This Makes Me Crave Spring Today

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #8

 Here is tip number eight from my favorite photography tips of the trade:

#8 You never want to shoot in the open sun at high noon. NEVER! The harsh light blinds the people and they get squinty eyes. It also leaves harsh shadows on their faces. The solution to shooting in the middle of the day, if your schedule only allows this time to work, is to shoot in open shade like the picture above. Trees, buildings, fences, etc. can make great shade to shoot in. You loose the bright sun problem and no one has a shadow cast on their face. I have found that taking pictures of children means that sometimes you need to work around their napping or meal schedule. Also shooting weddings has led to that same challenge since few weddings are scheduled around the perfect sunlight. Because of that, shade can work well.

Ideally if you could choose a perfect time to take someone's pictures, the sun going down light is sooooo beautiful. Some like the sun rise light too, but I am not an early riser, so I truly haven't experienced that before. The picture above was taken during that magic time when the sun is setting and yet it is providing plenty of back light. It is warm and lovely. The picture above also shows the sun as a lovely rim around her head, which is also so visually appealing. 

I hope you enjoy looking for the perfect lighting to do your photo shoots in. Watch for great scenes and beautiful light!

Thanks for letting me share my favorite tricks of the trade. It has been fun to look back and remember the path I have walked to get where I am today. I really can't wait to look back at my next five years!

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #7

Here is tip number seven from my favorite photography tips of the trade:

#7 Another great tip, monitor calibration. If I have learned anything, it is that everyone’s monitor and viewing device is calibrated completely differently. After having a season where my pics were too dark and then later too bright it was time for a change. To be honest, someone else had the courage to let me know that something was wrong. I bought an average calibrator and was able to have consistency in my photos. You will notice it the most when you go to print your photos and they hand you over too bright or too dark pictures. The best solution to correct it is to calibrate your monitor monthly. 

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #6

Here is tip number six from my favorite photography tips of the trade:

#6 Now, my favorite tip has been to not only shoot to the main histogram, but to actually pay more attention to the red one. That one is the master of all for sure.  If you pay attention to that one more than the others and have it be balanced to the center, skin tones will be perfect, every time. I am sure that everyone has had pictures taken of people that somehow everyone has the same skin coloring. We know that everyone has a different skin tone though so I make it my goal to have people look as natural as possible. This tip was given to me by a very amazing photographer and I am sooooo grateful for her advice. It changed everything. On top of that working, it helped me to blow my highlights less often. Somehow the red one is the magic one.

Come back tomorrow for the final tip in ihpoc's favorite photography tips.

Early Edition - Cold Lemonaid Preset

I have been having a blast creating a whole new series of presets for my Early Edition Presets. This next batch I am creating are falling into Memory Lane category.  I thought it would be fun to have a whole series of presets that reminded me of my visiting my grandparents when I was a wee little girl. All the pictures below are sharing the "Cold Lemon-aid" preset for you. I don't have these up for sale yet, but I wanted to start posting some samples to spur your interest.

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #5

Here is tip number five from my favorite photography tips of the trade:

#5 A very important tip has been learning to set the exposure of the photo to the histogram in my camera. While shooting in manual mode I set the screen to show me the histogram information when I shoot a picture. I access it and then lower or up the exposure to help it peak in the middle instead of too far to the right or left. Too far to the right and the picture is too light and the highlights get blown (you never want your highlights blown or you lose detail and have a block of white that doesn’t belong). If it is too dark you will lose a lot of detail. While you can try to fix  the dark one in your editing software, you will often get a lot of noise. If you overexpose and have too many highlights it is often impossible to correct it.

The funny thing about my this tip is that someone actually did mention it to me in the first few months of shooting. He said to pay good attention to the histogram, but I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. 5 years later its sunk in, lol! Like I said, I have a lot to learn. Here is a link to a site that describes histograms in more detail.

Come back tomorrow for the next tip.

Memories of Summer

Using my new Orange Slices (Early Edition) preset.

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #4

Here is tip number four from my favorite photography tips of the trade:

#4 I have been using Lightroom for the majority of my photo processing and occasionally use Photoshop Elements for extra tweaking. Thankfully I can do most processing in Lightroom and it has ended up being pretty infrequent that I go to PS now. While processing I have figured out that instead of pumping up the blacks to increase contrast, that I actually prefer to pull down the blacks and bump up the contrast slider instead. It has allowed me to keep the colors and the detail while processing. 

Come back tomorrow for the next tip.

ihpoc Photography Short Series - My Favorite Tips of the Trade #3

Here is tip number three from my favorite photography tips of the trade:


#3 When shooting outside someone suggested that I put my white balance to the cloudy setting. It pops the colors up and makes everything warm. There have been a handful of times where it doesn’t work perfectly, so double check your screen for a test shot before shooting more at that scene.  It especially makes greens rich in color.

Come back tomorrow for the next tip.