Over the years I have seen that this profession is so different from others, photographers are always so willing to share their tips and tricks or pass on awesome new technology or shoot locations. I'm not sure what it is about being a photographer that makes you want to give back, but I'm guessing it might be similar to what I have experienced where I was shown so much direction, critiqued, given tips and tools all from people who had nothing to gain other than the satisfaction of helping someone else. I myself had a lot of questions asked lately from some that are in the beginning stages of learning the world of photography and trying to become professional and even from fellow moms and dads just trying to get some clear pictures of their kids. Since I was shown so much help I love being able to offer the same to others who appreciate the art of photography as well.
I often get asked how I could possibly get such clear images of my daughter, especially when they see what a ball of energy she is first hand. The first answer is practice, and a lot of practice. There are also some technical tips that will help like paying extremely close attention to shutter speeds and sometimes you just have to give up on manually focusing.
One of the best lessons I learned from Mrs. D. my first photo teacher in high school was that if you are shooting hand held you should go no lower than 1/60 with your shutter speed if you want to avoid motion blur. It is possible to go lower, many can even get to 1/30 of a second and still stay away from motion blur but this takes many years of practice and an extremely steady hand to achieve.
For this image I shot at 1/125 because it was a well lit evening and Kailyn was extra energetic. I really didn't want everything in focus since the subject was her little hand learning how to pick the fruit, so I lowered my f-stop to 4.5 to help blur out some of that background area and put the focus right where I wanted it.
Since the beginning of this 365 journey I have had more and more people reach out to me and let me know how it is affecting them, what they are learning, what they like/dislike about my images and style and a lot of other amazing things. It means a lot to me to hear and I end up learning a lot about myself from what they say and I experience. It cracks me up that a few years ago when I was becoming official with my business my good friend Darrin Ballman was looking over my images to give me a opinion and some feedback. One of the things I remember most of what he said was, it needs 'pop' or contrast or something. Basically it was just too flat. Lately I keep getting complemented on my contrast and color and although I had years of schools, working and managing photo stores it took until Darrin said just the right words to me to open my eyes and really see what the problem was. This is why it is so important to study other photographers, network with them and learn from each other. It really ends up improving the industry as a whole.
So on that note just a little tip for achieving a boost of color without having to do too much is to up your contrast and add in some blacks. If you are a photographer hopefully you are shooting RAW and you can do this easily right when you are processing out to JPG. If you are a parent you can do this easily just by having simple program like Photoshop Elements.
Please feel free to message me or comment below if you have more questions and I'll address them in upcoming 365 posts.
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