Wake Up Call While Shooting Laura

You guys are too much. Thank you so much for all the positive comments you've been leaving. It really makes my day. The problem is, though, I think it may be going to my head!! I was really starting to think I was getting the hang of this photography thing. I nearly caught myself exhaling warm air onto my fingernails and then buffing them on my shirt, while looking at myself in the mirror and saying "you are RAD!" (Then I nearly put my sunglasses on, turned on my heel, flicked my hair, threw my jacket up over my shoulder and strutted away).  Wait... was that me, or a cheerleader in a 1980's teen movie?  Whatever... The point is that I started feeling like a certain destiny was waiting just on the other side of the horizon... (help! can.not. kick. eighties. theme!).

Well, I got a taste of reality today to put me back in my place.  I tried doing a photoshoot with an adult. My beautiful friend, Laura, let me photograph her this afternoon. Despite the fact that I didn't need to chase after her just to get her to look at the camera, and that she would just sit there letting me take photo after photo (and even did what I asked her to do), it was HARD! Finding interesting poses wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. I had even researched before and made myself a notebook of poses from fashion magazines, but in the moment, I fell short. Plus, the light was horrible. That was the most disappointing thing about the entire situation. The photos were all grainy because it was overcast so it got dark super duper early and I underexposed the majority of them. I'm posting some of my favorites, because even though they didn't come out perfectly, I still loved quite a few of them.

I loved the close up ones. See what amazing skin she has?! JEALOUS! The rest of them were just as beautiful, but I managed to catch her nose at a weird angle, or catch focus on her eyebrows instead of her eyes. Doh!

I do love this one. About 80% of the poses I told her to use look exactly like this, but now I know what to work on.

¡¡GUAPA!!!

I feel like I should post some of the bad photos so I'm not misrepresenting myself, but that sucks for Laura. Who wants anyone to post bad pictures of them on the internet? Not me for sure. So, I'll post one of my favorite bad ones, leaving you and your brain to imagine what the rest are like.

Oh, and and the good news is, Laura is so freakin' gorgeous, she saved many of the potential "reject" photos. They may be grainy and lacking originality, but Laura's genuine beauty overpowered them.


(Ok. I'm ending this post and all my cheeseball commentary. Jeez!)

A Little Grain Never Hurt Anyone

I wanted to take pictures of Julietta in our living room, near the main window.  I set everything up while she was snoozing - moved all the coats that were hanging on the coat rack behind her, threw the the shoes underneath the love seat into a pile out of sight... etc. When she finally woke up it had clouded over and started to storm. I did snap a couple shots, but by this time, I had to crank my ISO up to 1,000 (I really hate using flash because I don't know how to use it right)!!! Despite these extreme measures, my photos were still under exposed. What happens when you use a high ISO without a professional camera? Noise noise noise! And what if you also underexpose your pictures?? You guessed it - noise that's more like grain. I mean, it's like newsprint.

"Who cares?" I say. "BRING IT ON!"  In my opinion ANY image is better than a blank piece of paper. It can serve to teach us what NOT to do next time, but it can also give us room to use our imagination and create something that we had not initially intended. I love the way this shot came out with some messing around in Photoshop (okay, okay, YES, I also used an action. You got me!).