Heather's maternity session

This is exciting!!! My first post on my blog that is actually about a photo shoot. . .I've seen photography blogs that kind of post pictures while telling the story about the photo shoot, so I'll do the same here. . .

Heather called me (thanks to Elizabeth!!) about taking some maternity pictures.  She didn't think she wanted to do any but well, she realized she's quite pregnant and that if she was gonna do them, now was the time.  I think she called me on a Wednesday, and we took these pictures on Thursday, the next day.

I'm used to doing maternity sessions inside people's homes.  They're more comfortable there, she can take a break if she needs it, they've usually got some toys or blankets they want in the pictures. . .it's just usually easiest at their house.  Well, Heather and her husband live in Oxford, but agreed to meet me somewhere in Hernando so we could do these pictures. . .outside.

Anytime this is the first picture you take, you know it's gonna be a good shoot.  Heather is beautiful and having that belly just makes her that much more stunning!!  I know you women sometimes don't feel like it when you're far along in your pregnancy, but I PROMISE, this is an absolutely beautiful look!!  I love that pregnant "glow" that you ladies get.  It's awesome!!

And this is just a great shot. . .men always hate having their pictures made but Chris was quite a sport about it.  Always smiled, and didn't complain the whole time.  That's rare for men by the way.

Along the same fence line as the previous 2 pictures, but how can you not take 100 pictures by this fence?  Old, torn up, wooden, molded fence?  Hello?!?!?!

Then we drove down a little ways and I saw this really old building and when I saw Heather in her all black against this white wall, I had a vision.  This shot is that vision. . .I love this picture!!!

Awww. . .

Moving on to the next location we found a tiny gazebo that was just right for some pictures.

Wow, I couldn't resist taking this shot!!  Thank you so much Heather, for letting me take this!!  I love it!!  "THE BIG BOLD BREED". . .it doesn't get any better than that!!

Classic!!

It's neat to me how all that space on the right makes this shot interesting.

And the last shot of the day.

So thanks a ton to Heather & Chris for using me to take their maternity pictures.  She was hesitant to even go through with taking them, but I think after seeing these, she'll be glad she did.  I hope so anyway.  And hopefully they'll call me when it's time to take some newborn pictures ;) ;)

Thanks!!

a sincere apology

just a little quick note to apologize to all you faithful followers out there.  I can honestly say I haven't been lazy, I've just been busy.  And I probably won't have a chance tomorrow (today actually) to write again either. . .Maybe around midnight again tomorrow I'll set time aside to do this blog thing.  I swear, I was so good at doing it during the month of January before I even told anybody about it.  I don't deserve your friendship, but trust me, I've got a few shoots booked, and things are about to pick up and I'll be posting more soon.  Real soon.  And more pictures too. . .none of this one picture per post crap!!

Thanks!!

before & after

This is a typical example of what I would do to "fix" a picture.  Sometimes I change colors and add effects (watch for my next post), but generally speaking this is what I do. . .

I usually brighten the picture a little bit, boost the saturation, brighten the eyes and whiten teeth.  Sometimes I make dark spots under the eyes a little lighter, and sometimes I remove a wrinkle or blemish here and there.  I don't like to do too much to the eyes because a person's eyes define them, and changing them too much makes them look like a different person.  The wrinkles and "bags" that people have under their eyes generally can't be removed.  I mean, I can physically do it in photoshop, but it just doesn't look right (in my opinion).  Babies have these so called "bags" under their eyes.  Also, the skin below their eyes is a little darker than their cheeks.  So that's totally normal.  When you remove all that and make the skin under the eyes look just like the rest of the cheek, it just looks goofy to me.

So if you hire me, and I tell you that I'll "fix up" a picture or whatever, this is what I'm doing.  The picture on the left is straight out of the camera.  The picture on the right has been edited just a tad.

Thanks!!

just maybe

Sorry for not having a picture today.  And I'm also sorry that I posted almost every freaking day in January and I think I've only done 3 in February so far.  What a loser.  It's weird that L-O-S-E-R is loser, but P-O-S-E-R is poser.  I've got a million of them (thanks in most part to Gallagher).

I've been slacking really hard in the photography world lately.  I've got a shoot this weekend and I couldn't possibly be more excited.  When the weather picks up, hopefully business will pick up and I can use this blog to post what's actually going on in my photography world.  I'll be posting pictures of what I'm shooting instead of random pictures from 2005.  And maybe if I make a little money I can get some new business cards.  Maybe those business cards will have the address for my blog them.  Then maybe people will start coming to my blog (not that I don't totally appreciate your being here!!).  Then I could become more and more popular.  Then the promise that I made to my entire extended family at Christmas may come true.  What promise?  That's for another post sometime later.

Thanks!!

splash dynamics

It's funny the way water moves.  When you freeze the motion of water in a picture, it looks weird because that's not how we see it with our eyes.  When you slow it down with a slow shutter speed and blur it, it looks weird that way too.  Because that's not the way our eyes see it.  This morning I'd planned on taking pictures with a buddy of mine but it was raining.  I told him I'd decided not to go and he said he was gonna go without me, so I changed my mind.  I went.

So here we are in my truck ripping holes in Wal-Mart bags to poke the lenses of our cameras through.  It actually worked.  Only the very end of the lens was getting wet.  And it was kind of just sprinkling anyway, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

It was nasty out there though.  No sunshine, very cloudy, rain, cold, it was actually hard to find some inspiration.  We went walking around with no clue what we'd end up taking pictures of.  So we walked down a path around this pond. . .made it to the end and neither one of us had taken a picture yet.  We turned around and were headed back to the truck and came up on this puddle of water.  So I put my camera (in the Wal-Mart bag), down in the water and snapped away.  I had to take several shots to get a good one of a splash.

The interesting thing about this picture is that it shows what water does after it splashes.  The drop comes down, hits the water and makes the classic crown shape splash.  After that, the water raises up and crashes against itself.  This picture shows that when it splashes against itself, it evidently hits hard enough to shoot up in the air.  Now this little bubble looking thing is maybe the size of golf ball.  So it's splashing up maybe 6 inches.  But what we see is a drop of water falling from the tree, hitting the water and the water splashing.  Our eyes can't catch the action of it causing this little miniature explosion after the original drop hits the water.  I love it!!  I went out not having a clue what to even take a picture of, and I came back with a better understanding of splash dynamics.  I'm a better person.  You're a better person if you're reading this.

So next time you're thinking about going out to take pictures, or to sit down and write a song, or to paint a picture, or do anything, try not to look for an outcome.  Just the the outcome come out.  HA!!!  I made myself laugh just now with that.  Awesome.  Sitting at my computer at 3:24 in the morning laughing at myself.  I'm cool.

Thanks!!

live music

I like this one.  This is Katie Marlier of "Rocky 4 Phoenix".

Trying to take pictures of musicians is hard.  The term "photograph" can kind of be translated from Greek to mean, "drawing with light".  So, photography is basically the art of capturing light.  All the settings on your camera and film are based on light.  How much light is hitting the film, how long should that light be exposed to the film, how sensitive is the film to the light. . .light, light, light.  So when you're at a concert and you're trying to get a good picture of a musician, it's super hard because the lights are constantly changing.  Constantly.  The musician is rarely standing still, so that makes it even hard to get a good composition, and if you get the composition right but the lighting guy decides to change the lights right when you take the picture, it's ruined.  Long story short (not very short actually), it's hard.  There's lots of bad shots for every good one you get.  Well, for me anyway.

Last night I was the photographer at a benefit, Concert For The Cause.  There were several bands, so I had plenty of opportunities to get cool pictures of all the musicians.  I'm not sure this is the best shot I got all night long, but when I was just going through them (really fast), I passed this one, then went back to it and stared at it for a second.  That's usually a good sign.  Even though sometimes I don't know why I'm staring, as long as I'm staring, I think someone else out there might also stare at it, which means no matter what the reason, it's a good picture.  So here you go, one of about 2000 pictures I took Friday night.

Thanks!!

brown, brown, and more brown

It's always fun for me to get to take my camera places that I've never been.  This was in California.  Of course, I did quite a bit of photoshop manipulation to this one trying to make it look a little bit like a painting.  Here's what's interesting to me about this picture. . .

It says more than it actually looks like.  I can't remember exactly where it was taken, but I know it was on the way back to Bakersfield from Tehachapi.  It makes me wonder if the people that live there even appreciate its beauty.  What do they think when they're driving down this road and look out their window and see this?  Do they see how beautiful the blue sky is contrasting the brown earth?  Do they see all the shades of brown represented in this one little frame of a picture?  I hope so.  When I drive around North Mississippi where I've lived all my life, I see cotton fields.  And I love the sight of it.  We don't have hills, or mountains, or oceans, or vineyards.  But when I drive around and see a huge field full of cotton, I often stop and stare–and realize how freaking beautiful it is.

It's really easy to get used to the things that you see all around you every day.  Sometimes you should stop and look–realize that what's in front of you is absolutely beautiful.  The expression "one man's trash is another man's treasure" kind of applies here.  People in California may drive by this and see a big brown blob and wish for a change of scenery.  I drove by and wanted to stop and take a hundred pictures of this brown blob.  Some people that live around here (North Mississippi) probably don't like the look of a cotton field.  Just look at it.  Turn the radio off and stare at it.  We've got our own little art museum right here in front of us.  And the pictures are HUGE!!  And BEAUTIFUL!!  And admission is FREE!!  What more could you ask for?

Thanks!!

Old, ugly boats

This boat was a picture waiting to be taken.  Had I been alone and lived in the city where this was, I would have hundreds of pictures of it.  It was blue, but due to the fact that I was rushed to take the picture, I overexposed it a little so the blue was a really light blue.  On top of that, I only took 2 pictures of it.  This is the first of the two.  It was the middle of the day, sun beaming down (all generally bad for photography), and I had to keep up with my wife, kids, and in-laws.  So I snapped the 2 pictures and moved on.  When I went back to look at them, I was pissed!!  They were slightly overexposed and the composition was just. . .blah.  Like I said, if I lived there (this was somewhere in California. . .I wanna say around Pismo Beach somewhere), I would get there at sunrise and go back at sunset and I would probably do that about once a month.  I would have HDR versions, awesome sunrise versions, all kinds of stuff.  But instead, I'm stuck with this cliché, quite plain version of an old boat.  Don't get me wrong, I love the picture, but like songwriting, what I envision before it happens and what I get after it's happened is 2 different things.

I guess next time I go to California I'll look for some old ugly boats and be there to take pictures at sunrise.

Thanks!!