September 2013 | 10 on 10

Sooooo...  I moved to Chicago!  If you haven't heard, I'm doing a Year of Service here through a program with my church.  It's pretty exciting - and I would love it if you'd all follow my blog for that - there will probably be a lot more posts (and pictures) over there than here for the next year!

Anyways, I was super happy to find out that my new house is right down the street from an awesome conservatory!!  So of course I spent my first free afternoon in the city at the conservatory with my camera and macro lens!  

Once again, this post is a part of a blog circle with my friends from Light Inspired, so pretty please follow the circle around to the next post from the lovely Cindy when you finish with mine! 

xoxo

10 on 10 | August 2013

Whew!  It's been a crazy month, so picking just 10 photos was realllllly hard this time around.  But I decided to mainly focus on our trip to Washington state (Whidbey Island and Lynden) to visit my extended family.  It was gorgeous, as always.  One of my very favorite places and this trip sure didn't disappoint!

The beautiful summer flowers have been in bloom, so I've gotten some fun floral macro shots too lately that I just couldn't resist sharing. :)

By this time next month I'll be in Chicago, starting my big Chicago adventure, so that will certainly be a big change around here!

This post is a part of the Light Inspired 10 on 10 blog circle, so please follow the circle around to my friend Jessica's post to see what she has for us this month!

Macro Tutorial

This post was originally published on the Light Inspired Blog HERE.

Macro photography is the art of extreme close up photography. Technically, in order to be considered a macro image, the subject of the photo must be greater than life size. But I tend to be pretty lenient in my following that rule.

For many photographers, macro work is a chance to get away from the running children for a while, and slow down to look for the beauty in the little details. But if you’ve ever tried your hand at it, you know that there is more to it than that! So today I am going to walk you through my process when I go out with the intention of shooting macro.
Before we get started, let’s talk a little bit about equipment. Your standard lenses will not allow you to take macro images because they do not focus that close-up. But that doesn’t mean that you have to invest in a whole different lens for macro, although that it is one option – I use a Tokina 100mm Macro lens most of the time. But many of my friends use a set of Macro extension tubes or Macro filters, both available on Amazon for less than $20.

So now, I invite you to come with me on a macro adventure!

My first step in shooting macro is to decide what I want to shoot. Today, and most of the time for me, that means shooting nature – flowers, leaves, etc. But other common subjects are insects, water droplets, food, toys – anything is possible really! My favorite thing is to simply choose a location – a park, my front yard, my neighbor’s, the downtown area of my town – and go to see whatever I can find! Today I am actually going to shoot at my church because I noticed the other day that there is a variety of plants and flowers around it.

The next thing to consider is the light. You might be tempted to think that because this is not a portrait and you don’t have to worry about catchlights since your subject doesn’t have any eyes you don’t have to worry about the light, but that is not true at all! In macro photography, just like portraiture, the light is often what makes or breaks an image! So today I am going to wait until an hour or two before sunset, to get that pretty golden light. Don’t feel trapped into waiting until golden hour, though – if the light does not work, make it work! Take it inside and use artificial light, use a ring flash or something similar, get out your reflector, shoot in the shade, or use the shadows to your advantage!

• Okay, once we are there, I’m going to take some time to look around. Walk around and look at everything. Put your camera up to your eye and look through your viewfinder. Get up close and look at the tiny details.
• Once you find your subject, looks through the viewfinder and consider everything that you want to include in your image – think about how much you want to be in focus, what is going to be in the background, and what other elements will be in your frame. Think about what message your images are going to convey.
• Tip: Shooting the same subject from many different angles and with different compositions can help bring variety and interest to your images.

Then, if you are shooting in Manual mode (which you definitely should be!) adjust your settings. Some tips for macro:

• Don’t shoot wide open. When you are that close to your subject, your depth of field at 2.8 is going to be so tiny – literally millimeters – that it will be nearly impossible to get what you want in focus, so you’re going to have to close it down more than usual. I often shoot around f5.6-8 but I like to use a pretty shallow depth of field, so you may very well want an even higher f-stop
• Because a smaller aperture (larger f-stop number) means you are letting less light into your camera, you will have to make up for that somehow, so don’t be afraid to bump up your iso to avoid a slow shutter speed and camera shake. Even on my entry level Canon Rebel t2i, I often shoot macro at 800 or 1600.
• Remember your shutter speed – either keep it high enough to avoid camera shake (I generally operate by the rule of thumb to keep your shutter speed at least twice the focal length – so at least 1/200th of a second with my 100mm lens), prop your arms up against something, or use a tripod!
•  And finally, your focus: you can try auto focus (I use the One Shot mode), but often macro photographers rely on manual focus and physically moving their bodies in and out to get their subject into focus. It’s tricky; just keep practicing and you’ll get it! You have to beware of the wind while shooting outside!

That’s it! Go out there and give it a try yourself – and be sure to come share your results on the Light Inspired Forum!

10 on 10 | July 2013

I went to Wisconsin last week to spend one of my best friend's wedding week helping her get everything done and as a bridesmaid in her wedding.  It was such a blessing to have so much quality time together with her.  Their wedding was amazing, beautiful, and tons of fun!  I didn't get my big camera out a whole lot during the week, and not at all during the actual wedding day - that's what they hired a real professional for, right?!

 We started the week with the town's firework show the weekend before the fourth.  I didn't have my tripod, so fireworks shots were definitely a challenge!

 There's something about fresh fruit.  Bright red, bumpy, fuzzy raspberries!

 Steph brought her hamster, Ronnie, along for the week.  So much entertainment.

 On the Fourth of July, Holly's parents had a party for the neighborhood, their family, and the bridal party that was there!  Tons of fun, food, friends, and fireworks!

 What is it about boys and fireworks?

 The happy couple!  They're so cute! :)

 Holly's dad is quite a musician.  He wrote a beautiful song for Holly & Brandon and then he and Holly sang a duet.

More fireworks.  I love all the sparkles!

Blog Circle: 10 on 10 | June 2013

I can't believe it's time for another 10 on 10 post.  Time flies.

It hasn't been a terribly exciting month.  It's an in between month and I am waiting (impatiently) for the next chapters.  I really try not to wish away any part of my life, but this has definitely been a month that I've found myself doing just that.  I had a REALLY hard time getting down to 10 images this month, so I'm stretching the rules a bit - collages only count as one, right?? :)

Anyways, here's a bit of what I've been up to.

During the last week of the regular school year, I brought my camera to capture some shots of my kiddos in action.  I'm not allowed to share recognizable photos of my students online, so that's why I've blurred out a couple of faces.  But I'm so thankful to have these photos.

When I was in college, there was a huge Christian music festival not very far away, in Sioux Falls, SD, called Lifelight.  We went every year, camped there and the whole bit.  Some of my very favorite memories happened there!  So when Lifelight announced that they were having a festival in Sherman, TX - just an hour and a half away from me, I was so excited!!  It only worked out for us to go for one of the three days, but it was still fun!  We saw lots of bands, the most notable were the Newsboys and The Afters.
And of course, I brought my camera along and tried my hand at concert photography.  It was hard, with all the crazy lighting and people's heads in the way, but I got a few shots that I'm proud of! Oh, and I totally used my kit lens (18-55mm) for these because I decided that a zoom is absolutely necessary and that the only one I have, so here's proof that the poor kit lens is not worthless!

It totally broke out in a thunderstorm at one point and they told us all to go back to our cars for a while, but it passed quickly and ended up resulting in an awesome rainbow and a beautiful sunset, so totally worth it!

And, my sister got a new kitten that I've had such fun playing with!  I haven't even attempted to photograph her because she is SO fast, but last night was such a perfect summer night, she brought the kitty over to play and we sat on the porch, so I got the camera out.  It was just as hard as I expected and I think my shutter speed was something like 1/1000 of a second, but the little guy is just so cute!

Now, please head over to my friend Colie's blog to see what she has to show us this month!

Friday Macros | May 17, 2013

This Friday was quite an adventure!  I innocently went out to take some photos and it was like a zoo!  Bees all over the place - I was so scared I was going to get stung - and then a spider spinning his web right there in front of me!  Neither bees nor spiders are exactly critters that I generally enjoy, but it was a fun photography challenge for sure!  They move so fast, it was so hard to focus!

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