September 28, 2011

I've been so looking forward to the session I got to do tonight!  This picture is my favorite from the bunch!  Thanks for being models, you guys :)

September 25, 2011

Oh, by the way, I meant to mention that I finally decided on a name, and it miraculously is not already in use, at least as far as I can tell!  Blue Acorn Photography.  (You won't understand this if you haven't read the very first post ... I had a temporary name until I could settle on one for good.)  It took a lot of brainstorming and bouncing ideas off my husband, who was very helpful in getting the creativity flowing.  I'm very excited and love it a whole lot - it feels like a good fit!  And I'm also excited that the blog will be getting a new, more professional look within the next week.  Yay!

Here are the other 2 photos that I snapped last week in that test location.

September 20, 2011

Over the weekend I found out that I won a free set of actions of my choice from Pure Photoshop Actions for submitting a video for their 1st birthday!!!  These 2 ladies are amazing.  AMAZING!  I'll have to write more about them later and the inspiration that they constantly give to new photographers.  I'll also write about a few other photographers that I admire :)  

A couple days ago I decided to order a grey card, and it came in today.  Gotta love Amazon Prime for the free 2-day shipping!  My husband is a student so he gets Prime free for a year.  It'll be a sad day when the Prime goes away.  Anyway, we went out tonight to test a location I'm thinking about taking my next shoot to, and I took the grey card along.  It's a Lastolite Ezbalance and came on recommendation of the Pure Photoshop Action ladies.  This is the first time I've used a grey card, and I think it went well, although to be honest, this was the first time ever that my white balance straight out of camera wasn't too far off.  I don't know why??  I accidentally left my ISO at a higher setting than I usually have outside, so I don't know if maybe that had something to do with it??  My 21 month old would not stand still for even 1 second, so I just snapped a couple quick photos to see what the light would look like here around 6:30 in the evening.

I edited these with my new actions.  And I still haven't figured out the color issue when I put them online.  These still look different than when I look at them not-online.  I thought it was an aRGB vs sRGB issue, but I tried to correct that and it didn't seem to do anything.  I'm working with Elements, not the big Photoshop, so I don't know if that makes a difference with the color profile settings.  Will be looking into this further... 

September 17, 2011

These are more of my son - my convenient model.  I haven't figured out yet what the deal is with the color.  They're  much brighter/bolder on my computer, but when I put them online they get muted and washed out.  I think I need to look into this ...

September 15, 2011

A friend of mine let me borrow her and her baby as models around the end of July.  These are a few of my favorites.  From this shoot I learned that 10:00 a.m. on a sunny summer afternoon is not a good time to do portraits.  It was a little too warm, and when I got home and uploaded the photos I realized that the lighting was pretty rotten.  I know that the best times to shoot are supposed to be early in the morning and a couple hours before sunset, but for some reason I really thought that 10:00 would still be ok.  It took tons of editing to get these to how they are now, and they're still a bit glarey with completely blown-out highlights in some important spots.  Except the first one - I really like that one :)  But it wasn't a total bust because the subjects were so cute!!

September 14, 2011

Might as well jump right in to posting pictures!  These are a handful that I took of my son at the beginning of August.

September 13, 2011

I really don't want to name my (hopeful) photography business "Chinaberry", but it's all I can come up with that hasn't already been taken.  I had the grand idea of Red Tree Photography, but it already exists.  So then I thought, how about Red Leaf Photography?  That one's out there, too.  Red Maple?  Yep.  Wasn't as excited about that one anyway.  And I'm not sure why I was on the red theme.  Ok, so how about No Name Photo until I can come up with a real name?  Looks like other people are having the same problem because that one is spoken for, as well.  So until I come up with something more creative and suitable, Chinaberry it is ... I guess I'm sticking with the tree theme for now (Chinaberry is a tree).

I'm one of those people who has always wanted to be a photographer.  However, I am not one of those people who went out and did it.  My first major in college was photography, but I only stayed in it for one quarter (we were on quarters rather than semesters at LA Tech).  I didn't even have an actual photography class, just two art classes.  There are a handful of reasons why I decided to change majors.  The art classes were each 4 hours long compared to my friends' classes that ranged from 1-2 hours.  I know, stupid excuse, but it mattered to me then.  Excuse #2:  my mother told me that she had run into one of my old high school teachers who asked her what I was majoring in.  When Mom replied "photography", the teacher said, "Oh ... so what is she really going to do?"  (High school friends, can you guess who that teacher was??)  What, like there are absolutely no professional photographers in this world?  Yes, people do actually grow up to be photographers.  It shouldn't have affected me so much, but I have always allowed myself to feel inferior, so the comment just fell right into step with my "I can't do that/I'm not good enough to do that" philosophy.  And then there's excuse #3:  I was splitting the cost of college with my parents.  They paid for the first quarter, I would pay for the second, they paid for the third ... you get the idea.  Anyway, the second quarter was coming up with my very first photography class, and you need a camera for a photography class. More than just a point-and-shoot.  And I really didn't know how I was going to pay for tuition, books, supplies and a really nice camera.  So I didn't ask or say anything and instead decided that it just wasn't going to work out.

I'm now 30 years old and finally trying to take steps to learn and be what I've always daydreamed about being.  I feel like a big old (referring to my age) dork for just now starting at the very beginning when there are so many other really good photographers out there.  Why would the world need one more person to take pictures?!  Why would Northwest Arkansas need one more person to take pictures?!  I am hoping beyond hope that there is a niche for me and that I don't embarrass myself too badly in the process :)