Doorway Studio

If you are anything like me, you're getting into photography as a hobby or whatnot, and you get to the point where you would love to set up some sort of studio space to work in. Most people can devote a room in their home to such obsessive hobbies, but remember - you're like me. You might live at home with your parents, and they already gave you control of a bedroom and another room for an office and they'll be damned if you take over yet another room for a stupid studio.. ahem. Not sayin' that happened or anything...

Read more inside...

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells...

Wow, the holiday season really snuck up on me this year. One day it's 75 degrees and the next day it's Thanksgiving. I hope everyone had a great holiday and stuffed themselves silly, and if you went shopping on Black Friday more power to ya. I hope no one was trampled. I had a nice laid-back Thanksgiving myself, and I have a lot to be thankful for. It really is a time to reflect on all the blessings we have received over the course of the year, and I hope that everyone can think of at least one psotive thing that happened to them.

For instance I'm thankful for my job, my family, my pets, and I'm thankful I took this picture...



More after the jump...

Maintaining the status quo..

Trucking right along. I still haven't had a ton of time to shoot and update the blog, but I'm definitely still here! I did a recent rockabilly/vintage type shoot with Jess, and there were two photos from the set that jumped out at me.

More after the jump.

Things are looking up..

I am pretty gosh darn excited. Yes, I used the words "gosh darn." I have to say that I am excited for things to come. People are noticing my photography, albeit slowly - which I prefer over quickly. I am at that weird stage where I have people contacting me on Facebook asking about my photography, people being referred by others who are wanting me to do pics for them, and contacts being made through friends and family, but I am scared to death. I'm scared that these people, or clients if you want to call them that, will be disappointed by my lack of skill. I am no professional photographer, I am a chick with a SLR. Yet, people keep praising me. Do not get me wrong, I love every second of it. I just don't think it's deserved yet.

I think every artist is their own worst critic, doubly so in my case. I am beyond thrilled to be learning the techniques I am, and earning the oppurtunities that have been presented to me. My worst fear is failure though, and I am afraid right now. A few months ago it was all fun. Ask a few friends to model, snap some pictures of my dogs. I never dreamed anyone would see my photos and like them, let alone want me to take pictures for them! So right now is kind of a strange time for me, but as the post is titled "Things are looking up.." - they really are!

I have made my decision to go for a graphic design and photography degree at Stark State College. I was enrolled as General Education, just to get things started, but I think this whole hobby/obessesion of mine came into my life for a reason. I am so motivated to learn more that I am extremely excited at the prospect of getting a formal education in this field. So there you have it. It only took me 10 years to decide what I wanted to do with my life.

Another bit of exciting news, I recently bought my first "pro" lens!

 Ahhhh! I know, right? The thing dwarfs my poor little Rebel camera, and that is shown without the lens hood! Please excuse the cruddy quality of the picture, it was taken with my P&S in a pretty dark room using, gasp, on-board flash!

The lens that I have plunked on my camera here is the Canon 70-200mm f4 L. The "L" stands for Luxury. That just tickles me. I thought my Nifty Fifty (Canon 50mm f1.8 II) was sharp, I have found sharper. See that red ring on the end? That's evidently what differentiates the Canon "L" glass from other lenses. These lenses have superior quality glass elements, and are the prefessional standard for Canon shooters. I think personally I just like the sexy black and white stripes! I'm way, way impressed by this lens. The two images of my dogs below were shot today with this lens, I think they speak for themselves.

I know, the right side of Watson's photo is all blown out - but c'mon man! Check out that bokeh!! Holy $#%! I cannot wait to take this thing through its paces.

I have had some other pretty neat stuff going on lately too, the photo at the top of the black and white JRT is Hank, he is one of three dogs I just did a shoot of a couple weeks ago. Some of the pics from that set came out really cute, other ones - not so much. It was 90-some degrees and the dogs were hot and panting.

 So we are gonna meet up again in the fall when it's cooler out to see if we can get some more photos of these awesome, plucky little dogs and their big sister.

Although I have been doing a lot of pet photography lately, that's not all I've been doing! Jessica and I had an amazing shoot at our local park here, and we got some odd looks while we were shooting. I wonder if it was because of the big lightstand with the umbrella, or the flash, or the big camera, or...

Yeah, I think it was the hot girl dressed in vinyl, and covered in blood. Which, of course, was fake. Jess wanted a vampire themed shoot, and I was more than happy to oblidge. I got to use more off-camera flash, which worked really well for the time of day we picked to meet up. I was so happy with how these pics turned out, if only they could all turn out like these.

We didn't bust out the blood right away, and I managed to snap some fashion-y portraits of Jess, sans blood. Found an awesome backdrop (that I know I will be using again in the future) in the form of this awesome brick building that was casting some shade on one side.

These portraits by the building are some of my favorites from the set. It didn't take us long to bust out the fake blood, cover Jess in it and go mucking about in a creek though.

Let me tell you. Walking into this creek with no shoes on, camera in hand was completely nerve-wracking. I was so scared I was going to fall in and ruin my camera! We managed to get the water shots without incident though, thank goodness!

Jessica and I have a few more shoots in the works, and I cannot wait to see the results!

New Strides..

I made that photograph? Really? I am not saying it's perfect, I can spot at least 5 things I would do differently next time, but that's why I am practicing. I just am amazed at the things that I can do with off-camera flash. If you ignore the obvious faults, to me this photo looks like it was shot in a studio. In fact, it was shot in the client's finished basement, with a bedsheet pinned up on the wall to provide a solid dark background. The light came from one strobe, shot through an umbrella, and my camera was on manual.

This is Valerie and her husband Van, they are expecting their first child any day now. I am deeply honored to have had the chance to capture their moment in photography. This is what photographers talk about when they write on their blogs about feeling so amazing because they were a part of something so special. I hope that Valerie and Van are able to cherish these photos for a very long time.

There was not only one pregnant lady there, there were two! This is

Angie and her husband Jason. They also are expecting their first child any day now. Jason, happens to be Valerie's brother too! Their family is about to get a whole lot more hectic very soon!

I still need to keep working on little things, details like having more lights for seperation - so black pants don't disappear into a dark background and leave floating, pregnant torsos! But soon enough! I am adding more knowledge bit by bit, and I will continue to learn as much as I possibly can.

I really wish to thank Valerie and Angie for giving me the oppurtunity to be a part of their special event, and enabling me to capture it for them so that they will always have these pictures to remind them of this point in their lives.

This family knows how to be goofy and laid back, and it shows. You may recognize the woman on the right as Cherie, the subject of my last shoot. She is Jason and Valerie's sister too! It's an amazing group and we laughed the entire time we were shooting, which made things incredibly easy!

We even got mom in on the action!! All in all a highly successfull shoot I would say! I cannot wait to take more of these!

It's such a powerful thing to capture moments as opposed to simple posed photos. Coming up I have another shoot scheduled with Staci, and of course there should be some (eeek!) newborn photos soon!! Keep your eyes peeled for all the baby cuteness that's about to be happening around here!

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. . .

Evolving

I've been so busy lately, getting everything ready to start school, working full time and of course taking as many photos as possible! I've done two more shoots, one with Jessica, and one with Staci and her godson David. More on those later, because I am so excited to share that two of my photos were printed in my local newspaper for Earth Day!

They also have them up on their website as well! The editor even asked if I'd be interested in doing some news or sports photos for them this summer! Needless to say I'm extremely flattered and completely psyched to have more work published!

Onto the portraits! I can definitely tell that my work is evolving. I'm learning a tremendous amount with each shoot that I accomplish, and it's a great feeling! I'm no where near a professional yet, but I have to be happy with the skills I have picked up in such a short amount of time.

Jessica was kind enough to model for me yet again, and we had an amazing location to work from. We had a bit more time and Jess had picked out a few outfits to work with as well, so we got a diverse set from one shoot, and I couldn't be happier.

We even had a guest appearance by a super short, super cute model!

I wanted to try some new things with the way I process my photos, and I'm thankful to say I think I finally have my process nailed down. It's become very fluid and much faster to say the least!

Jessica rocked it like always, she's so fun to work with, keeps me laughing but is serious in a fraction of a second to nail an expression!

I wish it had been more overcast this day, but I really can't complain about gorgeous weather in Ohio, it did make for some nice interior barn shots though!

I also had the pleasure of shooting Staci and David at a local park that I love shooting at. There's water, grass, flowers, gazebos. The place offers so much in the way of backgrounds it is unreal!

Staci and David did an excellent job, and I was thrilled to shoot them! Even though it was a shorter shoot than usual, we still ended up with some great shots!

It's obvious how close these two are, and how much they enjoy each other. Staci is an amazing role model for him, she sets rules and guidelines for him that he would be lacking otherwise. David has not had the easiest childhood, and she provides him with stability. Although, they have their silly moments.

Which are endearing and amazing to capture. All in all I have felt honored that my friends have let me into their lives with my big pesky lens always in their faces. I guess I'm just lucky that way!