New Additions

For Christmas I am asking for a drawing tablet. I have had one before but 1. It was a knockoff, and 2. It was mainly for drawing. Now I am getting one to include my illustrations into my designs for school and also to edit my pictures with more precision. I want the Intuos Pen and Touch by Wacom because it's a perfect for my needs. It has supreme pressure sensitivity so that when I'm using a tool on photoshop I don't have to adjust the settings on it every time I wanted a different size or opacity. When swiping with the pen that comes with the tablet, it automatically changes the opacity by how much pressure you apply. I seriously think this is the best thing since sliced bread. This setting cuts my drawing/designing time in half. Another example of the greatness of pressure sensitivity would be the fact that I would never have to use the zoom tool in photoshop ever again! All I'd have to do with the tablet is pinch my fingers together to zoom out and pull apart my fingers to zoom in, just like you would do on an iPhone. These perks are very minor but all together it saves me from doing things manually which take a lot of time. It also has a keyring in the center that you can set your favorite software shortcuts to. So press one button and photoshop is open, it's that fast! My favorite thing about the entire tablet is the pen. You are actually writing, drawing, and swiping with the maximum amount of precision. Whereas with a mouse, you can only do limited robot-like movements. Imagine trying to draw a perfect circle with a mouse, that is what I mean by robot-like movements. When you are actually drawing with a pen, I can edit someones eyes or anything that's round a thousand times faster and sharper!

This tablet will be a great addition to my cute little collection of photography gear. What I really want is a new camera, but that will have to wait for now. I don't exactly have a thousand dollars laying around that I can spend on a new camera. Especially since I haven't even started taking photography classes yet!

Update

It's the time of year again where the leaves shrivel up and the trees become bare, the sky is a bleak shade of grey, and a mixture of rain and snow slicks the ground. The transition between fall and winter is the most uninspiring time of the season. Much the same as any transition between seasons, besides fall in general. Fall is my absolute favorite. Lately, I have been lacking creativity and it's killing me. I have no want to look good in appearance, general laziness, and an overall negative change in mood. Waiting for actual winter weather to come is painful and boring. I have so many ideas, but no motivation to do any of them. Bay City isn't the prettiest place in the world though, and I've lived here my whole life and basically discovered everything already, about a thousand and one times. I want to travel around soon, but am nervous to do it on my own.

On a side note, I am looking into selling my camera! Its a Nikon D3200 and I have only had for about a year. I would be selling the body and the 18-55mm lens that it came with. I paid around 500 dollars for it, so my asking price would probably be 350 or so. It's a perfect starter camera for people either wanting a nicer camera or is planning on going into photography from a professional standpoint. I am planning on getting a new camera with the money. I'm going to stick with the brand Nikon, because I think it's nice and it's what I know. The new one is around 1,000 dollars, so not cheap. But I am looking for higher quality photos and this will give me exactly that.

Currently...

I just finished editing a wonderful collection of mommy and daughter pictures. This was my second time taking pictures of kids and I really enjoyed it. Some problems that occurred were freezing weather, lens switching, and lack of good location. So first of all it was about 38 degrees out, and the little girl, Anavaeh who was only two years old, wasn't very comfortable. I got a few smiles out of her, but the poor girl barely moved. The second problem was the fact that we were crunched on time, and I had keep changing my lenses! My prime lens is a 50mm and it has no zoom. So when we were doing picture on the swing set and other places where I may want to adjust the space between my camera and her, I had to change lenses. Even though it's a quick on and off, I wish my 50mm could zoom. Lastly, this time of year is the transition from fall into winter and it's not pretty. All of the leaves are fallen and dead, it's either raining or windy, and the sky is always grey. So finding a location that was remotely picturesque was difficult. We were at two different parks and a bridge (which was the prettiest). 

Here are some of the good ones.  

For my next shoot I plan on doing something editorial and high fashion! Like I said in a previous post, I get high fashion magazines in the mail every month and I am especially inspired by them recently. One of my other talents is makeup and high fashion makeup can be very abstract sometimes. It's fun to pay around with it and find a cool location to capture it in just like editorial photographers do in the magazines. I just need to find someone that is willing to be my model! 

Organization Time!

I have had a wonderful time doing shoots with different people of all ages and being able to build up my portfolio. One thing that I have discovered through the process of working with multiple people at the same time, is that shooting and editing for just one person takes a lot of time. While I was doing multiple people all at once, I wasn't giving 100% of my effort. I am the type of person that doesn't particularly like to say no to people or really anything. So I always end up with more on my plate than I can handle. Well, I've come to a point in my life where my unorganized, creative, and non-stop part of my personality has taken over. I've become so unorganized with doing the simplest tasks, that it's hard to even complete them. While going to college over full time, this is a huge problem.

Today I'm saying enough is enough. I need to get my life together and mainly my photography life. I've decided that I should start my contract. I will have set rules and fees, that way there won't be any more confusion. I was having people that wanted to pay me, but they were unsure how much. I never realized how many decisions there were until I began to research it! Some include setting and location fees, rights released or not released, different packages, and most importantly my name and logo. I have been brain dead for a long time on what to call myself. Designing my logo would be a breeze, but actually finding a name that sets me apart from other popular photographers in town, is next to impossible for me. I feel very pressured to come up with a brilliant yet unique name so spur the moment. Waiting for a good idea to pop into my head when I'm actually inspired sounds more comfortable to me. 

I kind of feel like I'm not really justified to have a contract seeing that I am a newbie and haven't taken classes for it yet. Developing a contract, was mainly for myself to make sure I looked organized and professional. I really hope people see it that way, rather than think of me as some self centered girl that thinks every photo she takes is amazing, or someone who only cares about the money. What I really care about is if my client is happy. But unfortunately, you can't make everyone like you. 

Wish me luck!

-Annie ♡

A Walk In The Woods

My absolute favorite place to go for anything is Tobico Marsh in Bay City Michigan. I go there to cry, laugh, read, to get away from my thoughts, and for photo inspiration! There are trails, towers, boat launches, and plenty of marshes. It's beautiful at any time of the year, but my favorite time to be there is during the fall season. When you first get on the trail, the trees tower over you and sprinkle down vibrant color leaves. The leaves blanket the ground in a gorgeous picturesque scene. Another thing that you might see there is the wildlife! I've seen snakes, white tailed deer, black and grey squirrels, woodpeckers, turtles, and many birds. And for some reason, they aren't afraid of people. One time when I was far along on the trail, I came within about 20 feet from two white tailed deer, and of course I didn't have my camera with me. They simply stood there and watched me, not moving a muscle. I took a picture with photo memory, and continued to walk. That's when they casually strolled off the trail and back into the woods. I'll never forget that moment.

I get inspired by how certain things in nature can be naturally placed so beautifully. I always think, how did this get here?! Like when one really big tree falls and you can see its pretty roots that were hidden underneath the forest floor, or when little trees fall on top of each other.

These are a couple of leaves that decided to change color before any one else, and resulted in standing out between the pine and green leaves. I adore this photo because the sun is shining through to where you can make out the actual veins of the leaf.  I took this going through the woods by myself, which is what I usually do. 

Usually I walk the woods alone, but when I do bring someone, I never can resist using them as a model. Even though there is a green stalk standing clear in the middle of his face, I still like the way there are shadows on his face and the colors of the background. 

 

I created this conceptual piece to describe the process of being insecure yet trying to branching out of the insecurities. The body language is modest and pulled in, yet her surroundings are flourishing. It was similar to my own process of wanting to branch out, but still being unsure. 

How I Edit // Over-editing

First thing I do before editing, is set my camera to shoot in Raw file format. What this is does is takes uncompressed images. It will plainly record what you set the camera up as. Leaving every tone and setting in its original form. Whereas a .jpg file format will compress the image and limit the brightness and tones available. A raw picture will have over 30 times the tones that a .jpeg has. The main reason for shooting in Raw, is to edit in Raw. You can find camera raw filter in photoshop under filters. But when your camera is in this setting and you go to pull one of your images up, they should be in .dng, .tiff, or in my case .NEF (nikon electronic format) because this is Nikon's version of raw file format.

Most people edit in raw to fix their under/overexposed images or to adjust their white balance. I edit in raw to slightly fix my exposure but mostly to add light in different places. Sometimes this is necessary if your using backlighting with your model.  Or simply if they just need more light on a body part. Once I get a photo into camera raw filter, I fix my exposure, and if I still need more light but in a certain area, I use a tool where basically you draw a line and it will fade out light from wherever you place it. If there is an instance where I only need light in a very specific place, I'll use the paintbrush and specifically put light in that place. This is not the easiest thing to explain. But after I'm finished with camera raw filter, I'll open the photo up in photoshop and fix blemishes, brighten eyes and hair, and make any other modifications I want or my client wants. Then I'm done! 

Now we've reached the dreaded act of over-editing. From photographers to the average person, we all over edit images. When you're looking a picture and you just want it to be perfect, it's not hard to go a little overboard. But it's a terrible mistake and I see it too often. People have imperfections, moles, freckles and more that make them who they are! There is no reason to take them out. A big thing that I see is completely blurring out the skin in an attempt to smooth out the skin. Here is a very good example. 

My First Child Photoshoot!

Yesterday I had my first child photoshoot and let me tell you, it was not ANYTHING like I expected it to be. Usually for photoshoots, I'll plan out where I'm taking the pictures, and I will bring a drawn out book of all of my favorite poses I plan on using that day. So I drove out to State Park a half an hour before the shoot and brought my rake to make cute little piles of leaves in different places. For props I had a sand papered black apple crate and a faded white chair. All of which I bought from the antique store in Bay City. I had one nine year old and one six year old. They both had bleach blonde hair and bright blue eyes. The six year old arrived and the first thing I asked him was,"Are you ready to throw some leaves around?" After that I directed him to sit in the middle of the leaves and all he nodded his head no and said, "nope!"

It was definitely a rough start, but after things began to pick up, that's all the six year old wanted to do was jump around and take pictures. It was the cutest thing! He was even giving me direction. There was many times where he took my chair and moved it where he wanted it, then told me where to stand and take the picture. After that, he'd ask me if that was a good idea or not. The whole time I was with the youngin, I could not stop laughing. There was little bursts of energy throughout the day where he was excited and where he just did not want to cooperate whatsoever. But all in all, he was my favorite little goofball.

After the six year old there was the nine year old! I never would of anticipated the difference of maturity in the ages! The nine year old was SO mature and patient. I loved it! He was a bit toned down compare to the other one that's for sure and it was so much easier to take his pictures.

I realized towards the end that letting these little kids just unleash their energy is better than trying to pose them. It's more natural too!

Six Year Old

Nine Year Old

My New Lens!

I recently purchased the Nikon 50mm f/1.8 and it's the first separate lens I've bought. I bought the lens because I wanted something that was going to create that pretty blurred background that everyone loves. When I was researching what lens to buy I was constantly directed towards this one. It took me some time to save up the money, but as soon as I could order it online, the 5-10 shipment days felt like a months worth time. I was constantly looking at my tracking number to see where it was, and when I received it, it was the wrong one! Out of my excitement, I skimmed through the specs too quickly and missed the fact that it was a manual focus lens. Which means for each picture you have to manually turn the front of the lens to focus your image. If it was my own personal lens, then I wouldn't have minded taking the time to manually focus each image, but I had bigger plans for this lens! It was to come with me in future senior and family shoots, baby photos, and children portraits. So I sent it back and paid the extra 100$ just for auto focus. Once I received this one in the mail, I was automatically pleased with it. It was fast, slim, and did everything I wanted it to perfectly!

Here are some examples of my work with this lens so far! 

I have a lot more but these two are my most recent favorites!

What makes this blurred background is the f-stop on the lens. It allows you to focus down to 0.45 meters or 1.5 feet. It will focus something very close to you and then blur out the rest of the background and those kind of pictures are very popular right now! It puts a heavy main focus in the picture, even though the background blur is even pretty to look at! 

All in all, I really recommend this lens! It's worth all of the money because it's so multifunctional! 

Favorites: Joel Robison

Joel
His name is Joel Robison and he is a conceptual portrait photographer living in Cranbrook, British Columbia Canada. He creates whimsical worlds where size, scale, movement, and function don't play by the rule that we know. He puts so much positivity into his work and I really admire that. "I became a more positive person and I've noticed that when you emit positivity, it returns back to you." He said. He used to be a really depressed and negative person and there was nothing in his life that he felt passionate about, and I totally relate to that. So when just a regular ol' photographer says how much positivity changed his life, it gives me hope that it can change mine too.

Conceptual Photography
Concept photography is a type of photography that illustrates an idea, and is focused on the concept of the photo. There is some abstraction, but in a conceptual photo the image isn't a blunt example of your idea, it's an expression of it. Often, conceptual photography is used to convey a certain emotion or imply something about a person or society. It is heavily enhanced by programs such as Adobe Photoshop. More and more photographers are taking a dip in this type of photography as photo manipulation software has advanced.

Examples

These were from when he collaborated with Coca-Cola! He sent a picture he took of a glass Coke bottle into their company. A Year and a half later, Coke messaged him back asking if it was okay to post his picture on their twitter page. After the picture was posted, he got a phone call from them saying they had developed a project for him to moderate their flickr page. He did that for about a year and a half and when it was done, Coke offered him the role of photographer for the FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour. This gave him the opportunity to quit his job and pursue his dream of being a full time photographer, spending every second doing what he loves.









And this is just adorable. Not really conceptual, but very cute! That's actually him in the photo! He is his most used model! He sets his camera all up to the right settings and just has someone else take the picture.

This is very interesting to me. Like maybe it's saying his words aren't meant anything. Someone isn't allowing him to talk as if his words were poison.  This is the thing about conceptual art, you can create a main focus but everyone is going to interpret it differently because it's an expression.

This means to me that time is fragile and it's escaping. Which I totally agree with and live with.

Joel is one of my personal favorites for his stepping out of the box ideas. I only wish I could be half as creative and successful as him. 

Here are some of his links! Y'ALL SHOULD CHECK HIM OUT. Please and thank. 

http://www.flickr.com/joel_r

http://joelrobisonphoto.wordpress.com/  

http://www.facebook.com/joelrobisonphotography 

The Language of Light

Light reflects off of all objects that you see around you. You can play this up with camera flash (artificial light) or natural light.
Positive and negative space have a lot to deal with light because it shapes the object you're trying to capture. If there is more negative space, it's going to look like there is less of your object. For example, this picture of these two boys. The only light source in this picture is from the electronic device they're holding. This is a perfect example of using artificial light to shape the main focus of the picture, leaving the rest all negative space. And if there is more positive space, you're going to be able to see most or all of your subject.

Now we can jump into natural light, my absolute favorite! I always play off of natural light because I'm not a big fan of using a flash. The sun is your biggest, most useful tool! Depending on what time of day it is, you'll always get a different photo. In the morning and sunset it's soft and golden, mid-day it's bright and intense, and before and after sunrise/sunsets it's dark and colorful. The best time to shoot is basically any other time than the middle of the day. When you try to shoot mid-day, you can loose detail from intense highlights and shadows, but it is possible. Anything is possible. Here are two examples of my own photos using natural light. Note that they are straight from my camera so they're unedited. 

You can also tell the emotional tone of the picture through how bright or dark the photo is. So if someone wants to capture sadness, it's usually not something very bright. The same as if someone wanted the tone of their photo to be happy, it would normally be something bright and upbeat. 

 For example, the top photo of my friend (model) Sarah. The way I positioned her face so the light hit on the more interesting places like the tops of her cheeks, edges of her nose, and the one half of her eye was to create a tone of mystery. 

You can tell stories by how you portray light in your photos. Once you understand the language of light, you can always create a sound photo because lighting is the most important thing in photography. Without light, we would be left in the dark with nothing to capture. 

My Main Inspirations

A Little Bit of Background

Ive always been fond of the human form. Ever since I could pick up a crayon, or a marker, that was the first thing I drew, a person. So I’ve stuck to that my whole life through drawing, painting, and eventually doing portrait photography. Whether I was drawing or taking pictures, I always had some source of inspiration. Ranging from a torn out magazine page, to the way light shined on an object, or even a simple color. 

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My whole life I actually wanted to be a fashion designer. I had a monthly subscription of four or five high fashion magazines like Elle, W, Harper’s Bazaar, and Marie Claire sent to my house. Clearly I was an obsessed little fashion child. I tore out pages from these magazines and either drew them, or used their poses to create my own version of the pose. I would also watch Project Runway and America’s Next Top Model practically until my eyes bled. While watching these shows, I learned things like posing people, how light looks on the human face, and the good and bad of both of those. Still to this day, these two shows and fashion magazines are one of my main inspirations for my photography. 

Another and probably my most used inspiration of mine is Pinterest. People post their photography all over Pinterest in different collections, boards, and pins. Photographers will have their own page and post their pictures, what equipment they use, how they use it, and give tips. Seeing other people’s photographs and tips helps me better myself and create new ideas! This is what I hope to do to you guys! I love teaching do’s, don’ts, and giving tips. 

These inspirations help me take my creativity from its abstractness to form into something real like an idea! I have so many ideas and a ton of different ways to use my ideas. I’m so excited to show you what I’ve done with them so far. 

Why I Chose Photography

The main reason I chose this topic is probably very obvious; I like photography. It’s one of my favorite hobbies. I am minoring in photography for college and I’m currently building up my portfolio for art school. So far, I have a majority of my friends, two seniors, and two upcoming eight year olds. 

My love for taking pictures all started when I received my very first digital camera. It was hot pink, bulky but still pretty tiny, and had about 4 mega-pixels. I carried it around like it was gold. It was always with me, even if we were only going to the grocery store. I think my first picture on it was of a not so interesting red wings jersey. I thought that documenting my whole life through that little thing was super cool. Many of my pictures were of people. I’ve always been fond of art surrounding the human form and features. That’s when I found my love for taking portraits. 

After having my first camera love, I moved onto something bigger and better; a Nikon Coolpix. It was an expensive looking matte black, was just under the size of a professional camera, had a camera strap, and a built in flash. I lugged this around just like my last one. I even took it on my first day of eighth grade. This camera came with me to all my important events such as vacations, birthday parties, dances, and much more. 

Then after having that camera for a few years, I finally got a professional DSLR camera. It’s a Nikon 3200 and it truly is my baby. I saved my money for what felt like ages just to pay for it. But when I could finally pay for it with my own money; all 600 of my own dollars, it felt so good. Ever since then, I’ve just been learning everything and anything I can. 

What really makes me fall in love with photography is how you can capture a perfect moment in a photo. You can have a tangible piece of a memory. You can tell a full story through one picture. I think I just like being able to tell a story without words, seeing i’m not all that good at it. Art has always been my favorite way of expressing myself, whether it’s through my clothing style, my drawings, or my photos. That’s why I chose this topic.