I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, & the independance of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. … for tho’ there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease & less misery. –Paris Sep. 6. 1785, letter to Baron von Geismar The East coast is rich […]
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While trip planning I usually Google for “must-dos” in whatever city we are head to, then pick a few things from the top of the list and a few from the middle to get a good feeling for what is most popular and what might be largely undiscovered gems. Hollywood Cemetery was pretty high up
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Usually, when trip planning I have an internal debate with myself “Do I have enough ‘kids’ activities? Or does it not matter and they can just learn how to be little humans in an adult world?” While I’d love to say that they always flawlessly blend into adult scenes, that isn’t the case… so travel
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What can sometimes be the most chaotic morning of a family’s year also contains some of the most memorable moments. Emotions running high, the potential for magic in the eyes of the children is palpable and there are color, textures and lights galore. Need a few strategies and tips to photograph Christmas morning (or any other holiday
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During Day 1 of freelensing I wasn’t able to achieve focus in the middle of the frame. After spending hours googling and reading, I came to the conclusion that the rear element of the lens simply wasn’t able to get close enough to the camera sensor in order to create focus in the middle of
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When I first started out with photography, I did 2 years of 365s, back to back. That daily practice of shooting, editing and sharing made a huge difference in my initial growth. If you’re considering taking on a 365, here are some of my best tips: 1. Find your tribe Like most aspirations, photography is
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While at Clickaway in Seattle last month, Sarah Wilkerson mentioned a fun product that the Click & Co store had brought along to sell- Lensbenders. I’d never heard of them and never found the time to make my way to the store booth during the conference, but a few weeks ago I was looking for
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Winter is coming. (But not soon enough… for Game of Thrones fans. Ha) And with winter, many of us experience a drop in motivation to shoot. With that in mind I’ve compiled a short list of some of my favorite easily accessible resources for you to peruse when you need a creativity pick-me-up and some
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I recently acquired a prism from the Click&Co store. For a trial run, I took it out into the backyard in the late afternoon. I love the haze and flare that other photographers achieve with similar tools, but I found myself struggling with the reflection that the prism introduced into my images. It was necessary
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The chance to pull the curtain back and peek into others’ behind the scenes is always fun. I’m also always amazed by how unique the results are for an identical camera +lens combo, when shot by different photographers. Here is a (somewhat incomplete… I have a few more lenses, but they either live on my film
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As we dive into the holiday season, opportunities for photos of kids engaged in easily recognizable activities abound. But how to add variety and interest while photographing the holidays instead of creating images that can easily look the same year after year? Here are a few quick tips: Cut Off the Heads Frame your
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Haircuts reveal a new dimension of a child. Someone slightly older, different, a tiny bit foreign. I always hold bittersweet emotions about cutting my kids’ hair when they’re preschoolers or younger. Thankfully, their smiles don’t change, even if their hair does. Pin It
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Our track record of ‘grandparents and me’ portrait sessions is rather spotted. Timing is everything, and stress levels must be low in order to ensure cooperation from a few members of this group. The stars aligned, the light was right and the Boston Terrier photobombed with aplomb. Pin It
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In between classes I had a few moments to photograph Seattle. Mainly from the hotel, but it worked out. Several of these photos were shot in the Presidential Suite on the 40th floor. What a view! To explain the photos at the end- my husband sent me a treat because he was concerned I wasn’t
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When I travel I either photograph my family, relatively unposed, as we explore a destination or take pictures of scenes that I come across. For the sessions on travel photography that I taught at Clickaway, I was struggling with how to use a model in a way that was relatively authentic to my normal approach
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I’ve just returned from a fantastic weekend in Seattle, teaching and learning at Clickaway 2016. One of the sessions I taught was about creating dramatic indoor natural light portraits. Our model was Caroline Jensen‘s beautiful and cooperative daughter… through a combined 3 hours of holding poses she never complained nor lost concentration; a professional to
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During our Spring Break trip to Nashville and Kentucky, we stopped at the Jim Beam Distillery for a tour. Kind of a dubious activity with children, but they enjoyed it much more than I thought they would! We got to see the mash process in craft and industrial format, sampled Knob Creek straight out of the
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I made myself shoot through a whole roll of Portra 400 in the Nikon F100 during spring break, and I also MADE myself overexpose more than I wanted to. It worked out well! Pin It
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To see more self portraits from this project, search the hashtag #portraitsofme on Instagram. S Pin It
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Spring green combines beautifully with Portra 400, unless it is too far overexposed, and then everything starts to turn yellow… the exact opposite of what I’m trying to achieve by shooting plants on film! These images were all shot on Portra 400 with a Nikon F100, which has been a great camera. I’ve enjoyed combining
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I’ve seen a lot of the West coast, quite a bit of Texas, and having lived in Alabama for close to a year now, a good amount of the South. I had not, however, visited many of the interior states. In order to remedy that, I arranged our Spring Break trip to Nashville and Lexington/Louisville and
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