Learning Something New Everyday!

Just go a link to this article on the forum I belong to regarding "dragging the shutter" - I swear I learn a new thing everyday!

I just have to remember to try out all of the new techniques I learn and remember how to do them when the time is right.

To read the article from Neil van Niekerk click here: DRAGGING THE SHUTTER

After reading through that article I checked out the rest of the site and it has a lot of great reading material regarding shooting with a flash and a ton of other very usefull information. Click here to go to the homepage of Neil van Niekerk's site WWW.PLANETNEIL.COM

Another link with helpful backdrop ideas was also shared with me today. I thought I'd share it with readers of this blog:

http://www.fjwestcott.com/fjw.com/products/backgrounds/all.htm


My friend Tiffany finalized her Christmas card today. This is the final version:

More of "Baby's 1st Christmas"

This turned out to be the best gift I could give to my friend...portraits of her baby who is a little over 6 weeks now.

As you can see the new muslin backdrop worked really well!

I spent all night and all of today editing this particular portrait shoot (of course with lots of distractions LOL!)

I think my friend is going to use of the first few for her Christmas card. I can't wait to hear what she picks out.







And don't forget my favorite shot that I shared in yesterday's post (Dec 1st)

With Mommy:





I have lots more non-Christmas shots that I will hopefully post soon!

The entire gallery can be seen HERE. (There are many unedited shots there that I haven't worked on yet. I just dumped the whole session so my friend could choose which she'd like.

Baby Eric!

Today was baby Eric's photoshoot and it went very well. Between cries I think we got some really great holiday themed photos.

The fabric worked out really well once we found a way to rig up. We used a very large armoir that holds the TV in the family room. We shut the doors and hung the material on top of the TV stand with heavy free weights.

I need to get some kind of stand evenutally if I am to keep doing this kind of thing. We put a folded blanket under the muslin that came down across the floor so the baby would be lying on it. Then we used his boppy for the ones where we didn't have something to prop under his arms (like the stocking, etc).

I had to lay on my stomach in front of him to take the photos straight on. So, the only thing I might try next time is putting him on a table and hanging the backdrop behind him so I can sit on a chair in front of him to shoot the shots. I got tired getting up and down from a laying down position every time I wanted to adjust something but you live and learn!

Next time I do back at the end of December we are going to try different things so it will all be practice.

The only thing I noticed about the muslin is that it atracts every pieces of lint but then again what material doesn't? At least I heard it's easy to wash...but I guess everytime I wash it I have to IRON IT!!! By the way...I had to iron it! It took quite a while but I was worried the creases would show. Now I'm not so sure the creases would have even shown with the way I only lit the scene with a couple overhead recessed lights and the flash with the Gary Fong Lightsphere (with the white cap over it).

I think I should have bumped up the dimmer on the over head lights because I'm finding the unedit versions very dark and I need to boost the brightness on them.

I'm uploading the unedited originals and when they load my friend is going to pick out the ones she likes most so I can edit those first (that way she can order her Holiday Cards).

Then I will slowy work on my favorites of the day doing the usual assortments of treatments, etc.

My favorite are the ones where he is lying on the towels over the laundry basket - they are soooo cute! Julie thought this was the cutest picture and I must say I agree - it's one of my other favorites of the day:

Family Photo Christmas Shoot

My friend asked me to take some photos of her and her 2 sons because her mother wanted to use them as Christmas cards so I went there tonight and shot some quick photos for them aroud the house.

I'm excited that my website host started offering holiday cards for customers.

This is probably the "keeper" shot ... they just have to finalize the card type our of the 36 varieties.



I like this one too...



I liked how this one came out as well:



And I couldn't resist this one of my friend: