High Tea and sorts...

MOMS & DAUGHTERS OF ALL AGES:

We are planning a very fun High Tea group photoshoot! This is something very different and new to us, so we are soooo excited to get to work.

Here's how it works:

There is a limit of 5 pairs (10 people in total)

Each pair contributes R150-00

We set up and provide eats, props and the location

We will have 2 wonderful and excited photographers there ready to take pictures.

There will be lots of group shots and plenty individual shots of each pair.

After the shoot we will go and edit all the beautiful photographs and upload them to Facebook and a personalised dropbox folder for you to have UNLIMITED access to!

You can take, keep and print as many of the photo's as you want! They are all yours! 

Make sure you book your spot now, as like i said earlier, spots are limited!

And don't worry if you haven't had a photo shoot before, we will be there to guide you all the way! And don't for get to enjoy yourself! 

Here are some of the pics you can expect to see: 

Product Photography tips

Get Lots of Light

Natural light works best for any type of photo and should be used whenever possible. Typically, shooting your photos during the day will grant the best results. What matters is not only the quantity of the light, but the uniformity of distribution as well.

Hard shadow vs. soft shadow- Hard shadows are created when the size of the light source is small compared to the size of the subject. Conversely, soft shadows are created when the size of the light source is larger than the subject. For your needs you want to aim for soft shadow.

As demonstrated in the example below, the more diffused the light is, the better its spread on the object you photograph and the more smooth and whole its appearance.  To avoid a hard shadow, use a flash diffuser. A flash diffuser can be created by taking a white tape or a white plastic bag and attaching it to the flash of the camera. In turn, the light will be distributed in a softer, more even way in all parts of the object, rather than be centered in one spot.

White Background – Create the Infinity Curve

Often in product photography, a clean white background looks best since it creates a focus on the object itself. The “Infinity Curve” enables photographers to shoot products against an endless white background that reveals no horizon in the back, only a clean and pleasant view. To create this type of background, place a piece of white paper or fabric and bend it to create a curve. Your product will be the center of the photo and the only item to capture the viewer’s attention.

Find the Unusual Point of View

No one knows your products better than you. However, nothing is better than a product photo shoot to bring out special features of your product that may surprise even you. As you take photos, go for unusual angles, get close ups and look for unique points of view. Tell a story with the images you capture, while you accentuate particular angles. You never know what angle will end up revealing the most impressive or attractive tale, so test different options.

Use a Tripod and a Timer

As you take a picture, even the slightest vibration or movement can cause motion blur. Moreover, the closer you get to an object the more obvious the motion blur becomes. A tripod will assure you remain stable as you take the photo. Even an inexpensive tripod will make a big difference in the sharpness of your images. Additionally, you can use the camera’s built-in timer to minimize camera shake and maximize accuracy.

Sense of Scale

Some products may not be easily recognizable by viewers. This is where giving a sense of scale can be very helpful. If you include an item in the image that people are familiar with, it can really help to visualize the size of the product. For example, if the product is a miniature doll, you could place an object like a standard sized pencil next to it, and give people a sense of scale.

Show the Product in its Natural Environment

Take pictures of your product next to an item that will help people relate to it in real life. Moreover, the use of props can help to bring out certain features in the photo. For example, if you take a picture of a watch, show it on someone’s wrist. If you are selling a coffee table book, take a shot of the opened book on an actual table with a small fruit bowl next to it. If you are selling jewelry or clothing, having at least one picture of your product on a model is great. Potential buyers will get an idea of how the item will look on them and also, it could show the type of target audience you’re aiming for.

We Sell this Shirt in Red, Green and Grey

You may offer a particular item in a selection of colors. In this case, don’t spare any visual details, bare it all in the photo! On many site images, people display a single item and then write under it “also available in blue and green”. A set of photos showing the variety of colors will make the product look richer and more attractive. Don’t just tell them about it, let people see for themselves.

Don’t Delete from Camera

Don’t get tempted to make quick verdicts about your pictures when you review them on the camera. Be patient and wait until you download the photos to your computer. Images look very different on a bigger screen and this is the way to decide which photos make the cut and which will move on to photo-heaven.

Taking a Detailed Photo? Use the “Flower” Setting

Most cameras have a “close-up” setting that you switch it to when you are taking a closer than standard photo. The “flower” setting is really called “Macro” and it appears on most cameras as a tulip-like icon. This is often used when your subject is a small item like a piece of jewelry or a flower. The result is a narrow depth of field and a different perspective.

Pro tip- If you’d like to take a picture of something very small, and even the “macro” feature is not enough, use an extension tube – it gives a focus for the tiny details. The extension tube is typically a tool used by photography pros but as you advance with your photo shoots you may find yourself developing an appetite for advanced tools and other photo instruments.

Editing Is Important

Taking a shot is often just the beginning, next comes the editing and the touch ups. As you prepare images for your site, make sure they are approximately the same size. Choose 1-3 different sizes from large to medium and small. Edit your photos to fit one of the pre-selected sizes so that you won’t have too much variation.

You don’t have to be a web designer or even computer savvy for this one, just upload your pictures into any photo editing software, and get to business. Things like cropping and color correction can make a world of difference in a photo

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. 

Spring... It's coming!

Can you believe its Spring next month here in Sunny S.A (not that we have had much of a winter) time to start you spring cleaning and adding those "spring" looks to your home, office and your blog! We plan to have a Spring Fancy Photobooth Special, just in time for all the Spring weddings, birthdays and babies!

If you have a pinboard / dream board / motivation board (whatever you call yours) here's a fun way to "Spring" it up! 

WHAT YOU WILL NEED:

1. Small fake flowers

2. drawing pins

3. Glue gun OR wood glue works too!

WHAT TO DO:

Put glue on the top (flat) part of the drawing pin, leave for 1 minute and then stick on the flower, wait until completely dry and you are ready to go!

We love pinning up our favourite Spring Shoot Photo's up with these! 

Scrapbooking Printables!

We love scrapbooking... and we love free stuff even more. It makes our hearts skip a beat when we see "SCRAPBOOKING PRINTABLES FREE"

So, we thought we would share with you... Just because we love you!

We have a new Header!

As I'm sure you have noticed, we have a new banner!

Out with the old and in with the new!

We just feel that this banner represents us a LOT better! So here's to new beginnings, new business and  new customers!

We cant wait to do your next function! Birthday, Corporate function, Weddings - YOU NAME IT!

Give us a mail on:

kayleigh_zettler@hotmail.com  

OR

tlzettler@telkomsa.net

Our 5 best tips for AWESOME indoor photo's...

5 Tips for AWESOME indoor Photo's

1. Adjust your white balance

If we could tell everyone just one thing about indoor photography, this would be it. White balance. It will change your life (it totally changed ours). We lived through months of orange basement photos and random blue photos thanks to "auto white balance," and we're here to tell you there's a cure! Little did we know it would be so easy. To simplify WB, just know that it is the coloring of the light. Different light sources come with different colors or temperatures. Our eyes are awesome and can adjust to the different hue of light each light source provides, but digital cameras can't do that on their own. You want to adjust white balance to get the colors in your images as accurate as possible. For example, the coloring of shade is much cooler than sunlight, but light bulbs inside the house are much warmer than sunlight. Because of the change of coloring, you need to adjust your WB to compensate. Auto white balance (AWB) does an okay job, especially outside with the sun, where your camera can guess coloring pretty well. But low light and mixed indoor lighting throws it off, and you may have found you'd like a little more (or a LOT more) control to avoid those bluish or orangey-reddish pics you're getting (like what we got for months!!).  Adjusting your own WB will make the most obvious difference indoors at night, but it's always better than auto. There are almost always presets on a DSLR, which are displayed as icons you can choose from to match your lighting:

For clarification, Tungsten is your basic yellowish household light bulb. Fluorescent lights make you feel like you're walking through Target (think bright neon-like white). Everything else is pretty self explanatory. So for cooler light (cloudy day, shade, indoors in the day without lights on) you’ll tell the camera to warm things up, and in warm light (indoor lights/tungsten) you’ll tell it to cool down. Or just pick the WB icon that matches your light :)

2. Lose the flash

We have to confess..., we LOVE our flash... perhaps a little too much. Even with our point and shoot. Granted we've probably ruined a lot of shots that way, and when we finally had to suck it up and learn how to use our external flashes for receptions, we hit a learning curve the size of China. And we'll admit, there is a time and a place for flash. Large events in the dark being a good example. But (we could totally be going out on a social limb here) we are believers that inside our house we can all take great photos without it. We can also take a lot of not-so-great photos without it, but that's what the delete button is for :) And our guess is that even then, you will not regret having ditched your flash. Our goal with photos is to make them authentic, and flash will sadly take your moment and flatten all the depth right out of it. It removes soft shadows that show definition and replaces it with harsh shadows that are super distracting. Work with the real light you have and learn everything you can about your camera so you can adjust it to make your shot light enough without flash.

3. Use your biggest aperture

Another confession (all the sudden it feels like we have a lot of things to confess)... We are addicted to large apertures. Huge, open, suck-in-every-speck-of-light apertures. A depth of field that turns everything into a watery blur (except the tiny point I focused on) makes us melt. This is to a fault, and we stick to it even in family sessions or group shots. We seriously can't help ourselves. Aperture. This is hard for us to even mention without going into more detail, but for now, know that your aperture is the size of the opening on your lens. The bigger the opening of your lens, the more light you will let in, and the more background you will blur out. Both of these things are the best news ever for indoor shots. You need light, and you want the busy background to melt away. Try switching to Aperture Priority setting ("Av" for Canon and "A" for Nikon) and get your aperture to the smallest number possible (they're fractions, the smaller the number, the larger the opening). That's a good start.

4. Clean up the clutter

As a family, we've always got some form of a tornado running through our house, so a constant mess is inevitable. But we have a little secret. We like to practice the idea of quickly cleaning up the background of any shot before we take it. This doesn't mean sweeping and vacuuming or putting everything away on their proper shelf. We would miss the moment we wanted to capture if we did that. Let's call it the 10 Second Sweep. We do a quick scan of the scene, and if anything is distracting from what we want our focus to be on, we just move it away so that it's out of the shot. Literally, like to the side of the couch. Or to the opposite wall. It's fake cleaning. And it works like a charm. We do it all the time :) We're all about being real, but if we're taking a photo that we may potentially frame on my wall, or send off to grandparents, or if we just want to make ourselves feel better, it's worth a fake cleaning. 10 seconds. No big deal.

5. Look for catchlights

A catchlight is when indirect light fills your subjects eyes and lights them up. We're pretty hooked on them, they have an awesome way of bringing the eyes—and entire face—to life. To know if you’re getting a good catchlight, look for the source of light reflecting in your subject’s eyes, and notice how much the eyes light up compared to a direct light or backlit photo. We're secretly crazy about backlighting, but we've noticed most clients prefer a radiant face to a radiant halo of glowing hair at the top of their head. Weird, I know. That said, even as a lover of backlighting, when we're shooting indoors I am a sucker for catchlights, and I'll always choose indirect light in the eyes over the hazy background and darker face you get with backlight. You can get awesome catchlights with indoor window light during the day by having your subject look toward the window. Try it...you'll fall in love with it.