Blog
Check your Settings….
Check your settings! Make it a habit – before you go out on any type of photo adventure, check all of your settings. You will never be plagued with images shot with the wrong exposure. So make sure you check:
- ISO
- White Balance
- Shutter Speed
- Aperture
- Bracketing
- Exposure Compensation
At the end of a shoot, always restore your settings to the same each time and you will know where you stand. It can be very easy to finish a shoot, put your camera away and then download your images – but wait! Don’t forget to restore your settings, so you are ready for those great photo ops at a moment’s notice.
Photographing One of My Favorite Things
Today I got to do one of my favorite things – take pictures of cupcakes and cookies from Lady Di’s. What a perfect way to end the week! These mouthwatering treats are as good as they look. Stop by her shop located on The Old Road and Valencia Blvd. in Valencia and take some home today. Tell them we sent you!
Wedding Image of the Week…
Sometimes the best image is the details. Here is an example of one of my favorite images from a wedding I shot this past month.
Wedding Workshop Wrap-up
On Sunday SCV Center for Photography hosted our Wedding Photography Intensive workshop with the awesome Wedding Photographer William Innes as our fearless instructor for the day. The dedicated group started at 8am, yes, on a Sunday morning, and the entire group was early at that. By 9am the group was shooting our totally decked out models Sarah & John, who did a fantastic job. We were back in the studio b early afternoon for lunch and Q&A. After lunch, it was all about workflow and editing the images from the day. By 5pm the group was spent, but thrilled with the images and new found knowledge. To see more on the workshop and about our totally awesome instructor, head over to http://williaminnes.com/blog/
Silhouette Photos
In looking at some photos on the web today, I noticed a lot of silhouetted photos on the beach that really made me think about how little I have seen this in our local photography. So after doing some looking into my own images, I realized that I have done some of this, but really not enough lately, so I thought I would post some basic thoughts in creating a nice silhouette.
- The basic idea is to place a strong subject in front of the bright light, which can be a person, tree, building, animal, whatever it is that interest you.
- Make sure you great light behind your subject, and that light needs to be brighter than the light hitting your subject from the front, or foreground light.
- It helps it you have a nice plain background, no clutter, nothing that could distract your viewers eye from leaving the main subject in your image.
- Do not use any flash from your camera. You are trying to make your subject go black in the image, although you will want some detail, but just enough so that you know what the subject is.
- The most difficult part is the exposure. Use spot metering, and point it at the brightest part of the image, as this will under-expose your subject. If your subject is too bright still, either speed up the shutter speed or change the aperture. So if your aperture is currently at f8, adjust to f11. And then just continue to adjust to you get the image you are looking for.
Making a silhouette can lead to a great image, both in bright daylight, or even at sunrise or sunset. So get out there and make some images, and if you need additional inspiration or assistance, check out our workshop schedule at the SCV Center for Photography via our website www.scvphotocenter.com.
