Prints for Sale

So I am sorry I have been so silent I've been busy with school and life and what nots. It will probably stay silent for a little bit because I am working more now trying to save up for my study abroad trip to Scotland. So I have put prints up for sale to help fund my trip you can find them here: CLICK ME! Also I have set myself up a gofundme and have now become the person I didn't want to become. I am not against people asking for money I just prefer for me to earn my own money so that is why I'm selling prints also. Thank you for anyone who has supported me and for anyone who will support me. And when I come back I will have tons of pictures, enough to fill multiple blog posts :)

Also If there are any pictures I posted on here that aren't on my site just let me know and I can put them up there for you!

Tis the season for babies!

So in honor of the holiday that most mid November babies are conceived in we will be talking about babies! Yesteday was valentines day and I really wanted this to be up yesterday but between work, school and vampire diaries I wasn't able to write it up. So here we are a day late but better late than never right?

So babies are fun to shoot if you don't mind crying and wiggling and curiosity. Now I'm not saying I don't like shooting babies I love the little suckers you just have to be prepared for anything and everything when it comes to babies. So this shoot was for a dear friend that has a 1 year old. So for the setup we did it on my white backdrop inside because just before it we got a cold front and I didn't want them outside in the cold. So one of the things to remember about babies: They will not ever stay where you want them on the backdrop so you have to learn to be super mobile and fast with babies especially ones that walk.

 Also don't be afraid of taking crying pictures. I for one when I have a kid am going to have tons of crying pictures. Babies have so many different expressions, capture them all!

 And when all else fails distract them with props!

 Most pictures you get with babies who are awake and walking will be candid unless the baby was born a model and sits where you tell them, pose how you tell them and smile when you tell them.

Babies are as I have said hard to shoot but to me they are super fun. Also most of the parents are a bit biased when it comes to the pictures they think their kid is adorable so just capture them being themselves.

One thing I do recommend is when you are setting up your shoot you want to shoot when the baby is most agreeable. As the parent when their baby is happiest. Most common times are after a nap, after they eat, or first thing in the morning. Every parent should know when their baby is the most agreeable. Next you want to have something to get the babies attention, so have the parent bring a favorite toy or something. For this shoot we would distract and lead her around with snacks, which is perfect, she puts it in her mouth and bam the "prop" disappears!

Hope you had fun and next time you shoot a baby you can keep these things in mind :D.

New York Preview!

Ok so I am finally getting around to going through my pictures from New York! So I haven't gone through them all to write up an actual blog post so I am just doing this to give you a preview and to let you know I haven't forgotten about this blog!

Ok so here are a couple from central park and one from the Manhattan bridge. Hopefully I will have the photos sorted by next week, I have over 1000 to go through! It will probably be separated in a couple different posts but we shall see!

2013 In Review

So for this post since I've been a bit busy with finals and now the Christmas and New Years holiday I wanted to do a year in review type of post where I look back on what all I have done with my life in the past year and amazingly enough I almost have pictures to cover all the months! Also the idea came to me while I was taking inventory of what all I still had after my hard drive with my life got stolen. I must say I am slightly impressed with myself because at times this year seems to have passed so fast but some of these pictures I feel were last year or so but they weren't! If you click on the month (unless otherwise stated) it will take you to the corresponding blog post.

So its only right to kick this post off with the shoot that started this blog out!

January: The water droplets, I loved this shoot and would love to do it again given the time, assistant and equipment since the assistant used lives in New York and the equipment was borrowed. I feel like this was was so long ago but it was only a year ago and its what has set me on this lovely journey with you readers :D.

 February: So these were from the time I got food poisoning and wasn't able to do the lovely 5k so I stood back and took pictures which was super duper fun and amazing.

 March: Here are a couple shots from a shoot with one of my amazing friends back in March, I honestly thought this was done back in 2012 but to my memories surprise it was in March!

April: Now this one has multiple posts that correspond with it so I am linking you to the month of April because the second post starts the five post long adventure I took in April. Each group of pictures will have their own link to that post if you just want to individually look at that post. In April I went on a cruise to shoot my cousins wedding but it was such a wonderful experience altogether and so many amazing pictures! Some of these pictures did not make it to the blog posts so here are some new things!

Costa Maya

Belieze

Roatan

Cozumel which I apparently never posted about...

And the wedding pictures I did were not readily available on my computer after the incident so i'm just linking you all, but enjoy some pictures of the ship because it was super pretty and I never posted any.

May: I had worked a convention and shared with you all how to photoshop a background and make it blend a bit better than in you just dropped something in the picture.

June was quiet but July was super busy so each has their own link! First was the milk shoot, then fourth of July but I held off posting until recently and another convention!

 August: Ok so for august i'm actually liking you to a youtube channel that me and my brother had started up with him and his puppet because they are a hoot and a half together! We do plan on doing more with him but we have booth been so busy with school and work that it just hasn't happened yet! But we do have two videos up! So shameless plug, you should check it out!

Now there is where my progress kind of halted, school and work kind of got in the way and I went through a bit financially so finally I am back on track and doing what I love, I am linking but not attaching the newest pictures from posts but I am throwing in one of a soon to be post. I did pictures of one of my friends little girls, the shoot was fun and challenging (try shooting a super curious child who wont for the life of her stay on the backdrop) but as a photographer you have to make do and produce pictures that are to last a lifetime. I am also throwing in one of the graduation pictures I did of my roommate, Congrats!

So I'm thankful for those of you who have been on this crazy journey with me and stuck around. 2014 promises to be just as fun I am kicking it off in New York and hopefully if I can save up the money I will be going to Scotland in the summer for school! So as a shameless plug for me I am trying to save up money for the Scotland trip so I have opened up an etsy account and I am selling different .little things that I make so check it out and buy things please! (Also you should check out those ads on the sided and bottom of my blog...)
I am also selling fine art portraits of my photos if you are interested feel free to contact me for prices!

So I am signing off for this year and I will see you all bright eyed and bushy-tailed in 2014!

Fireworks in the dark!

Well why would you have fireworks without the dark? Ok fine lets get on with what this post is actually about, cheese! Ok just kidding, as the title states I am pretty sure that you know this post is about fireworks! I took these pictures back during 4th of July and I saved them to post for now because I figured New Years has fireworks and you might possibly want to take pictures of them. Also lucky for you these pictures were on my computer at work! Otherwise we would have been SOL because they would have been on my hard drive that got stolen and not on my personal computer.

What I used in this shoot:
-My Nikon D7000
-Vello wireless remote trigger
-Tripod

As set up you will want to out your camera on a tripod because I don't think you can hold a camera 100% steady for two seconds. You will also want to set up your remote trigger and I will explain its importance in a bit. While on setup I should inform you that you will want to be set up on something that does not move.

Firstly you are going to want to set your f-stop as high as your camera will let it, mine was at 22. You want to do this because the higher your f-stop the more you will have in focus and this is very important for fireworks. (you can refer back to my depth of field post) Since you are not able to focus on a firework before it is set off you will want to give yourself as much wiggle room as possible. If you know where they are shooting the fireworks from and you can focus on something right there I would recommend focusing and then setting your focus to manual so that it doesn't try to focus every time you push the shutter.

Also you will want to zoom out as far as possible and leave it that way because it is extremely hard to tell where the fireworks are going to end up so the wider area you can capture the better. So keeping this in mind you will want to use the widest lens you have at your mercy.

Your ISO in this instance isn't too terribly but you do not want anything too low or too high. I usually set mine anywhere between 800-1000.

 Now on to the actual shooting part! So once you are set up the first couple shots will more than likely be testers to make sure everything is good. most of the time you will have to adjust where the camera is pointing because either you will be too low or too high.

The shutter in this instance is controlled solely on how much of the firework you want to capture so this is the biggest reason for the remote. You will have to set your shutter to bulb which on my camera you just adjust the shutter all the way to the slowest and the last option is bulb. Keep in mind that the reason you will want the remote is that with a remote you are not touching the camera and therefore you will not accidentally shake the lens in the process of holding down the shutter.

Once you are set up and pointing in the right direction have fun! Trial and error are the only ways to really know how the shot will come out.

One thing to keep in mind is that fireworks do create smoke and the light of the next firework will light up that smoke so don't be alarmed when your image comes out with something that looks like a smudge on your lens.

 Also remember that the longer you hold the shutter the more streaks you will get so eventually your shot might just be a ton of streaks and be too light to do anything with.

There is no 100% formula for shooting fireworks but this is sure to get you as close as possible to shooting them the best way I know how! So go out and have fun on New Years and please don't start any fires!

Shooting in RAW

So getting back up and on my horse and starting to post again. So today I am going to talk at you about shooting in camera RAW. Now usually I am a big believer in shooting and not editing your photos much in Photoshop but I am not dumb and I know that sometimes that just isn't an option. Over the thanksgiving holiday I usually travel up to Dallas with my parents to spend the holiday with my family on my mothers side. My aunt lives hear this beautiful park that has a trail through wooded area. Me and my mother decided to take a walk through the path after thanksgiving dinner. I being me brought my camera along but it was quickly turning into night before we were even close to leaving the house so i still brought my camera but with a different idea in mind.
Shooting in RAW is one of the most amazing things to do because if your image is too dark or too light it can recover more of the image than if you just shot in regular jpeg. Here are some of the pictures I took in a before and after sense.

 Here is probably my favorite image from the holiday. the first is the before picture, the original. Using raw i was able to bump the contrast and up the lightness of the sidewalk without lightening the grass dark. I was going for a more silhouetted look but wanted the sidewalk to stay lit up too.

 Next up is an actual silhouette but the upside for shooting raw with this one was basically bringing back the blue in the sky without compromising it with noise.

 Finally is this little gem, was an amazing shot that I would never have noticed without my mother. She pointed out that the street light was creating the leaf pattern on the sidewalk. I wasn't able to stand super still so I couldn't use a super slow shutter so to get the color that I wanted to achieve I had to rely on the amazingness of RAW.

It isn't really that easy to explain what you can do in RAW and I by no means am an expert. I have only recently started shooting in raw and I do have to say it is a wonderful asset if you are shooting a wedding or an event because just in case you over or under expose a photo you don't have to worry!

I hope this helps a little and like i said i plan on posting more in the future and hopefully with some fun exciting things! Good luck and always have fun shooting!