Thursday September 17th, 2009

Open

When I think over the blessings that I have been given in life, a career in photography is one of the BIGGEST answers to prayer that God ever gave me.  I totally wanted, no NEEDED,  to be self-employed.  I prayed that I could somehow carve my own path, set my own rules and hours, and be my own boss.  I longed to be creative, to be able to express myself through a medium that was relevant to a consumer and bring other people joy through what I created.  But ultimately I’ve always longed to have a voice in this world. Photography has given me all of those things, both directly and indirectly.

Having a strong voice through my blog was an unexpected and indirect blessing of becoming a photographer.  It’s a privilege and honor and something I no longer take lightly.  Over the past few months I’ve been dissecting every area of my life.  I envy my friends who live with purpose and intention.  I want to know that I, too, am living with intention and am making the most of every opportunity God has placed in my life.  Since david’s diagnosis, many areas of my life have received an overhaul, and one more area being touched by change is my photography business and this blog.  I believe in taking baby steps toward any goal you set for yourself, so my baby step is to share more openly.  Whether that is to share my story more authentically, share my talents, my knowledge, or more of my process, I want to be increasingly open to the people around me and to the internet friends who care enough to read my blog, leave a comment, or to send me emails with personal or photography related questions.

On that note I’d like to make the announcement that I have decided to open up my photography workshops to ANY photographer regardless of whether they live within the 90 mile radius.  So even if you live in Grand Rapids and would like to attend the upcoming October 10-12 workshop you are welcome to join us.  Please email me if you would like to snag one of the remaining spots. =)  You can read workshop details on the workshop website.

Secondly, I wanted to take a moment to answer one of the most frequent questions that comes to me on a regular basis….”What equipment do you use/recommend?”  First let me say that I can’t recommend a Canon over a Nikon for the simple fact that I’ve never picked up a Nikon in my life.  All I can say is that I love my Canon to death and it does everything I want it to do, so I have never needed to look elsewhere!  Here’s a list of what’s in my bag:

  • Canon 5 D Mark II
  • 85mm 1.2 L
  • 50mm 1.2 L
  • 24-70mm 2.8L

One of the best decisions I ever made for my business was to upgrade to the pro lenses.  I previously shot on the 85 1.8 and 50 1.4.  The difference in upgrading to the 85 1.2 and 50 1.2 was ASTOUNDING.  It was like having a whole new camera.  I could have wept eternal tears over the tremendous quality increase.  When you pay for the 1.2 you aren’t just paying for a faster lens, you are paying for professional glass.  You will see differences in the contrast, light distribution, creaminess, sharpness, and tons of other technology related things that I don’t know names for.  I realized how much time I was previously wasting in Photoshop just trying to compensate for what was coming off my camera.  The nail in the coffin was when I rented the 50 1.2 for day, and once I saw the difference I could never go back.  And oh my soul, I would have sold an organ on the black market to get that new lens.  So I did.  (Got the lens, I mean, not sell an organ).  And I like to use fixed lenses because they are so much sharper.  I plan to replace my 24-70 2.8 zoom with the fixed 35mm 1.4 very soon.  (I borrowed the 35mm and now need to sell another organ. dear, me.)

Upgrading to the 5 D Mark II was the same hysterical aha moment of “Oh my gosh, my life just got 10 million times easier and now my photos are finally coming off the camera the way I want them too!!!!!”   There really is that much of a difference.  So that is me on my soap box telling portrait photographers everywhere, that yes, it’s worth the investment, and yes, if you can do it you definitely should!

For further proof, I wanted to show you this photo on the left, straight off of the camera, completely un-retouched.  Is that a word?  Seriously though, I’m not kidding - zero post processing.  (Go me, showing un-retouched photos.  I’m on fire!!)   It was shot on the 5 D Mark II with the 50mm 1.2.   The photo on the right shows the slight pop that only took me about 1 min in Photoshop.  Woot!  You can click the image to see it larger for critical inspection.  =)  I’ll be blogging the rest of this senior session within the next few days.

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If you have a photography related question that you would like be considered for content on the blog, please shoot me an email! I’d love to start doing weekly posts. Gracias!

Posted by Amy on September 17, 2009 at 05:00 PM | Permalink |
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