Happy New Year!

Wishing you and your families peace and relaxation this new year! Happy 2014!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!! 

Merry Christmas

As Christmas festivities may be quieting down, I can only hope that everyone had an amazing Christmas time with their family and friends. This Christmas I got to spend it with all of my family which is the biggest present of all! Christmas is the one time of year that everyone is home at once!! One of the other greatest gifts I got this Christmas was a new macro lens for my camera! If you don't know what macro is, it is the ability to capture amazing details with a SUPER close up zoom! One of the major things I have noticed since having my new lens for a solid 24 hours (hello...we all know I have been playing with it nonstop!) is that there is a HUGE learning curve when working with it! While macro lenses are amazing for close ups and fine details, they are not so great for standard portraits. Obviously the more detail one wants in a photo, the more light they are going to have to use. However, that is where the problem comes in with macro lenses and portraits. Since you can only capture so much detail in a person, the lens often over exposes the person in the photo while making the details in the back much crisper. Like I said, there is a large learning curve that I will need to adjust to!

Today I played taking portraits of my sister Colleen as well as some nature close ups. I was so so amazed right away with how much clearer the photos I was taking were right off the bat! After I was done taking the pictures outside, I came in and did a little editing before family came over. Right away I needed to adjust levels, curves, and exposure to the portraits to make Colleen not look over exposed. I'm excited to keep practicing and learning how to keep the lighting correct.

(**Guess who learned how to make the photos on the blogpost larger!!) 

LOVE THE CLARITY 

Is this not amazing?! This is taken from 10-15 feet away just using my zoom! LOVE THIS LENS!!!

Spur of the Moment

Today happened to be one of those days where I saw the perfect opportunity to take a photo and for once, instead of saying "Oh, I'll get it later. . ." I ran inside grabbed my camera and took advantage of the cool scene I saw. Below I attached the photos that will make this a little more understandable to see, but I was coming home to kill some time today waiting to go to lunch with a friend when on our brick pillar I noticed how the snow was laying just so oddly on it. The temps outside today were slowly rising. . . yes, going from a balmy 14 to 25. So I knew with the sun was coming out and melting some of the thinner areas for snow, so I knew if I waited to get my shot, the drift on the pillar would have melted and fallen off. The lighting outside wasn't the best but with a little lighting editing I made it work. Below I attached the photo of the wall before I had taken the "cool" shots so you could see what I was seeing when I walked passed it.

Nothing fancy to show, this is the
drift on the wall all together. 

Love the detail in the brick. Brought the levels up and
increased vibrance a smudge.

Upped the levels and increased vibrance 

Make this one big and look at the snow crystals on the one
dangling clump of snow.

Night Shooting

One of my most favorite things to do is shoot photos at night! Something about the patience you need and the fine detail that comes with it makes me love it. Here in Ohio, we either get a lot of snow or just a dusting. It just so happens that tonight, mother nature decided that Ohio was due for more than a dustings worth of snow. I've always loved snow simply because it makes everything just a little more beautiful. Have you ever noticed the sky when it's snowing? The sky has this great purple tint to it that is almost impossible to capture! Night shooting also requires a little more experimenting than normal, I find myself adjusting my aperture and exposure time more often than I do normally. I love being able to upload the photos and see the differences side by side (one of the best part about Adobe Bridge). Of course I was outside freezing my butt off for a good half an hour and really only have one photo that I liked, but truthfully I call that success! Thought I would share the original, the worked on, then the final product below. Check them out! (and yes, this time I saved them in JPEG so they upload!)

Original 

Edited, but notice how the snow has a tint to it
from the evening light

Final product 

Finding Your Light

One of the hardest things photographers (when I say photographers, I mean anyone who takes pictures!) struggle with has to be finding the perfect lighting. I remember when I was younger and didn't really understand photography I thought the perfect lighting was when the sun was out and the sky was blue I mean it only makes sense right, anyone would say that would be the perfect day, so why wouldn't it be the perfect lighting for a picture? Obviously as I have gotten a better understanding of how camera and picture taking works, I have learned that sunny and 75 (ha cracked myself up there throwing in a country song title!) isn't usually the best for photos. What's the best then? I actually think that is debatable....for me, I would say the best lighting is overcast when the sun isn't just beating down in one spot. Overcast allows for a more even lighting and makes editing a lot easier!!

Who cares right? The only reason this has been on my mind is because on Sunday my parents and I were sitting around the Christmas tree when one of our dogs (currently we have 4....yes, we know we are insane!) Gracie, was sitting on the couch and then all of a sudden, she fell asleep. The way Gracie was laying had to be one of the most picture perfect things I have ever seen! So, I ran upstairs grabbed my camera and prayed that Gracie didn't move. Lucky for me, Grace was sound asleep and didn't even realize I had left the room.

In my head when I pictured how the picture of Grace was going to turn out, I pictured the most perfect lighting and all details would stand out....but when I started snapping away, I realized that the lighting I was working with was really low and well...it sucked. However, that is one of the best things about DSLR cameras, you can manipulate all the settings including aperture to give you the best photo with great lighting. The smaller the aperture a camera has, the more time the camera needs in order to get enough light for the picture to have detail and depth. I must have taken 100+ photos before I got one that had the perfect light. After a little editing thanks to my friend Adobe Photo shop, we ended up with a great photo we decided to use for our Christmas card this year.

*Wanted to show a couple photos of Grace here with different lighting's, but I realized that all the photos were still in RAW format instead of JPEG and RAW format doesn't like to upload on blogger! Next post I'll try and save them as JPEG before hand!*

Taken with my Nikon D3100 for
5 seconds 

Portraits

One of my favorite types of photography are portrait photography. I'm lucky to have a best friend who lets me photograph her a lot! I've also been very blessed to know some great little kids who don't shy away when I start snapping away at them!

One of my closest friends Mckenzie is probably one of my favorite people to take pictures of. She has this great creative eye that really challenges me to bring the creativeness into the pictures. Lucky for me, Mckenzie is so photogenic and makes it almost near impossible to not love every photo.

Another one of my closest friends Melanie has been one of my "models" from time to time. Melanie is that person who every girl hates, she is so naturally beautiful that she requires little to almost no editing ever. She has a smiles that makes me want to capture every single moment when I'm with her.

Personally, I think portraits are universally peoples favorite photos simply because everyone loves a great photo of someone. I love when I post photos of little kids being able to capture their innocence and how precious they really are. Enjoy these sneak peeks of some of my favorite portraits.

Shot summer 2013 with Nikon D3100

Shot summer 2013 with Nikon D3100

Shot late winter/early spring  2013 with Nikon D3100

Shot late winter/early spring 2013 with Nikon D3100

Shot summer 2013 with Nikon D3100

Shot winter 2012 with Nikon D3100

Shot winter 2013 with Nikon D3100

Welcome

After browsing on Pinterest for over an hour aimlessly looking for nothing, I stumbled upon this photography site that is a place for basically anyone who wants to take photos and share them. I signed up for the site (and I wonder why I have so many emails a day. . . ) and one of the requirements to sign up was to have a website. That got me thinking, why not start a blog to share my photos.

The first thing I want to make very clear, I am NOT nor do I think I am in any sort a professional or even close. I'm simply someone who has a love for photography. I honestly believe my love started when my step-mom Steph started sharing her passion with me. (To see some of Steph's work please click here) Obviously (if you clicked the link) it's clear that Steph has an amazing talent and is amazing at capturing the life around her. Watching Steph grow her career and passion really helped me develop my own passion. So, with Steph's guidance and a couple high school photography classes (both film and digital) I'm at this stage of bettering my skills and enjoying the path that photography will take me on. There isn't a day that I don't think about picking up my camera and just clicking away. And sometimes, I do and hate every photo that I took and come up with nothing. . . THAT'S HOW IT WORKS! Then, there are the days when everything is just exactly how you need it and you come out with 20 great photos to edit. I think part of the problems I run into sometimes are that I don't have a selected single area to photograph. I love photographing people, love it! But then, I love capturing nature...so sometimes, I think it's hard to just go and take pictures and having to decide what I am going to focus on. Those are usually the days I get frustrated and end up hating everything I shot.

So, I'm excited to "challenge" myself to pick up the camera more often and share with everyone the life around me. So enjoy these sneak peeks for a few of my favorite shots I have taken. You can also view more on Flickr just click here.

Taken on my handheld Olympus point and shoot camera about
2 summers ago. Talk about good timing. 

Taken this last summer with my Nikon D3100

Taken Christmas 2012 (same year I got my Nikon) in PA with
Steph's guidance 

Taken this summer 2013 with my Nikon. Can't get much sweeter