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!