coming back....

This week we have hit and miss on the blog. We wanted to take a little break from it. We knew a lot of people would be out of town. Come Monday we will be hitting it every day again.
We have a lot of fun stuff coming up. The first part of May we have a wedding in Indiana. We can not wait.  At the beginning of June we will start shooting a ton of 2013 senior sessions (street team) CAN NOT WAIT.

Thanks again everyone

talk to you soon,
wade

rain rain go away....

Wow... I dont know about you but we are ready for the rain to go away for awhile. One good thing about it though, everything will be nice and green for pictures. We are super glad that Spring is here. Don't forget about our 25 percent discount off of any package. That is a super deal.

 Talk to you soon,
Wade

starting fresh

So we have taken a couple days off to regroup. We are coming up with fresh new ideas on what to write about. We want this blog to become something fun. Yes, it is about photography, we will be showing a lot of pictures, but we want to reach out to the photography community also.
Tomorrow is the beginning. You wont want to miss it

talk to you soon
wade

our goal

If you keep up with the blog you probably notice we don't write it until the day/night is almost up. We are very very sorry. We are going to try to have the blog written by 5 pm each day. If for some crazy reason we do not have it done, we want to say sorry in advance.

talk to you soon
wade

something fun.

You could say Me and Jess like to play on our I phones. I mean who doesn't. There are so many fun games out there to play, here is one that Jess ran across a couple weeks ago. Be sure to add me Wade1820 . Not sure what jess' name is.

talk to you soon

wade

photo tip...

So yesterday I did not write a blog. My fault, but we did write 2 in one day a couple days ago. Any ways today we wanted to share a quick photo tip from our fellow friend.

Tip o' the Day: Dare To Be Different! Got that Not-So-Fresh feeling?  Today's tip will take care of that! It seems like a decade ago… because it was.  College was a fun time for me; I chewed up photo classes like daily vitamins, growing stronger with each one. My favorite college photography professor told me something during one of our independent study class sessions that I’ve never forgotten: Every single session you do, I want you to do something completely different that you’ve never done before. That was easy at first.  And then it got really, REALLY hard.  Since then I’ve photographed 350ish weddings and more than a thousand portrait sessions.  For that reason alone it’s easy to see how difficult it would be to do something new and that I’ve “never done before” for every single session.  Let me just say this, though: it is possible!  I know because I’ve done it. The second reason this is hard is because you’re clients usually see images on your blog or website and, to a degree, choose you based on those images.  You might be afraid that you’re not meeting client expectations if you don’t give them the shots they’ve seen, want, and love.  However, you have to take care of YOU.  I believe my professor instilled his meesage in me to keep me fresh or, more importantly, prevent burnout.  I believe that if you keep the creativity part of you burning white hot, you’re not going to experience burnout. Above and beyond, friends! P.S. One of my subscribers suggested to me to include a link where you can forward this to friends so they can sign up (thanks, Brent!).  If you like this tip, send it to someone you like and have them subscribe!  Let's lift each other up!

Leading lines

Today I'm going to chat about another composition tool I use a lot called leading lines. What it is, essentially, is including some sort of line in your image that subconsciously makes your eyeballs examine the entire frame. That, after all, is the goal of an image, You can mix, match, and combine these composition tools for ridiculously cool pictures!

You can use pretty much anything as a leading line, and it doesn't even have to be a straight line. A river flowing throughout your image... a gripping horizon line... street lines (even the dotted ones work!)... all are examples of using this in your photography. Cool tip, eh?

Already everybody! Line up!!

something fun....

this is a super quick post. ( I have a bit of a headache) be sure to come back tomorrow. we will be sharing a picture and telling you how we created the lighting...
talk to you soon,
wade

tip o the day starts back up tomorrow too.

our tip to you...

On the weekends we want to take some time to give some photography tips to fellow photographers. Todays tip--- Know your clients before the shoot. Your shoots will go 100 times smoother and more fun for both you and your client if you know more about them. Your pictures will turn out better also cause both you and them will be relaxed.

talk to you soon,
wade

2 post today

Hey we wanted to put the tip of the day out here for ya. Just to let you know we will not be posting these on the weekend do to our fellow photographer being swamp. So instead I will be writing photo tips for ya on the weekend.
Talk to you soon
Wade
If you got the tip from yesterday... YAY! It was a toughy but goody! Today's tip is much less instense in terms of jargon and technical settings. Hooray for that!

There are two other ways to get that yummy shallow depth of field (or, as my friendly moms with cameras call it: blurry background). The first is to get CLOSE to your subject. No... really close.

Everybody do me a favor: hold your hand four inches away from your eyes and stare at it. Notice (without looking around) how blurry the background is. Cool right? Now... extend your arm all the way out, still looking at your hand. Notice that the background becomes a little clearer? Mega cool! The same principle applies to photography. The closer you get to your subject, the more your background will go out of focus.

The final way to get a shallow depth of field is to increase the focal length of the lens. Wait! Say whaaaat? What does that mean? Oh, easy... it means "zoom in." Yep, that's my final trick... zoom in. What it does is compress the background. Now, you can really do this with the 17-55 kit lens that comes with a camera. We're talking 100mm, 200mm, or 300mm. (the shot above was shot at 135mm at 2.8, fyi!)

Okay! There we have it! Now you know three great ways to get a beautifully shallow depth of field

Hello Spring!!!

As I'm sure you can tell from the weather, Spring is pretty much here! This is one of our favorite seasons to take pictures in! It's not too hot but yet the colors are all bright! The grass is green and most of the flowers are starting to bloom! We LOVE to shoot outside and have some great outdoor places! Please contact us to set up your sessions today! Talk to you later, Jess

we are at 100......

So yesterday the post was on the handy I phone. I was away from my computer all day so I didn't have a chance to look at all the fun stats that I like to keep up with. Long story short WE HAVE WRITTEN 100 BLOGS AS OF YESTERDAY. So today is 101. We want to celebrate by giving a free 8x10 for the first 10 people to comment on this blog post.

Here is the tip o the day.

Tip o' the Day: 3 Ways to Attain Shallow Depth of Field (part 1) I'm going to teach you how to be shallow today.  :)  The GOOD kind of shallow.  At every Shoot Your Kids workshop I do, the number 1 question I get is: "how do I get a blurry background in my photos?" Today, I have your answer!  Well, part of it.  I'm going to explain a LOT in this email, and tomorrow I'm going to share the two other (EASIER) ways to get a shallow depth of field (or blurry background). Lenses have apertures, or a mechanism that adjusts in diameter to allow light to pass through to your camera.  The size of the opening refers to an f/stop, and have common numbers such as f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11 (notice they're either whole numbers or decimals - that's important to remember, especially when we're going to go over shutter speeds down the road!).  Okay, all that might be mumbo-jumbo, so let me clarify! As a photographer, we get to adjust the aperture to regulate how much light goes through.  We do this by changing the f/stop.  Easy enough.  We set our camera's f/stop (check your manual, all cameras models are different) to a certain number, which affects depth of field.  Okay, did you get that? "Okay, so... what f/stop do I need for a shallow depth of field?" Answer: the lower the f/stop NUMBER, the shallower your depth of field! Some lenses (the ones we use, and that I include links to below for your convenience!) have really LOW number f/stops, so we can get super shallow depths of field!  The image above, for example, was shot at a f/1.8.  (Meredith used the 50mm 1.2L lens on that shot) On a side note, if you want a LOT in focus, you're going to set your aperture to f/11ish.  See how that works?  Low for shallow, high for deep (just think of it in terms of water if it helps. Deep water is high.  Shallow water is low.  MAN I'M GOOD!  hahaha!) For portraits, I'm always shooting at f/2 or below, and a lot of the time I'm shooting at 1.2!  Sometimes it's so shallow that noses are out of focus when the eyes are in focus (so I shoot a LOT and bracket focus).  Got it?  Good! Now, let's all go be shallow photographers! talk to you soon, Wade

Rule of thirds

photogs - and who are we kidding... sometimes veteran photogs, sadly - think they need to be centering up a subject in a photograph. Say whaaaat??? (I blame darts, archery, and other bullseye-ish games) That's not good composition! Using the rule of thirds means this: when you shoot your photograph (or design your poster, or book cover, or whatever!), mentally divide your image into 3rds (horizontally and vertically), and then place your subject on one of those imaginary lines. That's it! Pretty easy right? I've given you an example above, and then another below with some 3rd lines overlaying. If you want a constant reminder, I suggest getting a grid focusing screen put in your camera. I've linked to a couple different Canon camera screens below (sorry Nikon users, find it yourself - haha!); they're only like $30 on Amazon, and are pretty simple to install.

Now that you know the rule of thirds, two things are going to happen.
1) you're going to all of a sudden SUCK at darts.
2) you're going to notice rule of thirds all over the place! Seriously, it's everywhere

Talk to you soon
Wade

lighting /tip o' the day

One thing that really crawls underneath my skin is when "photographers" don't pay attention to their lighting conditions. We have a thing called Photoshop that we should be using. :-)  ( a little rant to start the  blog off) hahaha.
On a different note. My last semester of college I took a whole class just on color reproduction. Walking into the class I thought I knew everything that anyone should know about color. After the first class I was proven wrong. Believe me when I say it was a long semester. Correct color and lighting means so much in the photography world. If you would like help let me know. I would love to pass along some knowledge to ya.
Now it is time for tip o' the day

Today, I'm going to share one of our lighting tips with y'all.  We love to use video lights as a (sometimes better) alternative to flash!  When we shoot indoors we have to deal with terrible venue lighting by overpowering with something.  Sometimes, flash is perfect.  But when we want to control the amount of light, the angle of the light, and even the color of light, it's MUCH easier if we use a video light!  Sure, you can have custom white balances and rig up a fancy off-camera flash system, but honestly we don't always have time for that on a wedding day (or even during bridal sessions, engagement sessions, and portrait sessions).   The Lowel ID light is a great light (the battery pack is heavy though). The color is great and it's dimmable and you can get barn doors to adjust the light (we don't normally use these, but have in the past).  The Litepanels light has a hot shoe attachment and comes with gels so you can shoot out some color balanced light!  Another great thing about the LP is it runs on 4 AA batteries!  Nice! When you shoot with these, you can play around with shadows (and see it while shooting, which is hard with flash!) and brightness.  I usually have an assistant hold it off at a 45 degree angle, and sometimes a 90 degree angle, for interesting light. Okay!  There you have it!  Enjoy!  And grab your own video light - you really won't be disappointed!! Let your light shine bright!

tip o the day.

A couple days ago I mentioned that we would be sharing with everyone something fresh. One of my friends/ mentor is starting TIP OF THE DAY. We will be sharing these with everyone each day along with something from us. Here is his tip (for the photographer)

talk to you soon,
wade

Tip o' the Day: Pay Attention to Your Background I'm not gonna lie... I spend WAY too much time looking at photographer/mommy blogs!  I love looking at pictures (duh... I'm a PHOTOGRAPHER).  I've found that the more I look at pictures, the bigger my pet peeves get when it comes to images.  One of my biggest pet peeves is when photographers don't pay attention to what is in the background of an image.  Why is this a problem, you ask? Have you seen an image where there are tree branches growing out of a dude's head and he looks like he has antennae???  All it would take to fix that problem is either a step to the left, or a step to the right.  C'mon... how easy is that? There are obviously scads of remedies for this problemo - my go-to fix is just to blur out the background. Goodbye, telephone poles, street signs, and other major annoyances... smell ya later!

something new...

instead of just talking about all of our pictures and stuff, we want to show you more of our work. It might be portraits it might be landscape or buildings. From now on at least once a week we will be posting "our favorite Picture of the week." We will tell how it was shot and etc. 

talk to you soon, 

wade

about me..

Today we wanted to continue with the about us.. This is Wade.
by far one of my favorite books would have to be Animal Farm, great book, I got hooked on it when I was a freshmen in high school. One of my favorite movies of all times would have to be sandlot. By far my favorite place to go on vacation would have to be Mexico, normally not much of a vacation when I go down though,
talk to you soon,
Wade

dont forget starting monday we will be tagging one of my friends in the post, he will be giving photography tips, we want to pass it along

A little more about Jess...

So tonight, I thought I would share a little more about me... If you didn't already know, I am an elementary school teacher. Most of the time I love my job. It seems that there is never a dull day. I keep getting told that I need to write a book. Something else you might like to know is some of my favorite movies... I live comedies! National Lampoons Christmas Vacation is probably at the top of the list, but I also have a goal of quoting one of the Home Alone movies daily!I don't always get the quote in, but I sure like to try! So... What are some of your favorite movies?!?! Talk to you soon, Jess

coming soon!!!

For those of you who don't know I have a friend that lives in Arkansas.....  Pretty exciting huh??? Well he is also rated one of the top photographers in the nation!! He has been a great mentor for me ever since high school. 

 Well on Monday he is starting a 365 day campaign on photography tips. We want to pass that along to all the photographers that follow us on here. We don't want to keep secrets. So be sure to read our blog.

 

talk to you soon,

Wade