Friends Rock!

Friends are the greatest gift, especially when they allow you the pleasure of photographing them due to an event...in Kathy's case, her weight loss. These pictures show it...

Photographing Children

I spent the evening with my photography friends in the presence of children models. We all congregated at Monument valley park in the gardens along with a guest photographer from New Jersey. Fabulous time! Fabulous shots! Fabulous kids!The one thing I can say for sure as a children's photographer . . . you must go with the flow and be ready to shoot at any time. The younger the child, the less attention span he/she has. The older ones can be molded into any modeling pose, for the most part. They love to be photographed.

The evening was winding down and I decided that the sun, which had been my light source, was rapidly depleting. So what did I do? You guessed it...bump up my ISO to let more light in and open up my aperture a bit wider. You have to be careful with the ISO as to not bump up too high in case you were asked to enlarge one of these fabulous portraits. It would produce much more grain than one that was shot at a lower ISO.

Have fun photographing children, I sure do!

Photo fun with Jana

I spent a couple hours carousing downtown with my friend Jana; our cameras strapped to our necks as I taught her how to better manipulate her camera. Fun times!

We ended at Riccos for pizza, salad and a glass of red wine.

I have to tell you, the thing that I made so clear to her was to take the camera out of automatic. Put it into AV mode (aperture priority) in the manual setting section. You, as the photographer, have so much more control over the light that falls on your subject, whether it be a person or a glass of wine.

The smaller the number, the larger the opening, more light hits your subject. That's a good tip to know in a low light situation. You can also bump up your ISO for additional light.

The larger the number, the smaller the opening, the less light hits your subject. Good tip in a sunny situation or a lot of light.

So, remember F/16 when it is sunny...F/8 or F/11 when cloudy...A wide open aperture like F/1.8/4.5/5.6 is great for indoors. Again, remember...bump up your ISO when your indoor--that will allow more light in as well.

Flooding waters

On the very same day I was chased from capturing images of Brenda, I drove home only to be greeted by a nasty storm. I veered off the highway taking the back way home, and came across this image. I had to stop and take a picture. The image is a small stream that runs behind Wendys on Chestnut and Garden of the Gods. It was running to rapidly due to the storm, it couldn't get it all in under the bridge...the result was an overflowing river. Crazy, huh?

Brenda

This is beautiful Brenda. She came to visit (friend) Aunt Heather. I headed down to Heather's house with my camera hoping to photograph this sweet girl. We gathered our "stuff", jumped in the car, and half way down the street we discovered the storm that was clearly off to the West and South was heading our way. We turned around and headed back to grandma's house where we were fortunate enough to capture a couple images. She primped for her shoot (though she didn't have to... her beautiful blond hair and sparkly eyes told the story). Thanks Brenda for a fun...10 minutes!

July Photo checklist

Here are some photo opportunities for July:

Fourth of July fireworks
Outdoor BBQ's/Events
Watermelon eating
Camping
Biking
Swimming
Running through the sprinkler
Beach vacations
Kids selling lemonade at the corner stand
Weddings
Family Reunions
Kids at the park
Corn on the cob

Maybe there's a few I have forgotten...Summer is filled with outdoor activities that keep us clickin'. Don't forget to journal. Who wants to look at these fabulous photos years from now and have to guess what year it was or who that was in the picture with Bobby.

Always have your camera ready and carry spare batteries with you. A great piece of advice a fabulous photographer once gave me was to use a polarizing filter on your lens. It will enhance color and contrast on sunny days.

Keep Clickin'...and share your photos with me, I'd love to see them.

Summer Fun

What is it about summer that makes you want to jump into the water, and get your feet wet. We spent the day at America the Beautiful park. Jasmine, Jennifer, Christine, and me. Getting ourselves all wet. Happy, busy children everywhere--splashing. Oh it felt good though, on a hot day like today.
A soft breeze, cool water and the blistering hot sun, all created a summer like atmosphere. Don't forget to scrapbook your summer fun. I'd suggest an album for summer only. Add to it every year and you will see how the kids grow. It'll help you remember all the summer activities you're involved with each year.

Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Summertime...remember the song? Why not remember the fun times in the sun by scrapbooking them.

~Happy Summer Fun