Fun Photography!

Wow!! It has been a while since I posted!

I had a wonderful time doing Cherry Blossom shoots! All of my clients were SO nice, and so much fun to work with!! Right after Cherry Blossom season, youth baseball started up and I was busy working with Danielle on that. I love doing youth sports pictures too. The children are SO cute!!!!!!!!

Before the craziness began and after it had ended (at least for me), we managed to get some fun shoots in. It's not that I don't have fun with my clients. I do! But sometimes I like to just go out and take pictures of flowers and beautiful places and food and bugs.....and anything that catches my eye!

We went to Tsuwano back in March. If you have never been to this charming little town, you need to head on over to ITT to get directions and then head on down there. The drive to Tsuwano is pretty nice too! The weekend we went was the first weekend the SL (Steam Locomotive) was running so we were determined to get some pictures of the train as it went by. We knew what time the train was coming through so we walked until we had found a great spot......and then we climbed up the side of the road and waited. We were up at the tracks so we were pretty excited about our location, and couldn't wait for that train to come.

Oh, the anticipation!!!!

And then......we heard it in the distance!! It was coming. So we double checked our settings and stood by. And then we could see it! I just started clicking away!!!! And then it was gone. Huh. It went by pretty fast. It was pretty funny because we were all looking at our screens and checking our shots. I should have taken a picture of that.

Anyway, here is one of the ones I got -


It really is a very cool train. ITT offers trips down to Yamaguchi to catch the steam locomotive to Tsuwano and it's a good deal so keep an eye out for those trips and sign up for one!

We also did a night shoot at Kintai, and I was pretty happy with a couple of my shots. I had so much fun though! I love going out with other photographers and doing some fun photography.

Here is one of my shots from the night shoot at Kintai -


We also managed to take pictures of some beautiful flowers! I love taking pictures of flowers!!

Here is one of my favorites! -


Last Sunday we went to Yamaguchi Flower Land. What a beautiful place!! They also have a nice little restaurant there. Good food and the prices are very reasonable!!

If you haven't signed up for one of Danielle's Photography Adventures, you should do it! First, you have to sign up for her Intro To Photography class and lucky for you, she's got one this Saturday. I'm pretty sure she still has a few spots available. You will learn a lot, and you will be able to participate in the Photography Adventures (they are SO much fun!!). What are you waiting for???

I know I owe so much more than three pictures and me babbling on and on about fun shoots. Things have been hectic. I moved into my apartment and I am still unpacking.....I have way too much stuff!!!

I shall be back soon to do a proper blog post about some of my Cherry Blossom sessions!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!! Get out and take some pictures, or just go explore an area you haven't been to yet!! There are so many wonderful places to see in and around Iwakuni!

Fun Model Shoot!

Well, I don't know how much fun it was for our model. It was very cold and windy that afternoon so I felt really bad for her. BUT, we got some great shots! Thank you, Tiffany, for being so wonderful even though you were freezing your behind off! And a big thank you to both Tiffany and Danielle for letting me tag along and take some pictures! I had a blast!

Danielle did a late afternoon model shoot for Tiffany last week, and I was lucky enough to be able to tag along and get some awesome practice time in. We shot for a couple of hours at a few different locations, and I am in love with every location we went to. One of them was just something we saw on the way to a location. We liked it so much, we had to pull over and take some pictures. What an amazing little spot it was. I think it was almost my favorite for that shoot! Almost!

I'll post a couple of my favorites from that day.

I have a few more that I really like, but I haven't had a chance to edit them yet so I will just post them to my gallery and Facebook.

I'm getting excited and nervous about my upcoming shoots! I am all done with the basketball photos. Just waiting for them to come in so I can sort and package them. Coming up, I have two newborn shoots scheduled (just waiting for the little ones to arrive!) and I have one family booked for a Cherry Blossom session so far. I'm working out the final details of my Cherry Blossom sessions and will have that posted as soon as I figure it all out.

Oh! And I will be doing a blog posting about my practice session with Jason, Chancellor, and Jackson. They were kind enough to be my models for an afternoon at a wonderful park we found in Kuga. Ummm....this park is a lot of fun for kids, but it is not the greatest place for pictures. Unless you go on a very overcast day. It is wide open and when we went, the sun was out in full force. Anyway, more about that coming up in my next post.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fuun....

After shooting the Youth Basketball pictures every night for a week, I was more than ready for some fun. Fun photography. I love grabbing my camera and just hopping in my car to find some neat place to photograph. Unfortunately, I have not had time to do that in a very long time. Shame on me. I have kind of fixed that though. Danielle is now doing "Photography Adventures" for all photogs in the area who are interested in getting together with other photogs, and playing with their cameras. I make it a priority to join the adventure when I can.

Last Saturday was an adventure at Kintai. We went up to the Kintai Castle and shot in the trees (which was really cool!) and then shot the castle. Then we talked about macro photography (I almost did a little dance because I LOVE macro!) for a little while before heading off to shoot macro. I was taking pictures of everything! Oh, it was so much fun! And just what I needed after a long week of work. Don't get me wrong, I really did enjoy taking the pictures for Youth Sports. I just don't consider that to be "fun" photography.

We started with macro shots at the top where the castle is and then continued after we came back down by heading into the Kikko Park area. There are so many wonderful things to shoot in the Kikko Park area. The more I got really close to things to take pictures, the more I marveled at the beauty of everything. Even the dead leaves looked really cool close up. I really can't wait for Spring to arrive. The flowers!!!! I LOVE shooting flowers!!!

Here are some of my pictures from that day -

I loved this spot! I thought it was so pretty and there was something so magical about it.

This was just SO cool!!!!! I took lots of pictures like this, but this was my favorite one. I should have changed my f-stop a few times to see the differences. Next time!

View of Iwakuni from the top of the Kintai Castle. What a BEAUTIFUL day it was!!!


Then, it was time for some macro shots!!

Don't know what these are called, but I LOVE them!!!!

And then I saw these berries! So pretty!!!

I took a lot more, but I think you get the idea.

I feel like every time I go to any of Danielle's classes or adventures, I learn something new. Even when it's just the two us going out for a shoot, I learn somethinig new. I love it! I love that she is so full of knowledge and she is so willing to share it with me. She doesn't just share it with me though. She also shares it with her students. Someday I hope to pay it forward.

I just realized as I went back and read this that I use the word "shoot" a lot. We always joke around that if someone overheard some of our conversations, they would think we were crazy. "I have a family to shoot this afternoon" hahahahaha I guess that does sound kind of bad. However, "I have a family to photograph this afternoon" sounds way too stuffy to me. So, if any of you hear me saying anything about shooting people, I am really talking about taking their pictures. I promise.

Oh! And on a business note. I am definitely going to offer some Cherry Blossom sessions this Spring. I just need to work out the dates and times before I can advertise officially. I am so excited about doing Cherry Blossom sessions this year!

Youth Basketball shoots

Last week I was fortunate enough to assist Danielle with the Youth Basketball shoots. I even shot some of the teams and Danielle was my assistant (I kinda liked having an assistant! Hmmm.....).

I was super excited and a little bit nervous the first night I shot. Not super nervous. The excitement definitely outweighed the nervousness, but I couldn't help but worry about how well I would do when taking the pictures. My mind starts racing. Will my settings be okay? Will they all be in focus? Will I be back far enough? Will I be close enough? How will I get them to give me a nice smile? What if they don't smile? Oh, it just goes on and on. It's amazing I don't lose my mind with all of the thinking and worrying that I do. I know it's perfectly normal to think about these things so I took a deep breath and just starting shooting. Honestly, after the first few children I was able to relax and enjoy it. They were all so cute! So, I was just taking lots and lots of pictures. My settings seemed fine. Most of the children were giving my nice, big smiles. I was checking my pictures and they all seemed to be in focus. Huh! This isn't so bad.

Yeah, then it got a little crazy. A couple of children showed up a little late, I couldn't get one child to cooperate so I could get a good picture, and then I had one child who just looked absolutely thrilled (I am being sarcastic in case you were wondering) to have their picture taken. Oh. And it really showed on their face. So, now I am running a little behind schedule and I think one of the coaches is a little irritated about that. Ohhhh...no. I start to panic a little because I am running behind and I just know that I didn't get any great shots of the last two children I shot. And I really tried. I took LOTS of pictures. I felt awful. But I had to keep going and just move on. I had no time to dwell on the last two children when I had a line of children from the next team who were so patiently waiting for me to take their pictures. So, move on I did.

The rest of the evening went fine, and we finished just a little bit over the original time were supposed to finish. I thought that was pretty good for my very first time. I couldn't wait to check out my pictures on the computer!

I got home and loaded them up. I started looking through them and some of them were really cute! I thought, "I did pretty good!" And then it happened. I always take more than just a couple of pictures. One might be out of focus. The child might close their eyes at the last second, or they might look away. Things happen. Well, I am looking at one particular child's pictures and I am flipping through to pick out the best one, and I run out. The first one was out of focus. The second one was really cute, but (oh my gosh!!) I think I cut the tip of his foot off when I took the picture. I somehow had scooted up an inch or so. Then I look at the next one and he is looking down instead of at my camera. I look at the last one, and it's really out of focus. How did that even happen? How could I not notice I was too close?! I start flipping through the rest of them, and I did it a few times. As I sorted through and selected the best ones to be edited though, I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought when I first skimmed through. Thank goodness!!! I was really starting to panic. Danielle was about to get a phone call from a crazy person babbling about cutting off toes and blurry faces. I did tell her about it the next day and she looked at me and said, "don't worry. I'm sure they are fine!" What would I do without her? She always makes me feel better.

Now I am drowning in pictures that I need to edit so I can order the prints. We don't do a whole lot of editing with the sports pictures, but we do want to make sure they look really nice, and can I just say.......I really DO NOT LIKE taking pictures in the raquetball courts. I would most definitely rather be shooting outside. The lighting inside is not that great and I am still learning how to shoot indoors with artificial lighting. We do use the studio lighting and that helps a lot. I do like the way my pictures turned out and everyone looks fine, but it is just a lot easier for sure to shoot outdoors.

So, now that I am done shooting and I have started editing, I'm getting excited about placing my very first official print order! I can't wait!! Here is one of the pictures I have edited.

Let me know what you think of my first try at taking sports pictures. I had such a great time doing it and hope I get the opportunity to take some of the other sports pictures this year.

I feel extremely grateful to have been a part of such a fun shoot!

What I am working on right now....

Wanna take a wild guess?

Yes! My website! How did you know?? Could it be because I have been trying to get it up and running for .....oh, I don't know....the last 6 months?? Goodness gracious!

I have been sifting through my photos and trying to pick out the ones I want to put on my website. Not that I have done a whole lot of shoots yet. Okay. I haven't really done any shoots on my own yet. The photos I have for my portfolio are all shots I got while assisting Danielle with her shoots. I am very lucky to have such a wonderful mentor who includes me in all of her shoots. She has also been helping me with the editing process (I heart Photoshop!). She's also been a pretty awesome friend!

I have edited a few and added them to my website, but I need to add a few more before I release my website. I think. I don't know though. I'm SO excited about it that I want to release it now!!! Everyone knows I'm just starting out so I'm sure they aren't expecting me to have a full portfolio yet. Right?!?! Hmmm...but I still feel like I should add a few more pictures.

Editing has been a lot of fun too, but I am on this black & white kick right now and I want to turn all of my pictures into black & whites! It's ridiculous. I can't have all black & white photos in my portfolio! Or can I?

Here are a couple of shots I have edited for my website. One is regular and one is slightly black and white. I like them both so it was super hard to decide on which one I was going to put on my website.

I did the black and white with just a tad bit of color in it and I really like how it turned out!
These pictures were actually taken a few months ago when the very beautiful Saira did a model shoot with Danielle. They were kind enough to let me tag along and I'm so thankful because it was SO much fun! Not only is Saira gorgeous (as you can see!), but she was so easy to work with! The photo shoot was a blast!! I can't wait to edit a few more of her pictures for my site!

Well, it's back to working on my site. Things are going to be very exciting for me over the next couple of months. I have two newborn shoots coming up soon, and I have a friend who wants me to do a family shoot for her. How perfect is that?? So, look for more blog posts coming from me in the near future!!

Website, website....why must you be so difficult?

Goodness!!!!! I wish I were more computer savvy. I wish it didn't take me ....well, I am ashamed to tell you how long it took me to figure out how to add a "Gallery" with pictures. Let's just say it took me a little while. I did finally figure it out though! I am so proud of myself! Now let's see if I can figure out how to add more than one category.

So, six months after purchasing my website, I finally have pictures of people on it. Yay! It's only 2, but it's better than nothing. I really do love my site. I think I'll love it even more when I've got more galleries up with more pictures. I have gone through my photos and selected some for my website. I just need to do some light editing and resizing so I can put them up on my site for all to see.

I also need to figure out my pricing. I was so worried about being too expensive, but there are so many things to consider when working out the pricing. How much time will I spend with the person/people? That one's easy because I can offer 30 minute sessions, 1 hour sessions, and longer sessions for special events and newborns. Here comes the hard part. I have to consider the time it takes to get to the site, the length of the session, and then I have to decide how much time I am going to spend editing and ordering and packaging the photos. Once I have a general idea of how much time I will spend on one shoot, I need to decide how much I want to make per hour. What is my time worth? As much as I want to be cheap for people, I have to realize that my time is valuable. I also have to get to the point of realizing that I am worth it. I'm still having issues in that department. Not that I don't think I take good pictures. I do. Out of the over 800 pictures I took last Saturday, I managed to find a few that I thought were fantastic. And then I found about 20 that I thought were good.

I can hear some of you gasping and saying, "800 pictures?!?!" Yes, 800 pictures. One of the hardest lessons in photography for me was understanding that I could take 500 pictures and maybe only have 2 that were great. The rest would be okay.....or blurry....or the person's eyes would be closed. Lots of things that could go wrong and do. Now it doesn't even phase me that I took over 800 pictures last Saturday and only found a few that I really liked when I went through them on my computer. When I told someone I took over 800 pictures, they looked at me like I was crazy. But that was nothing. I would have taken a lot more, but I was assisting Danielle so my main focus was to help with anything I could help with. Once things were set up, I would snap away. The more I shoot, the more I realize it's necessary to take a lot of pictures. I like to take a lot of the same pose, but I like to move around and get the shot from different angles. It's amazing what a difference moving a oouple of inches to the left or right can make sometimes. I also like to take a lot of pictures because when you are shooting people, there are so many things beyond your control. Some people blink a lot. Some people won't look right at the camera the whole time. When you have more than one person in the shot you have to get them all looking at the camera. With their eyes open! It's tough sometimes. But I do find if you take lots of pictures, and you talk to your clients as your taking them, you will get those great shots.

So I am off to work on a very important part of my website. Pricing.

Tomorrow I am helping Danielle with her Photography Class. When I say "helping" I don't really mean helping. I use that term very loosely because Danielle does not need any help with her class. I will just be there to assist Nikon users (YEAH!! NIKONS RULE!!!!) with their settings since Danielle is a Canon user (I will be nice and not make a comment about that). What I am really hoping to do is play with the new lens I bought for my full frame.

Wedding Dress shoot in Hiroshima

On Saturday I was lucky enough to participate in a beautiful wedding dress shoot in Hiroshima. Tom and Courtney looked so amazing!! I honestly can't wait to see Danielle's pictures!!!

We shot at quite a few different locations and did many, many poses. It was freezing outside and I felt so bad for Courtney as she was in a strapless gown. Brrrr!!!!! Courtney and Tom were amazing though. Never complaining about the cold or being dragged all over the place. Okay....I guess we didn't have "drag" them anywhere. They were both so excited about the shoot too and posed and smiled for us all day long. Towards the end of the day, it got even colder and I could tell Courtney was freezing, but the moment Danielle pointed the camera at her, her face lit up into a beautiful smile.

I took well over 800 pictures on Saturday and I did get some "behind the scenes" photos.

This was later in the day and it was really cold!!! Courtney had to put her jacket on in between poses and here she is getting ready for the next set of pictures.

Of all of the locations we went to on Saturday, this was my absolute favorite. It was later in the afternoon and the sun was started to set. The lighting was just amazing! I also learned something new while shooting in this beautiful lighting. I need to practice some more before I share the knowledge though. I certainly don't want to share bad information, and I am not that comfortable with my knowledge of all of the settings on my camera yet. I did get some really amazing shots at this location though....once I adjusted my settings a few times and got some great tips and advice from Danielle.

After we finished here, we went to take some pictures at a very busy crosswalk in downtown Hiroshima. This was another great location, but it was also pretty hilarious. People were stopping to see what was going on and whipping out their cell phones/cameras to take pictures of Tom and Courtney. It was pretty awesome!!

Look closely and you can see Tom and Courtney's image on her cell phone.

It was a very long day, but it was the most fun I have ever had on a photo shoot. I'm so thankful that I got to be a part of such an amazing day. I could really see and feel the love that Tom and Courtney share, and I hope I was able to capture that in my photos. I know Danielle got some GREAT shots. To see more pictures from this amazing shoot, you will have to wait until Danielle has posted them on her blog.

A huge thank you to Danielle for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful day!! And to Tom and Courtney also for allowing me to participate and take pictures! Thank you all so much!!!! I had so much fun!!! I think we should do it again!!! .......wait. I think I just heard Tom yell, "Noooooooooo!!!"

It's official!

I'm official!

I got my approved letter and I am officially in business! I am so excited! I have a couple of sessions lined up already, but they are not scheduled for a couple of months. That gives me some more time to practice and do some more prop shopping. Who knew there were so many props out there for photographers?! It's mind boggling! And I want one of everything!!!! SO many cute things!!!!

Anyway, I want to frame my letter.....or maybe I should shrink it and laminate it and carry it around with me! Hmmmm....ummm...I'll be back....