No MACRO lens? NO PROBLEM!!!!!

images courtesy of alexbeadonphotography.com

Sand & Surf

We're headed down to the beach this weekend to photograph some surfing and we absolutely cannot wait! Not only is surfing and amazing and high skilled sport - it makes for some great action shots!

Do you photograph surfers in action? We would love to see what you can do and feature you on our blog! email you images to kayleigh_zettler@hotmail.com

We are really inspired by these photographs by: Jack English Photography

Tell us what you think!

15 Everyday Items That Belong in Your Camera Bag

If you spend any amount of time shooting on location (as opposed to shooting in a home studio) you have probably found that there is always something that you left at home that you wish you had brought. If you are new to photography, here is a list of a few things, both photography and non-photography related, that will help make sure you stay prepared!

Camera and Gear:

1. If possible, a back up camera - This may sound absurd, but you never, never know what will happen! Imagine how devastated you would be if you showed up to shoot a client, or a wedding, and your camera died. Even if you only have a backup point-and-shoot, it’s better than arriving at a shoot and not having any form of a Plan B!

2. Memory cards galore – Again, memory cards are sometimes known to stop working for no apparent reason, so having an extra one or two on hand can save you a lot of embarrassment and stress. The night before your shoot, make sure to format your memory cards, which will ensure they work properly.

3. Extra batteries, both for your camera and your flash. Also, make sure to charge your batteries the night before! I know, this seems completely obvious, but sometimes we overlook the little, yet extremely important, details when we are getting ready for a big shoot the next day.

4. Lens/filter wipes

5. If you use a film SLR from time to time, make sure to have a light meter handy. The light meters in older film cameras can, and will, give out, due to age and battery life. If you have a smart phone, there are free light meter apps available to have on your phone.

6. Tripod – If you are shooting in low light (even if it is cloudy outside!) and do not have a full frame camera with a high ISO, you can easily use a tripod to prevent camera shake, rather than chancing it by shooting hand-held.

7. A small reflector – Having a reflector handy can be a life-saver. If you are shooting in uneven light, or even low light, a circular reflector can make a huge difference.

Non-Photography Related Items:

8. Hairspray – Those tiny, flyaway hairs can be very time consuming in your post-processing. Go ahead and eliminate them on the spot with a tiny bit of hairspray.

9. Lint brush – Same idea as the hairspray, because lint spots on clothing are not fun to edit out of your photos.

10. Hair pins

11. Spot removing wipes for fabric

12. Makeup remover wipes

13. Scissors

14. Safety pins

15. Tissues – These are especially handy if you photograph weddings. Bride, mother of the bride, and bridesmaids have a tendency to cry, so having a tissue handy for runny mascara is a handy item.

Now, these are just a few items out of many that you may need to bring with you, but based on my own experience, they are items that I can’t live without on a photoshoot. You may even have a few items that you would like to add to the list, so let us know if you have any ideas for items that no photographer should go without!

5 Crafts to try this weekend

Okay so this is a little off topic for us, but we love DIY, hand made and all things rustic so we came across these 5 quick little DIY projects to keep us busy this weekend...

And with Spring - literally just around the corner - we thought it would be fun to give some of our stuff a "facelift"

How very excited did we get when we saw these gorgeous DIY projects that are perfect for Summer Dining. You may be thinking.. What do robe baskets have to do with summer dining? Well, we thought you could fit some blankets or outdoor pillows in there for carting about the place! We do like the rope baskets. We may infact be a little bit obsessed. Every basket or box that comes into our home always always always ends up holding washing that needs to be ironed!

1. DIY Blocked Paint Charger Plates Make sure that you use non toxic paint if you plan to eat off these plates. They're great for wall art too in your kitchen or dining room!

2. DIY Mason Jar Straw Lids from Thats what Che said! A genius move and so easy as long as you have a drill and drill bit.

3. Outdoor Pillows from Martha Stewart. The link doesn't hold a tutorial so I have found a tutorial that will help. I have found that when you sew oilcloth you should attach a piece of washi tape under your foot because it will catch! A page from Sew Mama Sew to help you with sewing oilcloth

4. Using the Easy Rope Baskets Tutorial you could also make a Sissal chair for the kids as long as the bucket was left on and sturdy enough for their tiny bottoms. Original Project from Martha Stewart

5. Painted Berry Baskets from While Wearing Heels blog. Super Easy and could be beautiful little boxes for nibbles at a dinner party outside

Your Transition to a Full Time Photographer

This post is in response to one of the many great questions we have received. The question relates to “getting started” in the photography business and going from being the person who always takes photos of family and friends, to transitioning into being a working photographer.

Let me start by saying that we are not twenty-year veterans of the photography world, so there is no perfect answer that we can offer you. However, we went from working a full-time job, to working as a photographer full-time. This transition and leap of faith are still fresh in our minds, and while we are still figuring out the photography business (although we don’t think anyone ever fully figures it out!) We can tell you what worked for us, as well as many of my photographer friends, and how we made the transition.

• The first, and possibly the most important, thing to keep in mind is this: breaking into the photography business does not happen overnight. I really mean that! For some people, things may fall into place quickly, while others may work for years to build a solid client base.

• If you are already photographing your friends and family, that’s a great place to start. At this point, getting some unique business cards would be extremely helpful, because you can give them to your friends and family, and have them hand out the cards to THEIR friends and family. Word of mouth will go a really long way!

• Now is also the perfect time to solidify your brand – figure out what type of photography you’re interested in, and how you can reach potential clients. Having an idea of what you want to specialize in (portraits, weddings, newborns, fine art, etc.) will help you focus your energy on developing your style, brand, and marketing to the right audience. Also, consider creating a Facebook business page for your photography, as social networking is a wonderful way to connect with future clients.

Building a rapport with other photographers, especially full-time photographers, will also help you get ideas and support on how to grow your business. Pretty Presets and Rock the Shot are wonderful forums to meet other photographers, and the knowledge that you will gain from talking to other people in the business is invaluable, especially when you are first starting.

Finally, and this is keeping in mind the idea that this may not occur overnight for you, take small steps every day that will help you work towards this transition. Having a list of things that you can do, right now, to help grow your business will help you focus your energy on the present, rather than worrying about or trying to tackle things that, at this point, are out of your control. I have two lists – my daily to-do list, which includes things like keeping up with my social networking sites, websites, printing business cards, emailing clients, and anything that can be taken care of that day. Then, I have my “on the horizon” list – this list includes goals for the year, like how many shoots I would like to have.

The truth is, there are a lot of different things to consider that will help you transition into being a full-time photographer, but the best thing you can do, at this point, is start setting goals for yourself. Rather than saying, “I want to be a full-time photographer” ask yourself what sort of photography do you want to specialize in, and start brainstorming on small steps that will make that happen for you. It is a constant journey, but if you are in the early stages of making the transition, you have a real advantage, because you have the opportunity to find ways to make your work unique, and really stand out among the rest of the business.

5 Killer ways to shoot into the Sun and get beautiful sun flare....

Shooting Into the sun….flare baby!

We believe that every little trick you have up your sleeve as a photographer can give you an advantage in your market.  Do you feel like sometimes all your work starts to look the same?

You know…vertical…….even tones…..smiles………50mm….you get the point!  Shooting into the sun is not rocket science, and neither is flare, BUT it is one more tool that you can add to your bag of tricks to offer a different perspective to your photo shoots.  (Hopefully I can do a post one day about perspective… because we love to talk about it  , but for now, we’ll just stick with the sun.)

It’s so important to constantly change things up, give your viewers and your clients something new to look at and hopefully something unexpected.  Flare is technically something that is incorrect.  The people who make our lenses do everything they can to prevent us from getting flare!  What do you think those horrid lens hoods are for??  (And, no, I do not use them…We always say, they are for men who want to make their lenses look bigger☺) When used correctly, flare can be a beautiful thing that adds romance and mystery to your images!   Flare is also a great technique when you are in situations where the scenery isn’t ideal.  The sign of a great photographer is being able to take a terribly ugly place and transform it into something  magical just by using creative lighting.

Below are 5 killer tips that will hopefully help you to master flare and shooting into the sun.

1.  Exposure:  The number one question we get when talking to people about this technique is how to correctly expose for your subject.  It is really important that you shoot in Manual mode to achieve this look.   Many people say they shoot manual, but actually don’t.  If you are using manual, but you are still determining your iso, shutter speed & aperture by the meter in your camera….you are still letting your camera tell you what to do!  You’re camera’s meter is great, but not always correct, especially in a backlit situation.  When you are pointed into the sun, you’re camera thinks you are overexposing, so if you set your settings by your meter, you’re subject will be grossly underexposed.   In this situation, ignore your meter and just go by you display and histogram.  I always expose for my subjects skin.  To achieve creamy, beautiful skin, I am just a stop or 2 below overexposing their skin.  Make sure that you are using your camera’s highlight indicator.  I just make sure that my subjects face is not blinking.   In a backlit situation, it is ok for your background to be completely overexposed.  This is actually what gives you the dreamy look you are going for.

2.  Focusing:  Focusing when you are shooting directly into the sun is close to impossible!  Again, you are asking your camera to do something that it’s not meant to do.  We go ghetto…I use my hand to help me focus.  We always center focus, so we will put the red focus area on my subject, then I use my hand to cover as much of the sun coming into my lens as possible.  This should get rid of the flare for a second.  Once we’ve locked my focus, we remove our hand, recompose, and shoot!  Works every time…well not really….Another trick is to use a higher aperture in these situations than you normally would.  This allows you some wiggle room if you’re focus isn’t dead on.

3.  Time of day:  When we first started experimenting with this technique, we pretty much ended up mad a lot.  We, for the life of us, couldn’t figure out how to get that blasted sun behind my subjects….duh.  We finally realized that for us, we get the best flare when it’s later in the day.  If you wait until an hour or so before the sun goes down, you don’t have to lay on the ground to get the sun behind your subjects.  I’ve said this before, but the sun seems to have a softness about it as it moves down on the horizon.  Of course, we don’t always follow this rule.  I will lay on the ground at 3:00 to get the sun behind my subject if need be.  One more thing:  remember that you don’t necessarily have to be outside to use this technique.  You can be inside and have a person’s back to a window or door.  

4.  It doesn’t have to be perfect:  Remember that the fun of this technique is not knowing what will happen.  As you can see in some of my sample images below, it’s not always necessary to see a person’s whole face.  Don’t analyze this too much!  If it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, go with it.  When you shoot into the sun, and get crazy flare, your image might not be perfectly sharp….who cares.  Again, this is about creating something fun, and pushing yourself into unknown places.  Don’t get caught up in wondering what your clients mother might say if she can’t see her son’s whole left eye!  Relax, you gave the 567 perfectly exposed smiling images.  Being a photographer is not only about pleasing your clients, it’s about shooting for yourself.

5.  Different lenses, different flare: Keep in mind that different lenses produce different results.  I’m not an expert on this, but It seems that the nicer the lens, the harder it is to get good flare.  I’ve also found it almost impossible to get it from my canon 85mm 1.2.  I usually stick to my canon 24mm 1.4, and my canon 50mm 1.2….and if you really want some sweet crazy results, throw on a tilt shift!  I’ve been able to get a really neat rainbow effect.

Photo Styling

Light it Up

Whether you’re selling wooden bowls, illustrated posters, kids toys, or clothing - natural light will go a long way toward making your products look their best. Artificial light can taint your pictures and cause color contamination that actually makes your image less appealing. Save yourself the time and effort of having to heavily retouch images to restore their true-to-life beauty.

Beautiful, natural lighting makes these products look heavenly.

Back it Up

Once you’ve found the best light to shine on your item, consider what’s behind it as well. It’s easy to get in a background rut. Try experimenting with various materials like wood, marble, and cloth to create different moods in your images. As long as the background doesn’t compete with your product, it can be an invaluable addition that helps your photo tell a story.

A blue backdrop makes these rainbow
cupcake toppers appear to float in the sky.

Prop it Up

A great product is key to having a successful shop, but on its own, it can make for a lonely subject. Consider including supporting items to your images that help tell a story about your product. Choosing the right props in the right amounts can be tricky, but once you’ve fine-tuned what works for your shop, you’re on your way to truly dynamic photo compositions.

Fun props, like the custom confetti with this flatware

Hopefully these basic tips make the hurdle of styling your images a little easier to overcome.