These photos of my Travis, were taken a couple weeks ago, but remember, we all have beginnings. My story is probably like so many many people out there. You start with a small vision, or thought and you get carried away by it! I was about to lose my favorite photographer of all time. She was moving out of the state and I was left with the choice to hire another photographer. I didn’t want to do this, and every single time I took my children to her, I was more and more intrigued in taking my own photos. I bought a digital rebel, I loved it, I loved auto, it was fun. I also had an Elan 7 film camera and loved it, loved auto, loved auto, and 1 hour photo.
But she was moving, my archive rep, my photographer. I thought it was no big deal as I can totally take images for my self, with my camera gear, all I needed was white paper, white butcher paper, but it had to be really big!
4 Years ago, I went shopping, bought a camera (5D), bought a lens, 24-105, bought some paper, 4 soft boxes, a paper stand, 4 light stands, 4 strobe lights, a flash trigger, a few pocket wizards, a few memory cards…I was serious….seriously in deep trouble seeing I had no idea what I was about to do with all my…..CRAP.
I cleared my living room, cleared my mind, and bribed my kids to stand still on white paper like they did for their photographer. It was hard, to get them to even stay on the paper, it was harder to see the images I was getting on my screen…..pure…..pure……darkness! In a sea of black, I saw nothing, NOTHING at all. No image, no slight streak of light, nothing….what was wrong, why wasn’t the green box working? Why weren’t the strobes going off? Why are my kids not sitting quietly waiting for me to figure this out? Darkness….still…..there was these weird buttons on the camera….REALLY weird….like “AV’, TV, M…what are they? Would they help me? What is aperture? What the heck is ISO? I was lost, and just spent about $10,000 on equipment I had no idea how to use.
My husband came home to a make shift studio, paper, kids chaotically running about, empty boxes and a tearful wife, sitting frustrated on the ground, crying. It was difficult for me at first. I THOUGHT, if I bought the equipment, that the investment alone should mean I could take quality images. I didn’t wanna be pro, just take picture of my kids, just simple high key black and white on white paper…that’s all…it’s easy. I saw what my photographer did….it was easy……..It wasn’t easy…..and it took me a while to figure it all out.
First: Below image……I decided to shoot in monochrome, black and white. But there was this horrible black line on EVERY image. My camera was broken, I was sure of it. Until husband explained, “babe, that’s your shutter closing to fast, so the strobes are firing too fast”. WHAT? how did he know this, excuse me but I talked to the man at the camera store, not you and he said they would work. That’s when I discovered, sync speed. Yep, anything over a 200 shutter for the 5D wasn’t going to fly with syncing the lights! It’s almost embarrassing to put this photo up!
Fine…..I can get that…..but now for the close up….camera shake, still have some, I get excited……but LOL…….a little on the muddy side….man I hate all my old black and white photos….I hate that muddy skin……but I thought I was the best photographer in the world after this shot! LOL
I posted the first picture on this post first for a good reason, I SOOOO don’t want people looking at my blog and seeing my awesome first time photo-shoot photos! It’s hard to show, but not really, I have learned a lot! First I learned to meter light. I learned to bounce light off the white backdrop to make it, well, WHITE, I learned to position my lights to I can create beautiful light on my subjects and be able to expose correctly. I learned how to use white balance and to shoot in color, in RAW and convert to b&w later. I learned a lot. It all started by taking workshops. It took a lot of time, a lot of patients and a lot of time, did I already say that? The biggest thing it took though, was practice. Even when I thought I GOT IT! I needed to practice. Even though I’m on it now…..I practice. I need it. We all need to learn and we all have beginnings. We all crawled before we walked, then we all learned to skip and run….some of us are slower, some of us are more graceful. But if your mother never put you on the ground, and you never crawled, you’d still be admiring all those people who make walking look so easy!
