Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

On a Roll...

Keira

I had a session with this cutie tonight.

More Practice....

Well, it''s late (or should I say early?) and I should be sleeping... but I was pretty excited about what I'm learning and that usually makes for a restless night. So, rather than toss and turn, I thought I'd come down and blog a bit.

In my last post I shared some photos I had taken with my flash. I was happy that I managed to take them and still capture the lights from the tree... BUT, I knew that I needed to do better still to do the kind of job at the wedding that I want to do! Some of my photos were just plain unacceptable and my success rate was probably 1 out of 3 or 4 photos. Not good enough! Plus I couldn't get enough depth of field in my shots for more than 1 person. So... I did a little more research to learn how to do this with my strobes. I won't bore you with the details about how this shot was taken (unless someone out there really wants to know!).... BUT, I can now take a picture, capture the lights in the background, and be confident that it will come out sharp even with a moving subject and get the depth of field that I will need for a larger group! YIPEE!!! I still have some practice to do and testing with different scenarios. But I'm making huge strides and getting way more confident that I can get the photos I want to get. :)

Very fun!!!!

***EDIT*** For anyone that is interested in the 'technical details' of this shot you can visit my other blog here.

Practice Makes Perfect!

We certainly have a wide assortment of ornaments! Be My Valentine????

It's been fun to see the kids pick out an ornament each year and watch how their tastes change. And it certainly makes for an interesting tree!!

I took these pix mainly to practice for Heather's daughter's wedding... I need to be able to capture the lights and still get a nice exposure on the people. So, rather than use a tripod, I used my flash. Using a flash will often totally overpower the lights on the Christmas tree or candles... but of course there are tricks to getting around this! Using a slow shutter speed allows more ambiant light in and the flash freezes the subject. Without a flash a tripod would have been a must!! Anywayz, I certainly haven't perfected it yet! Hopefully by the beginning of January I'll have it down pat. :)

I also purchased a starburst filter for one of my lenses. Don't you love the effect it has on the lights????

The Christmas Rush

I've been busy, busy, busy with Christmas portraits....

This was probably the hardest shoot yet - except of course weddings!

Because it was so tough I learned a ton!

Which is always a good thing.

And it's causing me to research a bit how to improve my photos technically.

So, in the end I am thankful it was such a challenging shoot!

I'm sorry I haven't been around much....

Joshua...

I'm almost done with the pictures of little Joshua! I should be done by tomorrow!! But I thought I'd post a few more for everyone....

Josh really didn't like stripping down for us. And decided to get even all over Mom!

Mommy Kisses...

I finally got a chance to meet and photograph little Josh. We actually took pictures on Thursday and then again on Friday cuz he just wasn't in the mood on Thursday! I will have more to share later... but I wanted to get something up today!!

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More Babies...

I took the proofs over to mom today.

She nearly cried when she saw this one....

After we did the black and white ones she wanted some high-key color portraits.

She was so happy to be standing and climbing.

I quickly snap, snapped, snapped

and decided we'd better get her dressed for some more 'formal' shots

before she lost interest...

Maybe she was mad that we interrupted her when she was having so much fun?

But I couldn't resist taking a couple of crying baby shots!

Thankfully mom was able to distract her for just a couple more!

And then she was DONE for good!

I always try and include a couple of collages with all my portrait shoots.

It was so fun to do portraits again!

I have 3 more photo shoots coming up in the next 2 weeks.

How exciting!!!

Plus a stock shoot.

Busy, busy, busy!!!!

BABIES!

I had a photo session with this cutie today. Mom wanted high contrast studio photos. And she loves black and white as well as sepia. I haven't finished processing/editing yet.... I'm hoping to get those finished up within the next couple of days. Then I'm off to photograph little Josh! :)

One nice thing about this session.... Mom told me exactly what she wanted! She kept apologizing for being so particular... but if you want a photo a certain way be sure to tell the photographer! Better then ending up with photos you just aren't happy with!!

My prayer for every session is that somehow my photos would bless the client....