Maternity Shoot

It all started with a beautiful idea from my cousin. She wanted to throw a surprise baby shower for her friend, Ingrid. In that baby shower my cousin wanted a picture. Just one. She wanted to blow up one picture as a gift for her friend. A beautiful picture, she said she wanted. I took that beautiful one, and another, and another. It was quite easy with such a beautiful model :)
Can't wait until little Emily is born and I get to shoot her as well!

Heather & Pat Engagement Session :)

It was a beautiful day :)

This is just a little preview of such a beautiful couple!!

Can't wait until their August wedding!!

Portraits with only 1 light source!

So all of these portraits of my friend Raquel, were done with my canon 50mm 1.8 lens. I love these lens! Plus they are cheap!!

For this blog post, I wanted to share some insight on how to shoot portraits on a budget! I don't have a studio and so I have to improvise. These portraits were done with a light that I purchased at Home Depot. My light was about $20. I put my camera on auto white balance at times and sometimes on Tungsten.

I also don't have a light stand so I used a microphone stand and hung the light from that.

My solution was very simple and it worked! At least I like to think so!

Enjoy!

Cupcakes!

So what do you do when your baby turns 6 months old? Throw him/her a party?? No! Give him a cupcake and take pictures to capture the moment!!

This is Matthew. He's my cousin. And I love him. Hope you will too :)

Enjoy!
I made it into a slide show!

and i'll leave you with my favorite of the day:

My latest Photoshoot

So I went to the park yesterday, Warinanco park & shot a beautiful couple! Kim and Kevin. Enjoy!

PS. just a little tip, when shooting outdoors you need to be very careful about the time of day! If you want the romantic look, like we have here, go for about 2-3hours before dusk until dusk. But if you want the harsh shadows, go for anytime around noon.















Happy shooting!

How to make animations with Photoshop

So it's pretty simple! Grab three-five or however many pictures you want! (But of course at least 2!) After you have chosen your 2-5 pictures (we'll say 2, photo A and photo B,) you bring them into photoshop. After you get your two photos open in photoshop you should see them like this:


Then you are going to copy and paste the 2nd image onto the first one.
(Click the key crtl+A or Command+A on the 2nd image then click on the 1st image and click crtl+V or command+V to paste the 2nd image onto the 1st.)

(You should then have two layers. One layer of the first image and a second layer of the second image.) You can also do this other ways, but this is my way.



Now you are going to go to windows > then animations.


Now you are going to hide the 2nd photo layer.


In the animation window click the button to copy layer.


After you have copied the 1st photo layer, unhide the 2nd photo layer.


(Automatically the animations copied layer should change to the 2nd photo.

Now change the seconds. I use .5 secs. You can try different seconds by just clicking on the seconds you want and pressing play to view your animation.



After you click on .5secs make sure that it says Forever, so it will loop FOREVER :)


Now you are ready to save!!

Save the file as Save For Web & Devices


*(BEFORE I COULD SAVE, I HAD TO RESIZE MY PHOTOGRAPH BECAUSE IT WAS TOO BIG, IF THIS HAPPENS JUST GO TO IMAGE> IMAGE SIZE> AND PUT IN A NUMBER FOR THE WIDTH & HEIGHT THAT'S HALF THE SIZE IT'S SHOWING NOW. MY WAS 66 SO I PUT 33.)

Even when I went to save my image was too big,

so I also saved it to 25% on the lower right hand side. You can change the percentage to whatever will look right for your picture. You can see which percentage would work by changing it also on the lower left hand side. As you can see my percentage is at 25% on both left and right lower hand sides.




Then you save it as a gif file and to whatever name you want to give your animation,


Now you are all done! Enjoy your animation!

Children Portraits!

Oh and it is hard taking photographs of toddlers! They are always on a move! That is why I especially recommend getting a fast lens! (Fast lens are those that have a low f-stop number like 1.8 or 1.4) Anywhoo, I wanted to share a few of my photographs that I took this past Autumn. Hope you enjoy!









Hope you enjoyed!

Taking Pictures of Couples :)

I LOVE taking pictures of people in LOVE! It's great capturing all the lovey-dovey stuff :) So I have (again!) 3 tips of what you should do when taking pictures of couples.

#1 - Make them laugh!
It's very important for the couple you are photographing to be completely comfortable with you. So what I do, is make jokes. I make a fool out of myself. Get to know the couple, talk to them before you start shooting. If the couple is comfortable with you, most likely, you are going to have great, not tense pictures. The candid moments. Some couples are going to be like models, but some (most) won't. They will have forced smiles and forced poses. Making them laugh (no matter what you do) will allow them to truly smile.



#2 - Get in Close
Most pictures of couples that I like are of close ups. The close up of their hands or their eyes. Really closing in on a moment that no one would have focused on, if you didn't ZOOM in on it. Small things always count. His hands on her leg, her feet curling up, etc. Find those moments and close in on them :)
This photo is taken from http://pascallphotography.wordpress.com/


#3 - Know the Couple
I mentioned this a little in the first point, but it's very important to know the couple. When you know the couple you can then take photographs that represent them. Ask questions about how they met, what they like to do, etc. Get a feel for who they are and then take photographs that represent that.

When using a point & shoot

I like doing everything in 3s, so again I will share my 3 simple tips when using a Point & Shoot.

1 - Disable your flash!
Wait- what? What do I mean? Well of course there is a purpose to your camera's flash. But the point is, you should only use your flash when taking a picture of someone/something when you are not so far away from them (and of course when it is dark!) The #1 thing people always do (and I see it time and time again) is take pictures with their flashes on, when clearly the flash isn't going to help! For example: they are at a show/concert and they are far in the back, they want to get a picture of the band but it's too dark. So they pull out the camera and put the flash on. Bang out a couple of pictures, look at them, and suddenly get mad at the camera because all of the pictures are too dark!
Well of course, our flashes aren't that strong!
Also if your flash isn't giving you the picture you want, try raising you ISO (all cameras can do this.)

#2- Disable your Digital Zoom
If you don't know already, digital zoom is actually just like zooming in on a picture with a magnifying glass. The pixels are just being stretched. You are actually losing a lot of quality. So no digital zoom! Just use your optical.

#3- Carry a Mini Tripod
It may come in handy? Ever try to take a picture with a group of people. You start looking around for someone to take the picture, but no one is there? Well a mini tripod like the one below and hook on to anything! It's a great investment.



Well happy shooting!

Rings 2

So this is a continuation of my prior post. I wanted to share some more of my ring pictures.
In this first picture, you will notice I broke one of the important rules of composition. The rule I broke was, The Rule Of Thirds. I placed the ring in the center of the photograph. However, what makes this photograph interesting is the diagonal lines of the ukulele. So this is a pretty good example of breaking the rules in a good way. (I'm sorry if I'm sounding conceited, I'm not trying to!)

Up Close :)

So I wanted to share some of my new photos. These photographs are of my engagement ring :) I took these photographs with my camera on RAW file for the first time and i LOVED it. I have so much more ability to manipulate the photo exactly how I want to! There are many point and shoot cameras that have the capacity to shoot in RAW, you really should invest in a camera that does this if you are interested in editing your photographs to look the best possible.

SO here are some of my favorite ring shots I took last night! Enjoy!

Newborn Photo-shoot

So I decided to change it up a bit. I want to give you guys a few tips on taking a newborn photo session. I'm not an expert of course, but I thought it'll be nice to share some of my ideas. Again I will hit on 3 main points :)

#1 - Use a prop
I never plan the props I use, but next time I will. I think it's important to have newborns (especially over 4 months) to have some kind of prop for them to interact with. Well not just A prop but many props.


#2 - Get in close
Try to get light in the eyes; this is called highlights. Not only in newborn photo shoots, but in all photo shoots which involve people.

#3 - Natural Light is the best
I figured this out because of my last shoot. I noticed how much I hated my lighting situation, since I don't have a studio with expensive lighting the best thing I have is the sun. Use the Sun, it's the best light we have and it's FREE!

Well that's a little tips that I thought I'd share with you. If you have your own ideas and/or advice for me, I would love to hear it!

How to get the perfect shot! Portraits :)

How the heck do you get a shot like this?


Or like this?


Practice? Actually no, you just need to learn how to compose. What the heck is compose? Well if you learn a few key rules of composition and mix that with your creative genes, you are sure to get shots like these and better!

I'm going to slim down the rules of composition into 3 simple rules! Remember almost all rules are meant to be broken, but ONLY after you understand and master them! So here are the 3 Simple "Guidelines" of composition.

Rule #1 - The Rule of Thirds

When you are taking a picture, you should have this invisible grid in your mind. This grid is there to help you compose a more attractive picture. The focal point of your picture should end up on one of the green dots, (where the lines intersects).
Also the rest of the important focal point should also fall on one of the lines.



My example shows that this woman is the most important part of the photograph and even more important is her face.

Also don't forget, when taking pictures of horizons, (like sunsets and sunrises), you should really use the rule of thirds. Put the horizon on one of those horizontal lines (you decide exactly which one, depends on the photograph.)


Rule #2 - Less is more

As you can see from the pictures above (and even from the previous post,) there are only a few things in the photograph, usually only one!

When taking Portraits, it is VERY important to GET CLOSE!

Too many things going on in a photograph can be very distracting and ultimately lead to an unsuccessful photograph. (What is a unsuccessful photograph you ask? A photograph where the intended message is not communicated.)

So unless your message is to show a messy and clutter lifestyle or something along those lines, leave clutter out! So FOCUS in on a few, usually ONE important subject.

It's better to take a bunch of photographs, then trying to be lazy and taking one photograph with a bunch of things in it! Think about it...


Last Rule is
#3 - Spacing

When taking a photograph of someone or something (especially when they are moving), it is best to have "empty" space in front of them. (Where they are facing.)
Take this photograph:


As you can see there is "empty" space in front of her. (I write, "empty" because there is still things there, it's not completely blank, but you get the point.)

And that's it!

I hope I taught you a little more about composing the perfect picture.
:)
There are BOOKS and BOOKS about this stuff, so this is really really simplified for your benefit. I just choose 3 Rules I think is important to follow, but remember they are guidelines. Experiment! Keeping Shooting! & Have fun!

-Happy shooting!