Leaps and Bounds..

Some difference, huh? What I have learned just in these last 3 months amazes me. I started this crazy obsession in early March this year. It took me a month and a half to save up for a decent SLR camera, and then May, June and July to practice, buy more gear, con people into letting me shoot them find people to practice on, read, learn, practice, shoot, and practice some more. The difference to me is astounding. It's the difference between a photo taken in direct 3p.m. sunlight (the devil light as some photogs refer to it as) and a photo taken in the shade under some trees, with off-camera flash shot through an umbrella. I have learned new editing techniques, new shooting techniques, and new ways of thinking.

During this time I have neglected to write here, but I have been wanting to! School and work is definitely keeping me on my toes. If I had the choice between doing a shoot or writing in the blog with the little free time I get, well, of course I'm going to shoot! Duh! All this means is that today I get to do a mega-post with nearly a metric ton of photos! I'll try to keep them in chronological order to keep the integrity of my evolution as a photographer. I think it's very noticeable in each shoot there's some small improvement. I'm no professional, but I'm getting there!

I love this shoot I got to do for Staci and her horses. If you know Staci, you probably know she's going to be moving out of state in the next couple of months. I am trying to get all the time I can with her for pictures or just hanging out, as she's been my best friend for the past 6 or so odd years. I will miss her dearly when she leaves, but I will most definitely have pictures of her to keep her in mind!

I have learned nuggets along the way. Things such as the fact that just because a lens will open up to f1.8 doesn't neccesarily mean that's where you want to shoot at. I have been closing down my aperture more and more as I get familiar with my lens. I also have been shooting in full manual! Yes, I know! Me! For those of you who may not be familiar with dSLR cameras, they have many settings ranging from fully automatic (where the camera decides what the best exposure is), to partially automatic (which is where I always was, in Av or Tv mode), and full manual.. the big scary beast. In full manual mode you have to make all the decisions, and you better choose wisely or you'll end up with something that's not very pretty. It became essential for me to start doing this when I started getting into off-camera flash. I have full control now, and it feels incredible! It's much more satisfying to know the picture came out because of the computing I did, not the camera!

Melissa and her neice we're my next guinea pigs, and I learned a HUGE lesson while shooting them. This entire shoot was done in natural light. I had my flash, and my light stand, and my umbrella (that I had just bought the day of the shoot), and I am all excited because I'm going to be doing off-camera flash! Then disaster struck, and I learned that light stands with a flash, wireless receiver and an umbrella on top are not only extremely top-heavy but also like to catch any little breeze that happens by. That's right, my light stand went boom. Straight into the ground, and the shaft on my umbrella snapped like a twig.

Oi! After the feelings of suicide passed I sucked it up and did a natural light shoot - and it went great!

 I learned an important lesson that day: Always anchor your lightstand with sandbags, hold it, or have someone else hold it when shooting outside! It's one I won't soon forget.

Melissa and her neice were naturals, I got this cute shot of Brit playing in the bird bath, and her expression is priceless!

Melissa (on the right) says she hates having her picture taken, but seriously - if I were as thin and pretty as these two I'd want to be the one in front of the lens instead of behind it!

I soon picked up a second umbrella, and with gear and lessons learned in hand I went happily onto my next shoot. I wrangled Jessica into letting me shoot her again (wasn't too hard - the girl LOVES photos!). This time, I was prepared. We headed down to the Reservoir Park in Massillon, Ohio, a familiar photo shoot location to us, but instead of hitting up all the superficial park-y areas we stomped up into the woods. It afforded us a bit more privacy, and blessed, blessed shade. I ❤ shade, seriously.

Started getting amazing photos pretty much out of the gate. There were a lot of test shots with me being new to manual mode and all, but when I did get that magic mix right the results seriously made my jaw drop. I couldn't believe these pics we're coming out of my camera! I think Jess looks SO gorgeous in these pics too!

There are a couple little issues that I see now, that I know to fix for future shoots. That's what practice entails for me. I take a million pics until I find one I love, then eventually I see what is wrong with it, go out again and take a million more until I see another one I love, then the process repeats itself. Slowly building up skills as I fix the errors that I have, one by one.

Shooting with the umbrella is like instant "gorgeous light". It gives me this cool soft light that adds depth and detail to my photos. I use a shoot-through umbrella which means it's a white, slightly-transparent umbrella that the flash sit's behind. When the flash goes off, the light "shoots through" (get it?) the material, diffusing it and making the light source much larger, which = softer.

I have also finally broke down and done a few self-portraits, that would be me above. Although I love photography, I hate photography of me! I had to practice though, so what else was I gonna do? Although I wish I had a better looking model that night, I still learned stuff and the pics came out half-decently.

Recently I had the honor of doing my first child shoot. Cherie, who is the manager where I work, wanted some photos done for her and her daughter Madelynn. I had to jump at that oppurtunity! I need to get all the experience I can get right now, shooting a variety of subjects.

Children present their own challenges, but I was lucky to have such a pretty and well-behaved little girl to take photos of. As every kid will be, she was of course in constant motion. I had a few really nice photos come out of our session though, and I even got a few really nice pics of Cherie herself!

For Cherie's photo I didn't have my umbrella set up or anything, I took what I could carry on my back so I ended up taking this picture with my new YN 460 II flash just held in my hand up high over her head on camera left. You obviously don't get the soft, diffuse light that you would with an umbrella, but it's still better than having a flash on your camera!

Madelynn's photos were 90% natural light, with some bare flash shots done like I did with Cherie's photo. I don't think a lightstand with a modifier such as an umbrella would have been practical today, as we we're almost constantly moving to keep up with little Madelynn.

The above photo is one that I was able to hold my flash in hand, we were in the bright sun here, but the flash did a nice job of filling in her face, and I don't think the shadows are too harsh!

All in all, I don't think the pics came out too badly for my first child shoot, and where before I never thought I'd be interested in shooting kids, I can surely see the allure now. It was so much fun! Challenging too, my skills were put to the test for sure. Oh yeah, and these were all shot in manual! I'm getting there!

I have some shoots coming up hopefully in the next couple of weeks with Jessica and Staci again, I also want to try and branch out into maybe taking pics for people I don't know. I have had a lot of interest that's been generated from people who have seen my photos, and more than one person has asked me how much I charge, etc. So maybe in the near-future you may see a blog post with some fresh faces, who knows!? Right now I feel like anything is possible. . .