New Lens :D

Well. I ordered a new lens. I'm pretty excited to get it!

I've have a family session coming up with some young children, and I was getting pretty nervous at the thought of trying to manual focus with little children. And I've heard it's good to keep the pace of a session as fast a possible. 

I also watched a video that really recommends shooting in aperture priority (Av) so that you don't have to spend time worrying about manual settings. The aperture is all manual on a my lensbaby so I can't use Av with it. 

So, the big question arose: 50mm or 85mm?

Okay, so I chose the 50mm because my Lensbaby Edge 80 is already 80mm and I feel a little handicapped when I have to back so far away in a confined space.

(I honestly like the more professional look of an 85mm than a 50mm, and it may or may not have caused me to consider the 85mm for a few more seconds :P)

Then, to get the f/1.8 or f/1.4 lens? (1.2 is way out of my price range)

Obviously the 1.8 lens is cheaper than the 1.4 so you would expect the quality of the 1.8 to be considerably less, but after a little research I found that the 1.8 lens might even have fewer quality faults than the 1.4. Which doesn't mean that the 1.4 still won't look better to the artistic eye...

Anyway, I was happy to see that the less expensive lens really wasn't all that bad in comparison. 

So, yes. I have a 50mm f/1.8 on it's way. 

-MarLeahJoy

Testing New Actions

I love Pure Actions for Photographers. They always have an offer on their Facebook page for free downloads and so I tested out their "Ice Cream Sundae" collection.

I've always wanted a good black and white method that had a lot of pop, and these actions certainly have that contrast I like. So, I'm already in love with the "Hot Fudge" and "Cookies and Cream" actions. :)

This was a little boy who was up in West Virginia when we went... he's such a cutie!

Edited with Cookies and Cream

Edited with Hot Fudge



-MarLeahJoy

Asbury Knob, West Virginia

Sunday the 16th, we took a hike up to a "knob?". I really don't know what to call it, but basically it overlooks Greenbank - a little unincorporated town.

My sister and her boyfriend, who was raised in Greenbank.

 Part of the view from the top of the "knob".

 The view of Greenbank and their observation satellite.

The whole crew :)

-MarLeahJoy

Gahhhh!!!

I'm so frustrated and I don't know what to do!

It's about facebook quality for images.


I look at other photographers' images and the quality looks great!
But, mine stink! And it really shows up with my watermark for some reason.

I've tried everything: No resizing, some resizing, resizing and saving process recommended here, and tons of private test posts to see if the quality will be good enough before I actually post it.


If anybody has some recommendations/advice... please let me know.

-MarLeahJoy

Blueberry Picking

It's just another thing we do in the summer... pick blueberries. :)

I knew I had to bring my camera along since we were going to be out there

during the perfect morning light.  

Half-way through I found this spider and his perfect little web, so I deserted my bucket of blueberries and spent quite a bit of time right up in his personal bubble to get some pictures.

Here's a little closer shot - as close as I dared to get. I'm really not a fan of spiders too much. I am just mostly fascinated by their intricate webs.

Eh... the spider apparently found his lunch.

And my sad bucket of blueberries. I was the slowest picker, but then again... I think I always have been. :P

-MarLeahJoy

Editing Then and Now

Abbey recently asked me to put her Senior pictures on Facebook... that is all fine and good until I go back to get the files and I didn't save my edits in photoshop files only JPEG. I like to post to fb with PNG so I have to refer back to the photoshop file and then save again in the right format.

Anyway, so I'm not overly impressed with the pictures I took from that session anyway, but after I started to completely re-edit a few pictures, I realized how "yuck!" some of my previous edits to the coloring were compared to what I would do now.  Yeah, wow, I didn't realize I would change so much in a few short months... 

The left picture is SOOC (Straight out of the Camera) and the right is today's edit...

Below is my edit from a few months ago.

Yeah... the coloring looks just as bad as it did SOOC :P
It looks like it came from a different era or something.


I can only hope that I keep improving faster and faster
because this stage is kind of embarrassing :/

And, I'm even being vulnerable by posting this because
someone out there might actually think that the image
SOOC looks better than my edit.

-MarLeahJoy

Behind

Oh.my! I have so many pictures to post! I've been traveling and well, traveling some more.

My goal is to just post some of what I feel like sharing each day, which means that the order of the time they were taken will be greatly mixed up, but I'll try to include a date for people who enjoy chronologial order like me. :P

I also just got the photoshop free trial on my macbook so I don't have to deal with pokey computers anymore... except to grab a few pictures off of them. Ahhh... I feel blessed! :P


The following pictures are from an evening in Murfreesboro, Tennesse on our way to Alabama from West Virginia.

June, 20th

I was so happy to have Amy along with us for many more reasons than one... the obvious is that she is just plain fun. :) But, the cool thing is that she was willing for me to take pictures of her at absolutely anytime!

 

And I debated about posting this last picture because it is pretty bad quality due to low evening light... but I just like it of her... so, oh.well. what does it matter when I resize all of the pictures on the blog anyway! :/

-MarLeahJoy

Getting Set Up

I just received my MacBook last night. :D
Sometimes I wonder, "Did I make the right choice?" But then, I think about the real reason I went with a MacBook -- for my photography business -- and I don't feel so foolish anymore.
In my mind I keep referring to it as my little Beauty and the Beast. :P So powerful and elegant. :) I love it!

-MarLeahJoy

Tent Camping

I went with my cousin on a little camping trip to capture this star trail. 

While we were out in the field getting set up for this picture, I looked to the East and

saw a blazing blue and yellow meteorite. It was so huge and close that I had the chills for a solid minute!

It's amazing how much more you can see when you are in prairie land. I loved it!

A few clouds got into the frame towards the end of the time I was shooting, so I created a quick

video of the movement of the clouds. :)

In the morning I started a little fire to cook breakfast (my first one to ever start :P).

We completely forgot utensils and plates so we used branches and elephant ear leaves. I'm secretly glad we

forgot them so I could have more of a "roughing-it" experience. ;)

It was such a relaxing spur-of-the-moment camping adventure.
I'm ready to do it again. :)

-MarLeahJoy