect a few, they probably need categorizing i.e. bright colours, plain, abstract etc

The stones & ice picture below - I quickly put on my profile picture, reduced opacity and blend mode to difference.  I did this really quickly, so definitely not claiming any great work of art! The following picture is a footplate on an old truck - I just played to get an abstract picture.

The stones above I had on my disc for a little while, it became the inspiration for my website and used as the banner on all the pages.

The bark and leaves I haven't used yet - but who knows, maybe one day they will come in useful.

List of Tutorials, Actions, Brushes, Textures and More

I got bored with my logo and went on a search for inspiration and resources to create a new one. As usual, my ADD struck again and I wandered all over the place, but I came across a great list compiled of tutorials, actions, brushes, textures and other great resources over at noupe.com There were a few sites I already knew about but a lot more that I didn't. I still have no idea how I got there but I'm glad I did!

**Remember-Look at the Terms of Use (TOU) to see how you are allowed to use them. Some will say use them as you please as long as you give credit or don''t claim as your own. Others will say personal use only which means you can not use them in any way for your business. If you aren't sure, contact the creator and ask them; some just want to know how they will be used and others may want a small fee for a commercial usage license. It's not worth trying to get away with it, people have a way of finding out!**

Kayla Renckly

My favorite Quote

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.- Banksy

This is it for me. I am always trying to get it right the first time in camera, means less time having to edit and fix my photos.

Here is one from a recent session. I really wanted a photo like this and tried to plan the crop and placement of everyone as well as the exposure and focus. I get so happy when I get a shot I like.

Whoa yellow baby!

I'm working on editing my newborn session from Sunday and the poor baby is juandice.. big time! It's especially noticeable in the few that I have with her eyes open. I've never had this problem before, so I wasn't sure what to do, until Charlotte (Charlotte Stringer Photography) gave me this awesome tip: go to layer, new adjustment layer, hue/saturation. Then take the saturation slider to a negative 20-25, or until it looks right to you. Then I took the sponge tool on desaturation at 50% over the whites of her eyes until they looked white. I then did my normal processing which included a slight curves and levels adjustment, slightly dodging her eyes (on highlight at 15%), and sharpening for print. And then I'm also including a black and white version for good measure! This was a free b/w action from Arya.. someone mentioned it a few post down and I beleive said you could get it on the PIF blog.
I also wanted to mention that most people who know me know that I use Portraiture on pretty much all my images. I didn't care for it on this particular image, but normally I will run it on its own layer and then adjust the opacity to about 40%.


~Hope

Copyright questions? Answers.....read on

So all of the copyright stuff can get so confusing. What is copyright? Who owns what? Why all the fuss? How can I get copies made? and Are there any exceptions? These are questions that frequently rise.

This is a great read to help you explain to customers why their photos cannot be copied by the lab.

Read on!

And remember! Watermark, Watermark!!!

Sometimes it is good to re-edit!

I am redoing my website and so that means a tad bit of re-editing! I took this picture in August of '07 a few weeks after I had my camera and it is still one I really like! Wanted to share with you!

Moral of the story, go back into those old files and see what you can find :)

Meet other photographers

One thing that has been very helpful to me since getting serious with my photography has been finding other photographers to guide me and to inspire me.

The single best outlet has been my camera club. Camera club you say? Yes, there are actually clubs for people like you and me! Mine has been fantastic for me because, if anything, its taught me what to look for in a good photograph.

Try google to find one near you.

Another resource has been meetup groups. I've gone on several photo 'safaris' with other photographers that has helped me look at things differently and try different things. I'm mainly a portrait photographer but do love to get landscape/animal photos if I can do it well and these safari's give me the opportunity.

I found several on meetup.com and I bet you may be able to find one near you too!

Winona and Matt

What a great couple! I had the pleasure of photographing Winona and Matt and their soon to be little one! They wanted some "in the redwoods" photos. It was pretty dark, damp and cold in the shaded redwoods so we moved into a more sunny location for the second half of their session. Here are a couple from the redwoods..........

{Tooting Your Own Whistle}

Okay...so I have been racking my brain trying to think of what I can post.  I decided that I would simply stop stressing and just go with something.  So here it is....

I'm not sure if any of you do this, you may or may not, but I have found that when I shot children I like to take a lot of little "pocket goodies" to entice them with.  My most favorite of all are whistles.  I have a wide variety of them and I try to grab them when I head out to shoot a little one.  There are a couple of reason I do this....when you have things to show them, this helps to break the ice and allows them to become more comfortable with you and open up a little.  The absolute best perk of a whistle is that each time you blow it, it generally cause the child to look at you which in turn gives you that eye contact that we love for a child to have with the camera. 

I have all kinds of fun whistles and consider them my accessories.   I of course have the standard whistle, but I also flaunt around ones shaped like lips, flashing ones, colorful ones and all other sorts of fun and interesting ones.  I am using them to make a fashion statement! LOL  Visit here to find a huge variety if you think that you want to give this a whirl and see how it works for you.  Who would think something so simple would be so much fun and so intriguing to a little one.  

Photo courtesy of Oriental Trading Company

www.awisemanphotography.blogspot.com  

You don't need a fancy camera

This is one of my all time favorite photos. After being banned from taking my camera to the beach this summer I used my p&s to capture this photo of my husband and son. I just love this of the 2 of them.



And, these were taken the first time I ever used a p&s bought just for our trip to Alaska. These were taken in 2003 and I felt so much freedom from using my film camera.

{My three}

These are my "angles". Taken with natural light & one pesky lamp I forgot to turn off - hence the color cast.





Taken w/my Nikon D200, natural light (one annoying lamp) and three wiggly kids...I may just get the first one done up big to hang on my wall, because it's who they are and I love their expressions!

DB Impressions Photography Intro...Hershey, PA

Hi All! I'm Diane, owner of DB Impressions and of DoodleBunz Designs. The two kids in the picture are my own munchkins, who provide most of the inspiration for what I do. I'm a "new" professional photog with a lot to learn, but I'm excited to learn and share with you! Throughout our journey together, I'm pretty certain that you'll see plenty of my own kids, as well as some of the sights from our area...I live near Hershey, which is also near Lancaster County (think lots of Amish). You won't see me photograph the Amish out of respect for their culture and beliefs, but maybe we'll talk about that....and there's a ton of other things to talk about too!

One of my favorite things about a lot (not all, but most) of the fellow photogs that I've met is how eager and willing they are to share what they've learned. I hope to be able to share all that with you. In addition, I've been learning some new tips and tricks for Photoshop as well...so I'll pass those tidbits along where ever I can, too.

In addition, you're welcome to wander to my personal blog, too!

The stress of being creative...

There are some days when I feel really stressed from trying to be creative with my photography. So I'll go browse flickr groups or online forums and instead of concentrating on getting good ideas it makes me feel really inadequate...

This picture for instance? I took it for a competition for my camera club back in October. It was critiqued by a few professionals at the competition later that month and the consensus was pretty clear "Um... what is this supposed to convey?"

Ya know what? I haven't a clue. I wanted to get a cool depth of field shot of the rocking chairs at Cracker Barrel... that was all I was thinking of. It doesn't convey anything at all - its pointless. sigh.

I have my first clients at the end of the month - mini studio sessions with some moms from my moms group. They know I'm green and I'm using them to build my portfolio, so no stress to be perfect, which is good I guess... but I'm really stressing on being creative with my portraits. I don't have alot of experience with adults (I concentrate on kids mainly) let alone studio experience!

Guess I'll continue to search around for ideas until the 'inspiration brick' decides to hit me in the head...

What I'm doing for January

Just thought I would share real quick what I'm doing in my "slow" month.

Adding an add-on wedding site to my main "all purpose" site.
Catching up on bookkeeping.
Doing my taxes (not looking forward to this one...ugh).
Running an in-depth profit/loss analysis to see where I can save money this year.
Running a National Charity model search for NILMDTS.
Ordering new packaging material.
Blogging more (that's also a new years resolution of mine - 3 a week is my goal! You can visit www.jessicalemmonsphotography.com/blog, if you want to see how I'm doing on that!)
Contributing here as much as possible.
Being more involved in my favorite forums. :-)

{Intro} Time to Shine Photography -- West Michigan

Hello my name is Deborah Farver of Time to Shine Photography. I am kinda late getting my intro up.....so here it is. I work with two of my 4 sisters. We do both on location and in studio portraits....but I can say I prefer on location with natural light. I am a 40 year old mom of 3. Two teens (14 year old girl and 16 year old boy) and one thats not too far off (11 yr old boy). They don't really like it but they have been my main subjects and practice targets for many years.
I have been involved in photography now for over 20 years in one way or another. I worked as an Imagery Production Specialist in the Air Force for 10 years. I have always loved phohotgraphy and cameras and knew this is what I wanted to do when I grew up. I have slowly been building up the business now for two years and wouldn't have it any other way. I look forward to contributing to this blog and learning from the many other wonderful photographers here.

Here is a photo of one of my favorite subjects so far. Elizabeth was a blast to photograph and one of a handful of special needs children that we have had the joy of photographing. I have learned it is best to shoot more photos than normal for these situations to be sure to capture all the sweet moments. She had the sweetest smile......but when she smiled really big she also closed her eyes. We treated her as any normal client and she had a ball at the shoot and was very excited when she finally got to see her photos.

My post for today...

Ok really not that much but I just wanted to say I really love the idea of this blog, Heather, thanks for it's inspiration and getting it going! I wasn't sure how it would be so "cool" but my goodness it's awesome. I love hearing what all these lovely ladies have to say, each and every day! Like you are all talking to yourselves and we get a tiny short glimpse into your mind, or the little tidbits you share that are so helpful.

the other thing that's happening is I'm getting camera envy pretty quickly pretty bad (Hope).

What inspired me today after reading this blog is Angela Smith's idea about taking a self portrait every day. I think I'll try that with my girls!

Have a nice day everyone!

RE:What am I doing in January.

I am searching for class of 2010 Senior Reps.
I am building my newborn portfolio.
I am updating my business forms.
I am redoing my blog.
I am offering Valentines mini sessions.

A white balance lens cap?

I thought this little thing looked interesting...

It's a white balance lens cap - a bit different than some of the others I've seen. Has anyone tried it? Maybe the photo fairy will give me one to test. http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/white-balance-lens-cap

A friend directed me to photojojo.com (where I found this), and it looks like there's some fun stuff there. The internet is full of fascinating things!

PIF Photo

PIF (Pay it Forward) Photo is a great resource for photographers between giveaways, shares, interviews and more! In fact our very own Arya Wiese has a b/w action share on there right now!

Biff Ulman recently did an interview on PIF talking about the costs of doing business as a photographer. It is a great read for anyone starting out or anyone that just needs to revamp their prices to *GASP* actually make a profit! The biggest mistake most photographers make is undervaluing their work and in turn devaluing the industry. I'll raise my hand as a guilty party there and I'm redoing mine by the end of the month.

Kayla Renckly

1/365

Ok, I'm starting a few days late. I'm going to do my best.. I will probably do self portraits - I tried that last year and really enjoyed it (until I fell off the wagon at day 80-something). So, today's post -