The First Year // Wrap up

Last week was my final post in my "The First year" blog series. 

In case you missed the installments in the series here they are:

The first few months

Evolution of the Camera

Lenses

Editing

Lighting

Starting a Business

Website and Client Mgmt

I had a really good time writing this series and reflecting on all of the things (THERE ARE SO MANY) that go into starting up a photography business. I feel very accomplished for having tackled so many different things in a relatively short period of time. 

If I had any advice to give to someone starting out its this:

Try your best not to get ahead of yourself. Focus on one thing at a time and be patient. 

I still struggle with this. I have these great visions of what I would like my business to become, but it just doesn't happen overnight. Its so incredibly easy to watch and look at what others are doing (mostly because of social media) and think if they can do it, so can I. This is true, but they may have been at it for 5 years to get to where they are now. 

When I catch myself leaping ahead 10 steps down the road and feeling overwhelmed I stop and focus on this:

What can I do TODAY that will help me get to where I want to go? 

I can continue dreaming and making lists and plans, but when it comes down to it, everyone's big dreams starts with little steps that get taken one at a time. 

Thank you for reading and as always, if you have any questions at all, fee free to contact me through my contact page! 

Behind the scenes of a family photography session

One of my favorite ways to learn is to watch someone else do what it is that I am trying to learn. I am a much more visual and tactical when it comes to learning new things and photography is no different.

Because of this, I LOVE behind the scenes shots of photography sessions. This was one of the things I googled the most when I was just starting out and surprisingly there is not a LOT of examples of this kind of thing out there on the web. 

I tried to find videos taken during a shoot to see how the photographer interacted with the client and where they were standing etc...when taking the photos. There are a few resources out there but much fewer than I expected. 

When one of the dads at the recent photo session that I did, took some shots of me during the session and then shared them with me afterward, I was elated! Not only do I enjoy critiquing myself, but I feel that information like this can be very useful to others when prepping for their own photo sessions! 

So here you go! A look behind the scenes at the recent photo shoots I did for Mairin and Abby. 

The reason I chose this spot in the photo below is because it was nicely shaded with some greenery in the background and the sun was shining beautifully through the tall trees camera right. I was using my 28-75 in this particular photo to get a wider angled shot. 

Then I switched to my 70-200 and zoomed in a bit so I could get some of the beautiful compression. I had placed her plenty far from the background so there was some really good separation going on which would set up nicely for this lens. 

One of the resulting final images. 

I sat both girls in the chair in this path to incorporate some framing. Paths and walkways are always great for framing. Some of those final images can be seen in their respective blog posts. 

I wanted to incorporate balloons into this session but it was so windy that it just didn't work out. The balloons were banging against each other something fierce and then they started popping. Major Fail. 

You can see how in this photo the image seems rather dark and flat. However in the resulting image (right below this one) you can see the light I was aiming for in the background. One of my favorites!! 

I set up momma and daddy and told him to lift her up and smile and have a great time. I keep the camera up and click throughout them doing the action to ensure I get a great shot with expression.

And this last one is probably one of my favorites, because this is soooo what a lot of shoots look like. I know some people will argue all day and say parents need to go somewhere else and not stand behind you, but I really don't mind it at all. Even if the toddler doesn't look directly into the camera for every shot it doesn't make it a bad picture. And no one can make a 1 year old laugh and smile the way their parents can, so I just go for it. 

and am very pleased with the results! 

I hope you enjoyed taking a peek behind the scenes! My hope is to do more of these in the future!