OF COURSE!

I guess it’s a little secret that I have prints available for purchase on my website.

Let’s not keep it a secret, OK?

I SELL PRINTS!

I HAVE LOTS OF PRINTS!

My images are much more beautiful as prints than as JPEGS!

Check out my official website to view prints I have for sale or just go directly here.

Prices are as follows:

5×7 $15

8×10 $30

11×14 $50

16×20 $75

20×24 $100

Please check out my website for full list of prices and print options.

Thanks for your interest!

Coleen!  You are the winner!  You were the 20th commenter!   Email me your address so I can send you a print!

Thank you for voting everyone!  I really appreciate your input.  By far, “Antique Cars” was a favorite across the board.

I’ll keep you posted about the show.  Cross your fingers for me! If any of my images are selected, you’re all invited to the Spring Art Show at the Academy of Art in San Francisco!

Huh?

That’s exactly what I thought!

I was told I could only use a flashlight, tripod, and my camera to “paint light” on a portrait.

OK.  Are you throughly confused yet?  Because I was for a few days.  I mulled this over in my mind for days and the only thing I knew for sure was this: I had NO IDEA HOW TO DO IT, and I had no concept.

That is a double bummer if you know what I mean.

I consulted my BFF, Google, and came across this incredible video that walks you through step-by-step how to “paint with light.”

After I watched it I was all, “YEAH.  (AHEM)  RIGHT.”  I will be the first to admit, this dude is pretty amazing and what he does is completely out of my skill level at this point.

Please watch this.  You will be amazed.  (This video will not work in Google Chrome, so use Internet Explorer or Firefox to watch this.)

Amazing, right?

So . . .

I was feeling pretty lame about my skills after watching this.  I mean, SERIOUSLY?  WHAT THE HECK WAS I GOING TO PHOTOGRAPH WITH A FLASHLIGHT?!

And just as an F.Y.I., photographing someone reading a book in the dark with a flashlight would not have cut it.  But trust me, it crossed my mind several times . . .

For the record, I had no concept for this shot.  I’m normal.  I get creative blocks.  Especially when I have a technical assignment that doesn’t make sense.

All I knew was this:

• The house had to be PITCH BLACK.  (I shot this about 11:00 PM on Friday night)
• I needed my camera
• I needed my tripod
• I needed a flashlight
• I needed someone to photograph

There wasn’t a lot to this equation.

It just so happened that David was home (Yay!  After FIVE LONG DAYS away every week, I get to see him on weekends!) but dog tired.  So I was all, “Hey!  Lucky you!  You get to be the subject in my experimental photograph! You have such perks as my spouse!  Go lie down on the couch, close your eyes, and I’ll take your picture!”

After many lame attempts at “painting him with light,”  I randomly came up with this idea:

The word “LOVE” is written with the flashlight while outlining his profile.

To do this, I turned my shutter speed to BULB (which means the shutter will stay open as long as you want it to) and held the shutter release remote in my left hand while I wrote the letters in my other hand.  I had my f-stop at f22 (so really small), my ISO at 200 (so there wouldn’t be any noise), and I took the flashlight and wrote each letter individually and turned off the flashlight between each letter.  This made for a clean, crisp look between each letter.  The shutter was open for 18 seconds.

David got into the fun, and took a turn photographing me!  As you can see, he had fun making fast circles.  :)

This is another shot of David, with only a flashlight used to  illuminate parts of his face.  The key to “painting with light,” is to constantly move your light source, have your model hold their breath (so avoid blur) and have the room pitch black.

I was surprised at how fun this was and I plan to do more.  Maybe, I’ll try a complex shot like in the video above.  :)  OK, probably not, but you get the idea.

Try it!  It’s fun!

I need your help.  REALLY.

You know how some people think their dogs are really cute, but really, their dogs are only cute to them?

This is why I need your opinion on some of my images for an upcoming art show at the Academy of Art.  The images below are all qualifying images for the show (so if you have another favorite image that isn’t posted, just know that it probably doesn’t qualify for this show).  I’m asking you to look a the images below and tell me your THREE favorites.  I mean, I hope you like at least three of them. . .

I’m trying to narrow down the images I would like to submit (I can only submit three, so you get the point) for the Spring Art Show at the Academy of Art University (which would be fantastic exposure for me since industry professionals, artists, potential clients, gallery representatives, and the general public all attend in high numbers) next month.

Here’s the deal . . . you tell me your opinion (which images you like the best) by leaving a comment on this post and you will automatically be entered into a drawing to win one of my prints!

I’m giving away an 8×10 of this print of the Sacred Grove, in Manchester, NY.  It is one of my favorites, and is more beautiful as a hard copy than it is as a JPEG.  :)

This is such an easy giveaway!  ENTER!  ENTER!  ENTER!

Now on to the contenders:

#1 New York Marina at Night

#2 Niagara Falls at Night

#3 Canadian Skyline at Night

#4 Antique Cars

#5 Carousel

#6 Fear

#7 Ivy Building

#8 Salt Lake Temple

#9 Full Moon Over Timp

#10 Winter Temple

#11 Motherhood

OK, tell me your favorites!

Sounds scary, right?  I thought so.  ”Bare bulb” just sounds so harsh, cold, strong, and BARE!  YIKES!

I learned pretty quickly that if done correctly (meaning, you watch the placement of your light very closely to avoid nasty shadows) bare bulb lighting can be very clean and soft.

Whenever I’m experimenting with new techniques, I call on two people who will do anything for me, anytime, anywhere, and will fulfill any request.

My husband and my twin brother.

So, as you can see in the images below, I got my twin brother, Brian, to model for me.

He came over just before Hannah’s bedtime, and with that he got to do the honors of brushing her teeth, putting her in her pajamas, and the ultimate highlight of his night: he got to listen to Hannah SING her night time prayer.  She ALWAYS sings her prayer at bedtime.  After she prayed, Brian smiled and told Hannah that was the most beautiful prayer he had ever heard.  :)

This was the first first image I shot of Brian.  Literally.

This is how I got the shot:

I used a 500 Watt tungsten bulb (available at some hardware stores . . . I ordered all of my lights at B&H Photo) which is VERY, VERY bright.  I placed it about five feet in front of him and slightly to the right.  (Camera right)  500 watts is bright, and if I had a lower wattage bulb I would have popped it in, but I didn’t.  It made Brian squint, and it limited me from placing the light too close to his face.  But, I got some great shots, so I will stop complaining about the 500 watt bulb being too bright.  :)

This is another diagram:

I set up my background stand with a black sheet and placed Brian five feet in front of it.  If you place your model too close to the background, you can get texture, and in my case, unwanted wrinkles since I used a black sheet instead of my black seamless backdrop.

This shot is also from the set-up you see above.  I just moved my camera back a bit to get more of him in the frame.

This image was also shot with the same set up, but I moved the light off to the right a bit more to pull in more shadow on his face.

Now this image had a different set up.

It was essentially the same set up as the first one, but I added a flag to shield my camera from light flare, and to direct the light right on Brian.

I also used a silver reflector (silver is the most reflective) to bounce the light from the bulb onto the shaded side of his face.

It looked like this.

I was pleasantly surprised at how fun and challenging it was to shoot with a bare bulb.

Also, keep in mind that you need to manually set your white balance for tungsten lighting.  Your camera probably won’t have a white balance pre-set for tungsten, so set it to Kelvin 3200.  It will be spot on.

Start experimenting with bare bulbs and show me your results!

So . . .

I started shooting more snapshots of our everyday life so he doesn’t miss out too much on our adorable, sassy, children.  :)

This is a lovely moment:

They are actually sharing the same snack, in the same space (on a step stool of all things)!

It is very sweet.

And now, Hannah has decided to teach Dallin the very fine art of feeding Paris food scraps on the sly . . .

Dallin is obviously taking good notes here.  Learning the art of how to feed your dog scraps is serious business.

When I “caught” them, I got these looks:

“WHAT?!  Don’t look at me!  I’m TOTALLY innocent!”

“What?  Me?  ARE YOU TALKING TO ME? I think I’ll just smile really cute and PLEAD THE FIFTH!”

It’s hard to re-enforce the rules with cute little faces like these!

In case you haven’t heard me mention it, (you must be a new reader) SHE LOVES IT.  She loves it almost as much as she loves me, so you know, it’s A LOT.  :)

Just look at the feeling she has in her body language as she dances:

I should probably call Julliard and let them know Hannah will be joining them in the class of 2024.

Look at her form.

She might only be three and a half, but she takes ballet very seriously.

OK, her eyes are closed.  I want to eat her up!

I photographed these pictures during an “interpretive” dance moment.

Still, SO DANG CUTE.

She was told to bend over backwards (Hannah is the middle child) . . .

And then they told her to hop like a bunny through the hoops.  What a cute little bunny.  :)

Now it’s time to march . . .

And now it’s time to admire herself in the mirror.  Heck, if was that cute, I’be checking myself out too!  Check out that pose!

I wanted to show this picture which is straight out of the camera.  Notice how there is a picture within the picture?  I was not able to move from my designated seat in the studio (we are only allowed to watch the girls dance in the studio once a semester.  We normally have to wait outside and watch them through a window.) so I had several shots that were not compositionally as concise as I had wanted.  When I saw this image, I really wanted to focus on the three girls dancing and cut out the other two girls that weren’t relevant to the three girls.

This is what I cropped it to:

Hannah is the middle girl doing interpretive dance with her classmates.  Now, it’s never ideal to crop your images (especially significantly) because you loose pixels, and fewer pixels, means a smaller print.  I always try to frame my images exactly to maximize on pixels, but every once in a while it’s not avoidable.

And now, get ready for her turn . . .

Look at that cute back side!

Technique!  She’s really learning technique!

And now her bow . . .

Thanks for watching Hannah in ballet today.

Come again.

He just got baptized over the weekend.

Isn’t he cute?  :)

It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, she’s VERY photogenic.

Photogenic people make great images.  :)  Not only that, but my time with her flew by and before we knew it we were starving!  (Which led to going out to lunch and chatting way too much!)

She showed up totally prepared.  We had one short conversation on the phone about what I envisioned and what I wanted her to wear, and she brought an entire wardrobe complete with tons of accessories to coordinate.

She was a dream to photograph I tell you.

She looked great in every image.  I could have edited EVERY STINKIN’ image from her shoot.  Honestly.

These are my favorites:

This reminds me of a movie still . . . I wonder who she’s looking for over there  . . .

This is image is just so soft and beautiful.

It’s equally beautiful in B&W.  I got this angle by sitting on top of the truck (see below) while she sat on the bumper.

I love this.  It’s like, “I’m cool, and I’m casual, and you wanna go for ride in my junker truck?”  Also, take note of her yellow shirt against the blue truck.  Do you like it?  (How happy was I that she brought so many clothing options!)  To make a color image really stand out, the colors should work together.  Yellow and blue are complimentary colors and anytime you use complimentary colors you will have visually dynamic color images.  To reproduce this on your own images, check out a color wheel to see which colors are complimentary. (They are directly across from each other on the color wheel.)

I love this head shot too.

And I like it in color.  :)

I love her facial expression here and her body language.

Take note of this image, I used my speed light (aka external flash unit) to properly expose this image.

The B&W is a beauty too.

Now, this is the point where I talk about using flash during the day.  Remember how I tried to explain that in a post earlier this week?  Well, I have better examples now.  :)

I shot this image WITHOUT a flash.  It’s OK, but do you see how dark her face is and how harsh the shadow is across her neck?

I used my flash for this image (it was the next frame) and look at the difference!  Her face isn’t dark!  The light is very smooth on her face and the shadow on her neck is soft and diffused.

I like this image so much, I wanted to share it with you in B&W as well.

I hope this post inspires some of you to go out and shoot someone!

It was one crazy idea I had to offer head shots for $25, but it was fun to meet so many readers!

Which is why I must post this image to talk about my jealousy issues.

She has PERFECT skin.  You are going to want to re-read that last sentence before you read this next one . . .

Did you take a good look at her skin?  I DIDN’T TOUCH UP HER SKIN AT ALL.

That’s right my friends, she possibly has the most amazing skin on the planet.  Not one blemish, sun spot, wrinkle, or scar on this skin.

NOT ONE.  This is EXACTLY how her skin looks in real life. (As opposed to the touched-up-by-Photoshop-life that we all believe is real.)

Basically, I’m jealous.  I don’t think a team of Dermatologists working around the clock could get my skin to look like hers.

And . . .

She has piercing hazel eyes and super white teeth.  (Also, untouched in Photoshop.  This image was possibly the easiest edit I’ve ever done.)

I had skin, teeth, and beautiful eyes envy.

But I like her, so I must change my jealous ways.

I was fixated as I photographed her.

Now you can all be jealous with me.  (Hey!  I like company!)