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!)

She’s beautiful.  I know.

She used to model for my bridal store in Dallas, Texas.  I could always count on her to model in every runway show.

She is a great live model.

When she responded to the casting call I posted a couple weeks ago, I was excited to see that she moved to Utah.  Because I like it when my Texas friends move to Utah.

I don’t think I’ve ever had an easier photo shoot.  EVER.  The camera LOVES her and she is a natural in front of the camera.

We had the BEST time laughing, talking, and running around to different locations.

Honestly, she is so photogenic, I could have edited EVERY ONE of her images.

This head shot is one of my favorite images from her shoot.

It looks equally stunning in black and white.

I ONLY used window light.  No overhead lights, lamps, or flash.  JUST WINDOW LIGHT for this image.

Here’s the proof:

This is a snapshot straight out of the camera (zero editing on this image) to show how I shot this image so you could try to duplicate this window light portrait.

First off, what you don’t see is a HUGE window that spans the length of the room.  I had Annette sit across from the window on the couch.  Lucky for us, it was an overcast day, which made the light very diffused.  I had her hold a silver reflector to bounce even more light onto her face.  Because the lighting was so soft, she had to hold it quite close.

After metering the shot, I shot this at ISO 200, F5.6, and 1/30th of a second on a tripod.  Without a tripod, this image would have been blurry.  A general rule about when you should use a tripod and when you can hand hold your camera is this: You should never hand hold your camera when your shutter speed is shorter than the length of your lens.  For example, I shot this image with an 18-200 mm lens.  I NEVER hand hold this camera at less than 200th of a  second because my lens is 200 mm long.  Even if my focal length is not 200 mm, (say it’s 80 mm or something) I still use a tripod if I’m shooting at less than 200th of a second.  Remember how I feel about blurry images?  This is why my tripod goes everywhere with me.

I’ll post more images from her shoot in a couple of days!  I’m still editing some of them.  THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL.

In the mean time, I’d love to see some of your window light portraits!  Start shooting and send me a message!

This is the cast of the musical “Nunsense” which opens this Friday night in Pleasant Grove.

These fun ladies are going to put on a great show.

Here they are in character:

Here are the details:

• Shows: March 5-22  Friday, Saturday, and Monday evenings at 7:30 PM
• Matinee March 20th at 3:00 PM
• Keith Christeson Theater 30 East Center Street, Pleasant Grove, UT  - lower level of the PG City Library (around back).

Go check them out!

I know I’ll be there!

Whenever I heard that word associated with cameras I automatically thought, “UGH!  GAG!”

I hated the harsh light flash would produce, and the strong shadows behind your subject.

I vowed NEVER to use one.

Natural light for me all the way baby.

That was how I felt before I learned how to use a flash properly.

Now, natural light will always look good because it’s natural, but there are times when you absolutely need some fill light to expose your shot properly.

This shot was taken with no flash:

It was an overcast day, so even at high noon the lighting was quite soft as the clouds functioned as a lighting softbox.

This next shot was taken in the shade without a flash.

It is nicely exposed, but I wanted to lighten up the shadow on the side of her face a bit so I took another shot with a flash.

This was taken with a flash:

Now, there’s not a huge difference, but the light is a bit more even overall.  (I would post a better example, but my computer is still recovering from a nasty case of Swine Flu.)

Flash also comes in super handy when you’re photographing in bright sunlight and your subject is back-lit by the sun. Fire that flash up and you will have a great image of your subject lit up with the sun behind them.

Please keep in mind, if you want great results with flash, you must buy an external flash.  AKA, speedlight.  Your in-camera flash has so many limitations, and everything you fear (more like, everything I fear) about flash will come true with your in-camera flash:

• 1.  It’s not strong enough for a lot of lighting situations.
• 2.  You can’t bounce it off anything since it is permanetly in the same spot
• 3.  I have no idea how you diffuse an in-camera flash, and a flash diffuser is the magical ingredient that makes flash so beautiful.

I use an SB-400 speedlight, but I’m sure one day I’ll find a need for the SB-600, SB-800 or SB-900.  There are many flash diffusers out there, and Gary Fong is a very popular one (especially his bowl shaped one), but I’ve been happy with my $10 Omni-Bounce flash diffuser made specifically for the model of my speedlight.

I was just minding my own business, doing a little search on google, and BAM!

I was infected.

I know!  I want to die!

I’m not sure how this mean little Trojan horse got past my anti-virus software, but David and I had a few loud words to share with Avast!

The only program this virus seems to have infected is PHOTOSHOP.

Now, I REALLY WANT TO DIE.

Photoshop to me is like texting is to a teenager girl.

It’s almost as important as my RIGHT hand.

I use it everyday.  My classes require it.  My work requires it.

So, I’ve obviously felt a bit handicapped since this nasty virus decided to destroy my life.

Today David is stripping our hard drives, and re-installing EVERY PROGRAM.

This is going to take a hundred years.  I just know it.

But, now we will officially be using Windows 7 (we’ve been using the trial version for six months now and it expires in a week) and I love it so much more than Vista and XP, so Windows 7 it is!

We are also the proud owners of two more terabytes.  That makes FOUR terabytes for us.

I can’t believe I just wrote that.  I remember (not too long ago!) when I first head about terabytes.  I was like, “WHEN IN A MILLION YEARS WOULD YOU EVER NEED THAT MUCH SPACE?”

Well, we do.  I guess it’s been a million years.  :)  We (meaning David) plans to stripe the terabytes and mirror them, so we will never suffer from a catastrophic hard drive crash.  Basically, we will have two terabytes of storage space and two terabytes to backup our stuff.  If you think I have any idea what I’m talking about, you’d be mistaken.  I’m creative, David is techie, so together we’re a good team.  :)

I wanted to post a couple images from yesterday’s shoot.

This little guy is getting baptized next week:

(More pics from this session soon)

And this fun group . . .

Well, lets just say it was “Nunsense!”  More images of this fun group starring in the musical “Nunsense” will be coming soon . . .

Opening night is in a week!  More details later.  (Meaning, more details, as soon as I know any, or where to find them, or whatever.)

Excuse me while I take a minute to think about what really matters in life.

I tend to stress out a lot.

David on the other hand, doesn’t get his feathers ruffled too easily.

This makes us a good team.

But still.

I need a moment to think about what really matters in the long run and not what matters RIGHT.  THIS.  SECOND.