BBK Photo Blog

Web Launch Party-Engagement!

2012-01-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

One of the perks of my line of work is the opportunity to be present and up front at special occasions. Wedding, births, birthdays, company parties and in rare cases, engagements. I had the privilege of shooting for a good friend of mine at her web launch party last week and at the event (I knew ahead of time because her finance had planned it all out) her boyfriend proposed. It was an exciting, fun evening and I was happy to have a small part in it.

These images are mainly of Jamila Meesarapu who has founded an exciting company called Dahlhouse Design. She and her team specialize in designer image consulting for you, your business and your home. Check out her website for more details.

www.dahlhouse-design.com

Jamila designed my logo and business card and does exceptional work! Here are the pictures from her exciting evening.

J's speech.

C's speech.

Congratulations you two!

Uncle J, Aunt L, and P

2012-01-09T11:50:00.000-08:00

I had a great visit with my brother and his very pregnant wife a week ago. They also have a fun, active two-year-old boy who kept my kids laughing and happy. We got to spend some time out at the new Sharon Johnston Park playground and they let me steal a few pics of them! Can't wait to meet baby C!

Beautiful Children at Home

2012-01-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

A few lovely shots of some beautiful kids in their home environment! These are the best kinds of shoots for a dreary January! Thanks for a fun morning H!

Christmastime for the S Family

2012-01-02T13:48:00.000-08:00

What a beautiful, fun family. I really enjoyed this holiday shoot. We shot a little bit of everything. I could tell how much this family loved each other and that always makes things fun. Hope you like these P and N!

N and G - Couple Shoot

2011-12-20T09:55:00.000-08:00

Another beautiful afternoon at the Christmas tree plantation to shoot with this cute couple. It was less busy than last year too since we are getting closer to Christmas. I really enjoyed spending time with this easy going couple. Thanks guys and hope you like these! I'll get your gallery info to you this afternoon.

One Month - Baby K

2011-12-17T07:35:00.000-08:00

If ever there were an angel baby, this child was it. Little K gave me very little trouble and slept so well during the shoot, I could have gone on for hours. I think he was about finished by the end, but honestly, what a wonderful shoot! Hope you like these K and T! Thanks so much.

Beautiful S Family

2011-12-13T08:38:00.000-08:00

It was chilly but fun this weekend at the Valley Christmas Tree Plantation where these pictures were taken. Even though these girls were cold, they were still as beautiful as ever! Hope you like these V and M!

Bring on the Lights!

2011-12-01T13:03:00.000-08:00

I really enjoy what I do. I have a job that allows me to be the wife and mother I want to be, and lets me create and express myself through my images. Photography has been a huge growing experience for me. One that will continue to evolve as long as I live and I am so grateful for it.
Yesterday I had the unusual opportunity to be completely caught up on my editing, and so I pulled out my camera and just played. I had a blast creating these images out of one of my favorite parts of this Christmas season...our lights. I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I did creating them. Bokeh lighting is very beautiful to me. I could play around with it for hours...in fact I just did! Happy holidays everyone!

A Family - Thanksgiving Break

2011-11-29T20:26:00.000-08:00

Gotta love a house divided!

Thanks Janet, I had so much fun with you and your beautiful family! Here is just a taste...

J Family - Fall Pics

2011-11-21T13:49:00.000-08:00

It is always a joy to shoot with this family and watch their son grow and change! Hope you like these M and T...thank you as always!

F Family and one on the way

2011-11-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

I've said it before, and I'll say it again...I love little babies! Even if they aren't actually born yet. :)

Can't wait to mee this little guy! He is going to come to a very sweet little family. I hope you like these D!

W Family and Baby M

2011-11-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

This cute little girl and her parents were a lot of fun! Baby M was so patient with the camera and she had some big smiles for her Daddy and Mommy! Here is a little taste for you both! I'll have your gallery up soon for you.

C and the C family

2011-11-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

This is my favorite time of year to shoot. This past Saturday did not disapoint! I was able to photograph an adorable, independant little man and his sweet family. He was a busy, curious two-year-old and soon to be big brother. I really enjoyed this shoot and I hope you do to!

J Head Shots

2011-11-07T12:31:00.000-08:00

You might recognize this beautiful lady. I've worked with her a few times before and had the pleasure to shoot some head shots for her website last week. I always have fun working with you J...hope you like these...here are just a few!

Autumn in the South

2011-11-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

My favorite time of year. I love everything about this season. The smells, the colors, the weather and the anticipation of the holidays to come. I could spend an entire day outside with my camera and still want more. So, these few pictures will have to be enough...although "few" might not be the right word to use! :)

Business Shoot-M

2011-10-25T18:11:00.000-07:00

I got to meet and spend a little time with this beautiful woman this morning at the downtown Embassy Suites location in Huntsville. I like the simplicty and ease of business shoots...and I really enjoy the conversation. Hope you like this little sample from your shoot M!

Free Drawing Winner: K Family

2011-10-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, my drawing this year was a big success. Thanks to everyone who entered! Here is the lucky winning family! Four adorable boys and lots of fun. They have a special place in my heart, because my husband and I also have four, and we almost ended up with four boys as well. Gotta love all those boys!

Hope you enjoy these K family, I will have your gallery up on my gallery site within the next day or so so you can view the rest and make your selections!

Final Mini-Shoot: M Family

2011-10-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

Well, this is it. The last of my mini-shoot sessions! This first photo was an idea that this cute mom had. I thought it turned out really cute! She brought the frame herself. I really enjoy trying new things! I have shot this little guy since he was in his Mom's tummy. It is so fun watching these little ones grow through my lens!

More Mini-shoots: H Family

2011-10-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

At one of my afternoon sessions I met up with this cute family. I LOVED how they were dressed and since I've known them for a while, it was a lot of fun shooting with them. I really like this location as well! Hope you like them M and A!

H Grandchildren

2011-10-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

Minishoot number four is here! This shoot was spent with two adorable little kids! They both had such beautiful expression, and gorgeous eyes. This sweet girl was a bit older and not as "on the go" so I was able to get a few more of her than her fun little brother! :)

I really enjoyed this! This was my final shoot of the morning, so stay tuned for a couple afternoon shoots soon!

The H Family

2011-10-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

Next on my mini-shoot list was this cute family. With four beautiful kids, they were a lot of fun to be with! Thanks for making the loooong drive out E! Hope you like the results.

C Family Kids

2011-10-12T11:27:00.000-07:00

Mini-shoot number two! Love this adorable family. Once again, the bugs were out but I think we managed some pretty cute shots. Hope you like these E and H!

The J Family

2011-10-11T08:00:00.001-07:00

The first of my mini-shoots is here! Oh, I loved this location. The morning light was fantastic, and other than a few bug, this spot was perfect! Keep watching, cause there will be many more to post after this cute family! Here's a peek for you M and M!

The L Family

2011-09-20T11:46:00.000-07:00

Love this family! This is a great friend of mine and her adorable little family. We had a lot of fun making pictures together.
This location is actually my afternoon mini-shoot location. I still have two spots open there and three in the morning at Sharon Johnston Park if anyone still wants to sign up! I know the morning shoots are a bit early for a Saturday, but you can't beat the light, and those slots will make fantastic pictures...I promise you won't regret it! Email me if you are interested!

Mini Shoot Time!

2011-09-13T05:37:00.000-07:00

These shoots will be great for those family Christmas cards! They will be dished out at a first come, first serve basis, so if you are interested, email me right away!

My beautiful Daughter and Son

2011-09-12T20:04:00.000-07:00

I posted all of these on my family blog, but I loved them so much I had to add them here as well!
These first shots are my pretty little daughter and her best friend, Teddy. The second shots are of my son. Enjoy!

My Mom made this hat for her. :)

And then a few pics of Owen for his first day! He humored me. :) These were taken off Jordan Rd. and Mooresmill.

The End of a Beautiful Summer

2011-09-08T19:09:00.000-07:00

Flowers... are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

In honor of summer ending...

Learning - ISO and a Little Shutter Speed

2011-09-07T12:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, the day is here...I am ready to talk about ISO!

Before I go into a definition of ISO, it is important to understand what shutter speed and aperture are. I talked all about aperture a few weeks back (click on "learning" in the side bar to find that post if you're interested!) In a nutshell, aperture is how wide open (small number) or closed (large number) your lens is and you can adjust that on your DSLR to allow more or less light into your camera. I won't go any deeper here because I did already talk about it in depth, so I'll move onto shutter speed now.

Shutter speed is exactly what it's name suggests...the speed at which your shutter opens and closes. Slow shutter speeds (to me that is anything below about an 80 or 1/80th or a second) soften an image and if used on a stable surface (tripod, bean bag, table...ect) can capture beautiful, flowy images. Movements can be frozen in a blur. The images aren't as crisp and clear, but they can still be very powerful. You can also use slow shutterspeeds to get clear images when there is not as much light, as long as your camera is steady (tripod, tripod, tripod!) and the image you are shooting is stationary. This is ideal with landscapes, buildings, and any form of non-moving animal! :) (just to name a few!) Any movement with slow shutterspeeds will cause noise in your image, so remember to keep that camera steady!

Okay, so let's say you want a crisp, clear, beautiful image. I recommend keeping your shutter speed above 100 or 125 (or 1/100th or 1/125th of a second). If you are shooting action shots, you'll want it even higher that that. Every photographer sort of figures out what they prefer themselves and what their lenses are best at, but over 125 is usually a good goal. Now, back to that beautiful, clear image you want to take. Let's say it is very overcast outside and you have your lens set at the lowest aperture number you can and you still aren't able to get your shutterspeed above, lets say, 60. Your subject is a little active three year old and with a shutterspeed like that you have no chance of capturing a clear image. What do you do?

Anyone, anyone?

Here is where ISO comes into the picture. ISO is a measure of how sensitive the digital card in your camera will be to the light you let in everytime you snap a picture. Low ISO = Low light sensitivity. Before DSLR camera's, cameras ran on film, (flash back!) and film came in all types of ISO numbers ranging from 100 ISO up to 6400 ISO(double check that number). Photographers would know what type of film they would need by knowing what their lighting situation would be. Low light requires higher ISO and lots of light requires only a low ISO. HINT: the lower you can keep your ISO, the better. I'll get to that!

Most digital camera's now have a changable ISO function. 100 ISO is the standard, no extra light in, setting. As you increase your ISO, you are making that sensor in your camera more sensitive to light, and so your camera will need less light to take pictures. Assuming you keep your aperture in one place, as you raise your ISO, you will be able to raise your shutterspeed. And as you raise your shutterspeed, you will be able to shoot clear images in less light. (feel free to reread this paragraph a few times...just to let it soak in!)

Here is an example: Below I have taken some pictures of my little helper...Miss Cabbage Patch. I took these in my room, in a low light situation with my camera set at f-2 aperture and a shutterspeed of 125. The only thing I changed in these images was my ISO. My camera's lowest ISO setting is 200, so I started there and went up to ISO 3200.

ISO 200

ISO 400

ISO 800

ISO 1000

ISO 1600

ISO 3200

Can you see what a difference raising ONLY that ISO made to the image? I'd say it's proper exposure was at about 1600 ISO in this scenario. I mentioned that the lower you can keep your ISO, the better right? After seeing these images, that might seem confusing. The reason is this. Low ISO settings with good lighting prevent your images from getting noisy. Real light to that sensor will always be ideal to raising your ISO, but there are situations where that just won't be possible, and raising that ISO is that only option you will have. These images above may not seem to be very noisy but if you were to zoom in on that ISO 3200 and pay attention to the background you would notice a considerable difference.

Here are two pics of my sons Teddy Bear up close. Both images are exposed correctly, for the ISO setting I picked. Look at the background noice difference between 200 ISO and 3200 ISO:

ISO 200

ISO 3200 - notice the noise in the background. This is more prominent when light is low. These images were taken infront of a well lit window, so they are at their best.

I have to note also, that not all camera's ISO are created equal. If I were to use my old Nikon D40x and shoot at 100 ISO and 800 ISO there would be a definite difference in picture quality, while with the D300s I am using now, that difference is miniscule. When it comes to cameras and ISO, you pay for quality!

Hope this was good for someone and have fun playing around with your ISO settings!

Next Time I will dish out some simple tricks anyone can use to get great portraits of their loved ones!

And the Winner is......

2011-09-05T09:47:00.000-07:00

Tara Knight!

Congratulations Tara! You're free shoot is good until the end of the year. Let me know what date works for you and I'll get you on the calendar!

Thanks to all those who entered my drawing. We had a great response. I am still booking fall dates, so email me if anyone is interested in a shoot!

Also, I will be posting six mini shoot slots next week....location and price to be announced, so stay tuned!

Baby J - 3 Weeks!

2011-09-03T20:21:00.000-07:00

Remember this baby?

It's amazing how much can change in three weeks! This little guy is growing and doing exactly what a three-week old should be doing, and looking as sweet as ever as he does. :)

Don't forget to enter my drawing for a free shoot by the end of tomorrow! I will be announcing the winner first thing Monday morning. Just leave a comment on the post before this one. Good luck!

Free Drawing

2011-08-30T11:12:00.001-07:00

I am so excited about my free drawing this year! I really had a blst with this last year, so I decided to make it a yearly thing! Please, spread the word and let everyone know about it!

Also, I am booking my fall sessions now, so if you are thinking about those Christmas cards, nows the time to book on my calendar! I will be booking one mini-group session this year sometime in October, so stay tuned for the details on that soon.

Good luck everyone!

J's Business Shoot

2011-08-29T20:32:00.000-07:00

I got to try out a new location at the Embassy Suites with this beautiful lady for a fun business shoot. Here are just a few of my favorites from the evening!

and then a few just for fun....

Learning-Action Tip

2011-08-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I know I said in my last learning post that I would be talking about ISO today, but my week has gone a little crazier than I had planned, and I only have a second to post. So, instead of my original plan, I thought I'd give you a fun little website my friend Diana (check out her blog for some amazing baby and children shots! http://www.jonesyraephotography.com/) shared with me. This sweet woman has created some pretty good actions and is sharing them with the world for free. I have tried free actions before, but these are the best free ones I have found so far. I've been having a lot of fun editing images with them!
For those of you who don't know what "actions" are, they are a batch of commands that are saved by group as a single "action" in your photoshop actions menu. You open your image, go into your actions menu, and select the button with the action you want and apply it to your image. Wahla! It's as easy as that.
There are lots of actions you can buy out there (go ahead and google it!) and there are also lots of free actions, but not all of them are a very good quality. Actions can change your photo from plain to vintage, or bright, or whimsical, or HD, or you name it. I have created actions myself (you can easily record them yourself in photoshop) so that I could apply a common edit-style I use to other pictures I create without having to go through all of the steps again and again. I have also created actions to save images as jpegs, and then I was able to batch close a large group of images as jpegs from RAW files at one time without have to click a thousand times.
Usually though, I use actions to create a certain unique to my picture. Every picture is different, and an action might work well with one image, but not a another.

In any case, check out the actions on this site. This kind woman has created some fantastic ones! Go to: http://thepioneerwoman.com/ and click on photography and then click on photoshop actions and check out all the cool stuff she has. I downloaded the sets from March 25th and March 3rd. I am posting a bunch of pictures of my youngest two children that I edited using these actions.

Happy editing everyone, and I promise to talk about ISO next week!

Baby W is 1!

2011-08-23T07:52:00.000-07:00

This little man was so good! It think he went through four outfits in about an hour and he was still smiling in the end! I really enjoyed time with him and his parents. I went to a photo conference this weekend with a good friend of mine and learned some fun new things with textures that I really wanted to try! I had a blast editing these images!

BRAND NEW Baby J

2011-08-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

I had the incredible experience of shooting the birth of a sweet baby boy last week. It was an emergency c-section, so both I and the parents T and L were not excpecting to be there. I was honored to be able ot witness something so special. These shots are all strictly of the birth and right after. The baby had to go straight to the NICU (poor thing!), so I will have to update later with more pictures of him.

Stay tuned for more of this sweet boy!

W family-Sneak Peek!

2011-08-18T11:40:00.000-07:00

I love big families. There is always plenty to do with a big family! This family was a lot fun...and even though it was a little warm, everyone did really well!

Hope you like these!

Learning-Camera Settings

2011-08-11T14:48:00.000-07:00

Okay, so you just bought your first nice DLSR. (Digital Single Lens Reflex...aka, a camera that you can switch lenses....that's not the technical explanation, but I like it!) You aren't a pro, but you're interested in photography and have been, "bitten by the bug" so to speak. You look at the little dial on your pretty new camera and see a bunch of funny pictures/icons. You are sure they mean something, but what?
I felt this way myself the first time I picked up my Nikon D40x. I remember hanging out with my girlfriends, one of whom has a Canon, trying to figure out what all the little settings were supposed to be used for, and was I supposed to switch them around all time? I had no idea. So, I am going to dedicate a short amount of time to the auto modes, and then try to cover the manuel modes in a little more detail. Let's be honest, I like them more! :)

Okay, so this picture ought to look familiar to some of you. Recognize these? They may vary a little from camera to camera, but they are pretty similar. These are all of your AUTO MODES. I think this diagram is pretty self explanatory, so I'll leave it to you to read through them.

I will say briefly, that these are the modes you pick when you want the camera to do the thinking for you. You don't want to have to worry about ISO, or aperture or shutter speed. (Which is great if you just scratched your head at those words and thought, what the heck is she talking about? ISO what?) They are the settings most people use; especially the top AUTO setting. So, if you aren't interested in learning all the technical mish-mash of how your camera works, you just want to take pictures and have them look decent, then use them and have fun!

The downside of auto settings are that they use a lot of flash, and don't allow you to control anything, so your consistency won't be great. Also, because the flash is used a lot, your shoot speed is slower. Have you ever heard someone's camera pound out that continuous exposure sound (click-click-click-click-click)? Well, you won't get that kind of speed in auto mode, unless you are are in auto-no flash, and that setting will probably only work well outside.

Since I am a bit of a control freak when it comes to my pictures, I wanted the knowledge and power to make my images even better, and to do that, I had to learn how my camera functioned, and become very comfortable with the manual modes.

There are three main manual modes and a fourth that to be honest, I have never used in my life. This picture is a little fuzzy, but I just wanted to show the camera dial. These are the MANUAL MODES

I'll start with the M. M basically means Manual. You have full control of your camera. You decide everything from aperture to shutter speed to ISO, white balance and exposure comp (a bunch of words I'll talk more about later.) This is a setting that most professional photographers use. It gives them complete control over everything, which is fantastic...but it also can be frustrating if you don't know your information well. I think learning in manual mode is the best way to go. If you've never used it, I want you to try something!

HOMEWORK: Go outside on an overcast day, or out in a shady party of your yard with a person or object (objects have more patience than people from my experience) to photograph and slide your camera over to the big M on your dial. (You may experience a rush of excitement...that's totally normal!) Okay, so once your there, snap a shot just to see what happens. Chances are, your image will not be great, unless you happen to by luck have the right setting already. Now, we are going to shoot again, only this time, look into your view finder and pay attention to all the numbers and letters along the bottom of you picture area. These are the magical numbers that control what your camera does. You will see one in particular that looks a little like a time line. Kind of like this:

See the plus sign and then the dashes with the zero in the middle that continue on to the minus sign? (don't worry about anything else in this picture for now!) This line will tell you when you have a correct exposure. With Nikons, (and I'm assuming other cameras aren't too different) when you have your finger on the shutter release button, or "trigger" as I call it, ready to shoot, your thumb should fall onto a dial that turns left to right. This dial controls your shutter speed, which is basically how fast or slow your shutter opens up to let light in. If it is open too long, your pictures will be very over-exposed and bright, if it doesn't open long enough, your pictures will be dark. So, not worrying about anything else, we are going to control only your shutter speed.

Okay, so now you have your beautiful camera to your face, and you have your finger on the "trigger" and you look down (don't move the camera at all, keep the viewfinder at your eye and look down to the bottom of your picture) at the bottom of your view finder you will see the exposure graph. All you have to do now is slide that shutter dial (with your thumb, remember!) either left or right, until your grid bar is directly at zero. (Play around with it and you'll see what I mean.) You should now be properly exposed...ahem...and ready to shoot. Go ahead! Have fun with it, but beware...when in manuel mode, you will have to constantly make sure that your exposure dial is at zero, so if you move from one light setting to another, you will want to check and make sure your exposure is still good and adjust it when necessary. Also, there are some situations where being perfectly exposed doesn't work for me and I want to be slightly over or under exposed. If you look at that exposure line and it shows you are past the zero toward the plus sign, you will be over exposed. The same works for the negative side. If you are toward the negative symbol, you will be underexposed. The farther from zero you get, the more over/under exposed you will be. You have the power, so you decide what works for you. I'll go into more detail about manual shooting and all the other factors in future posts, I think this will be more than enough to keep you busy for now!

Okay, so the other Manual modes are A- or aperture priority (my personal fave!), S- shutter priority (I use it occasionally, but not as much. and P- programmed auto (I have never ever used this setting because I haven't really understood the point of it. Maybe I have some more learning to do!

Aperture Priority or A allows you to pick whatever aperture you want (see last Wednesday's post on aperture) and the camera picks the shutter speed. You can still control your ISO and Exposure comp, and so I use this the most. It allows me to determine my depth of field without worrying as much about my shutter speed. (Although you have to think about it a little, or your pictures could go fuzzy...just depends on how much light you have to work with!)

Shutter Priority or S does the opposite. You choose the shutter speed, and the camera will pick an accurate aperture. This is good if you know you want to maintain a certain shutter speed. I prefer to control my depth of field, so I don't use this option as much.

Finally, P or Programmed auto. In this setting, the camera picks your shutter speed and aperture priority (sounds a lot like AUTO mode right?) but you can slide the dial and make the camera select different combinations of shutter and aperture, so you still maintain some control. It seems like a lot of work to me...especially if I already know what I want, but it would be fun to play with for someone who is learning how aperture and shutter work together!

Over-whelmed yet? I know this post held A LOT of information. I felt like I wanted to get through it all right off the bat, so I could go into more detail with other topics later.

I think it all goes back to the old saying, "How do you eat an elephant?" and the answer is, "One bite at a time." With photography, you just have to take things one shot at a time and you will learn as you go. I laugh when I look at pictures I took when I was learning and remember how proud I was to post them, because I have really come a long way since then, and I am sure I will laugh again in a few years at things I'm doing now. There is always so much to learn.

Good luck, and happy shooting everyone!

Next week: understanding ISO.

Alabama-Obscure Graveyard

2011-08-08T21:30:00.000-07:00

I have posted pictures of this place before, but it was when I was first learning how to use my camera, and the pictures were fuzzy and dark. This is a little spot Dan and I pass every so often just so we can drive past it. It is a very old graveyard with readable stones that date back to civil war times.

After the tornadoes hit Huntsville a few months ago, we drove past this little spot and noticed some of the trees had been blown over on top of some of these neglected graves. I didn't have the power to fix that, but I wanted to capture this special little spot so that as the years continue to move on, and it wears down further, it will be remembered by somebody.

Learning - aperture

2011-08-03T12:24:00.000-07:00

I remember when I starting taking pictures a few years ago how every new fact I learned about photography was exciting and new. I still feel that excitement now, and some occasional frustration when I don't the kind of shot I was hoping for. I still have sooooo much to learn, but I want to share some of the tricks and techniques I've learned with others because photography is something that I feel needs to be shared. From camera phones, to fancy big camera's photography is everywhere, and there are little tricks that will help everyone get better images. So, I've decided that every Wednesday I will share something I've learned with you. I hope that those of you who are out there learning yourself will feel free to add your comments!

My fun fact for today is all about aperture. Basically, aperture is how open or closed your lens is. It is usually described in f-stops. The confusing thing about aperture, is that the small numbers equal a wide open aperture, and the large numbers equal a smaller, more closed aperture. Going along with that, the larger number (smaller opening) will produce pictures with greater depth of field (backgrounds tend to have more detail) and the small numbers (larger opening) will produce images with a shallow depth of field (think, fuzzy backgrounds). I have some examples shot here below.

This picture was taken with my Nikon 300s, using my 50 mm lens at f-22 (really small opening). I shot this in aperture priority (that's the A option) because I wanted my camera to pick my shutter speed for me. (More about that next week!) I didn't want to have to worry about that here. Can you see how much detail is on the leaves? because of the small aperture opening, the depth of field is deep, showing a greater area of picture in focus. I tend to use a higher f-stop number when shooting large groups of people because I want all of my subjects to be in focus.

This image was shot with the same camera, and the same fifty millimeter lens, and also shooting in aperture priority mode. The only thing I did differently was change my aperture setting from 22 down to 2, which really opened up my lens to a nice wide aperture. You can see the difference from the first picture. Because my lens was so wide open, my depth of field is very shallow. You can see where I focused on the tip of the flower and that part is clear, but it goes fuzzy much faster as it goes out to the edge.

My advise then is...if you are shooting a large amount of people, you will want to boost up your aperture number a bit. (I usually go from f-5 to f-10 depending on the group and how close I am to them). If you are shooting just one or two people, you will want to lower it as far down as your camera will let you. Most camera's standard lens only goes down to 3.5, so you might want to look for a good wide aperture lens. (one that goes down to at least f-1.8). This one is an affordable starter for you Nikon users: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/5018daf.htm
It is a Nikkor lens, and you want to make sure the AF (auto focus) is compatible with your camera. I used to shoot with a Nikon D40x and this lens was not AF compatible with it.

Cannon users, yours appears to be even more affordable, though I don't know much about it's performance level: http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/lenses/50mm-f18.htm

Remember though, the closer you are to your subject on a wide aperture, the faster the edges will get fuzzy, so if you are close, you will want to focus on the eyes (or other point of interest). If the eyes are clear, the rest won't matter as much. If you step back a bit, you can get a subject entirely in focus with a wide aperture.

This image is shot with a wide aperture...you can see how the flowers in the front are clear, and those in the back are fuzzy.

Same here. I tend to prefer a low f-stop aperture.

Cameras focus in planes. You can see in this picture that all three flowers are in focus. This is important because you'll notice that all three flowers are on the same plane. If you can get your subject's faces on the same plane, you can shoot with a wider aperture (remember.... that smaller number!) and still have everyone in focus.

These flowers are not on the same plane and you can see how one flower is more in focus than the others. If I had wanted all of the flower to be in focus, I could have taken my f-stop from f-2 to say, f-5 and probably done that.

Next week I think I will talk about camera settings and what I like to use in different situations. Hope this was helpful to someone!

Storey-Sitzler Wedding!

2011-07-28T05:50:00.000-07:00

I am so excited about this post. This was my first official, all mine to photograph wedding! I felt like this was one of those "first steps" that was a little scary, but preparing me to get up and go. I enjoyed every second of this event. The families were so gracious and the bride and groom were so cute together! It was the type of event where all I had to do was sit back and click away because there were beautiful moments to capture at every turn. I am pretty sure this will be my longest post yet, so be prepared!

And a few bridals...

Little C's #1 Party!

2011-07-21T20:40:00.000-07:00

What a fun day. It was my first time ever being hired to photograph a birthday party, and I absolutely loved it. The decorations were adorable, and this little man was a sweet as could be. I took a lot, so I'll stop chatting and start posting!