A new day

This month’s photography has consisted of random shots grabbed here and there.

Nothing focused or intentional. It’s been a nice break. It’s just about time for it to end and to jump back into things.

I’m not exactly positive what that actually means. Except that I’m going to start taking a lot of pictures and maybe even take a job here and there.

I’m getting excited.

I had a birthday recently. A macro lens came to me.
I have a thing for up close, singularly focused images.

I love it.

And him.

He’s a keeper.
These things may be obvious by now.

The last month has been rather interesting. It was pretty crazy there for a while.

The main thing that sticks out to me was Help-Portrait. The idea of Help-Portrait is to gift folks that can not afford or have never had a professional portrait with a professional portrait. I logged onto to their site and just joined up with a group that was already going. They event they organized was in a lovely warehouse studio. There were tons of photographers, more than there was space for, really. The early birds put together their sets and lights and went to work taking people’s pictures in front of seamless backgrounds with their Alien Bees and Softboxes.*

I showed up that day knowing I’d be in a new photographic environment and hoped to soak up as much knowledge and exposure to studio lighting as possible. I did not expect to be so utterly out of my element and have my confidence so incredibly shaken. I’ve learned I don’t enjoy studio lighting. At all. At least not sears style. Even the dramatic lighting that looks so cool – I love the result, I don’t really enjoy the setting it up. I’d rather work with the sun.

I tend to have competency issues – meaning I hate it, HATE it, when people get the impression I’m incompetent. It’s a big deal for me. I even quit one job just after college mostly because I got the impression one of the managers thought I was an idiot. And I hated the job. But I’m pretty sure the manager had a lot to do with that.

It’s kinda silly that I let my impression of what other people are thinking carry so much weight. But I do. And in this case, it kinda knocked me off my photography game for a bit. Which really is incredibly silly if I think about it for even a second. I’m not a studio photographer. At all. I’m a natural light lifestyle photographer. I don’t like to pose people. I want to photograph people as they are, where they are. I don’t like the sterility of seamless backgrounds. I want the picture to be clean, but full of life and real places.

So. Dave had taken off two entire weeks over the Christmas break and I was thrilled to sit around and do nothing with everyone else. It was awesome. I read a lot, cleaned and purged a lot and thought about the new year. One of the books I’m still reading is Dave Ramsey – Total Money Makeover. He’s all about no debt. Ever. It takes a lot of money to get a photography business up and going. So far I’ve had it, but I’ve been seriously thinking about borrowing, making an investment in my business to really get it going. I’ve decided not to at this point. Which means I’m going to be less aggressive about what I want to build here. Not that I’m trying to build a smaller or different business, but I’m going to go about it a little slower.

Don’t hear me wrong – I’d still love to take your pictures! Email me! But I’m not going to eat, breathe & sleep photo stuff for a while. I’m going to slow things down a bit, focus on the whole picture and on building up the cash reserves I want/need to build my skills, portfolio and specialty.

Just so you know.

How was your Christmas and New Year’s?

(*Alien Bees and Softboxes are both names of lighting equipment. The Bees are lights and softboxes go around and over the powerful lights to diffuse and soften it up.)

playing with presets in lightroom.

Hey Merry Christmas everybody!! I’ve been on vacation for the last bit, and still plan on taking it easy for a bit longer. But! The family and some friends went to the zoo today. I couldn’t resist playing with some of lightroom’s presets when looking at a couple pictures tonight. Tell me what you think:

Here’s a SOOC (Straight Out Of Camera) shot of the happy-it’s-freezing mountain goats.

Here’s a crop and “Creative Catalyst 10″ applied. I kinda dig it.

And Creative Catalyst 48. This is one of my favorite presets. I use it a lot. It brings up the dark tones, and boosts some colors. It’s not right for everything, but for some things it’s downright awesome.

Here’s some SOOC foggy trees.

I applied a “Moonlit” preset in this one. Totally dig it.

This one’s called “Cold Autumn”. I’ve tried applying this one to several pictures and never found an appropriate picture for it. I’m not sure but I think I like it here. It’s interesting, although definitely not realistic looking. I think I really like things to look realistic.
Most of the time.

Here’s “Creative Catalyst 12″. Again with the not so realistic, but again with I kinda like it.

So what do you think? Which do you like the best? What’s your favorite edit or preset?
Talk to me!

In which the Agee’s rocked it

Last weekend the Agee’s and I got together at Mt Scott park for some photographic fun.

I had such a great time shooting them. They brought their own ideas (and props!), they were up for whatever ideas I suggested…it was a good good time.

Bryan and Alyssa – you guys were awesome! Thank you!

120709

Ooops. Took a little break there. Yesterday I just wasn’t really feeling it. And then I was woken up numerous times by a certain small child last night and didn’t make it out of bed this morning in time to get anything resembling a sunrise shot. Soooo…oh well.
***

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
– Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
by way of Dr. Gabriel Robins

***
Here’s the light and shadows of tonight’s sunset in my dining room. (Very soon, hopefully this week sort of soon, I’m going to fix this blog so I can really show you the pictures in a decent size. I promise. Soon. ish. )

120509

It’s been getting incredibly cold around here lately. I bought a coat this year. A real, feminine, winter wool coat. It looks fabulous and I love it. LOVE it.

I’ve been doing a lot of shooting lately. A LOT. I like the shooting. Not so much the editing. What I need is a friend who loves editing, but not so much shooting. That would rock.
***

Here’s another one of my favorite shots from this year. This is actually up in my house twice. These fine art prints (in just about any size you want by the way) are on sale for the next couple of days. Sale ends Tuesday, December 8th.
***
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”
– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
(Found by way of Dr. Gabriel Robins)

And one more, paraphrased from a Mike Colon training dvd:
-If every job in the world paid one dollar a day, which job would you choose? Is it the one you’re doing now?

***
Here’s another painterly background:

Good night.

120409

Today I managed to not delete any important images. Yay! Several of our neighbors go all out on the Christmas decorations. The first year we lived here we went out and bought lights so we wouldn’t be the neighborhood scrooges. One of these days we’ll put them up.

********
The vast majority of my fine art images were found in my front yard while hanging out with the kids. It’s so amazing to me what you can discover all around you everyday. Today’s featured print is especially fun because it’s square. I like when art isn’t the typical 8 x 10 shape. It can be purchased here:

I love this pumpkin flower for reasons I can’t quite explain. It’s hanging in my dining room.
******

And a poem for today’s quote:

I dwell in Possibility–
A fairer House than Prose–
More numerous of Windows–
Superior–for Doors–

Of Chambers as the Cedars–
Impregnable of Eye–
And for an Everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky–

Of Visitors–the fairest–
For Occupation–This–
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise–
~Emily Dickinson

*********
I think this shot of the sky this afternoon looks like the sort of sky you’d see in a painting background.

120309

This morning’s picture is missing due to a series of unfortunate computer events. *sigh* I had a good one too. Oh well.

As I mentioned yesterday, my fine art shop is having a christmas sale…I’m going to feature one of the available prints there each day through next week. Here’s one of my favorites: a sleeping bumblebee.

I still have tonight’s shot. The sky was a beautiful blue – there was no orange or pink or purple whatsoever.

120209

This morning’s rising, as Dave’s car saw it.

*Christmas is coming. Soon. Very soon. Wanna do some shopping in my fine art store? Here’s a link to make it easy: The shop

And because I know you like being a part of big world changing events – 50% of all my profits are always donated. I have a couple different favorite places, but for this holiday season, Living Water International (an organization placing wells in places that have no clean water) will be the sole recipient. So come do some holiday shopping!

Today’s quote comes from Living Water’s site:
“A child dies every 15 seconds because of the lack of clean water. It costs us an average of $0.98 to provide clean, safe water to one person for one year: every dollar makes a difference!”

One last thing – As a sign of holiday cheer all prints are currently 15% off. So seriously. Come shopping.