[cassie]

@emf I more got into a rut because I’m pregnant and get really bad morning sickness and feel like crap the whole first trimester. I’m starting to bring my camera around with me more and looking at more pictures and tutorials and playing with OCF, basically trying new things out with what I have. Sleep trained the baby too so I wasn’t as tired all the time.

[cassie]

I want to make it clear, because I didn’t really have it come across right on the phone, that what Ebi says is 100% clear. You just need to take a break from the business side but you need to take enough pictures of different people to really practice the technical skills. However you don’t have to schedule it at the rate you are right now either. You have your wonderful daughter to practice with and hopefully she won’t hate you for it, I’m sure friends and if you have family close by that will be willing to guinea pig for you too. Really the biggest thing is to just practice. Personally I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut but am swinging back into it- but when I’m really on top of my game and really practicing, my camera goes EVERYWHERE with me. It really does help a lot- when you go to a friend’s or a play date, you’ve got the camera there to practice inside. When you’re at the park you can practice action shots, etc etc.

[cassie]

I think you have a lot of potential. Your stuff actually reminds me a lot of where I was about 1 1/2 years ago and decided I actually wanted to learn how  the technical side works.

 

I do have some stuff for you to ponder: are your prices actually fair to you? When you are in business, it isn’t enough to just scrap by when you havea high demand. I would take a break to learn  more, because you  will burn out working the load you are working without good compensation, or  start intense research to learn the technical side,  pick a tutorial on a new camera technique every few days to practice and learn, research, and practice some more. When you  more and open shop again charge a lot more. Trust me, it’s a lot  more relieving running a business where you need to have four clients  break you even than charge so low you need to have 16 clients (and yes, that does mean I think you should be confident in your ability to charge 4 times what you are right now). It doesn’t even matter if you only have 1/4 the number of clients because you still pay yourself the same amount of money at the ends of the day. Actually  you pay yourself more because you save yourself significant amounts of time shooting, editing, gas and car maintenance. It helps keep you from burning out, because if you don’t compensate yourself well enough, you will burn  out  sooner or later and it will be a chore not a hobby anymore. While I don’t havea photography business, I do have a service based business with highish overhead and my  prices set me at break even point if I have 2 clients a week. It’s comfortable and really doable even with two kids under three. I can’t afford daycare at my price though and  trade services and swap babysitting for them however.

 

If you like pinterest a lot/  and since you are a mwac (nwrong with being a momtog btw, I think we have an advantage) check the site iheartfaces.com. Critiques on  their forum are really weak IMO but the tutorials in it are incredibly useful. Lots on manual flash, camera modes, lighting,  editing does and  don’ts, etc. I think you’ve gotten good constructive feedback, there’s just one thing I want to  point out about the horse  portraits that hadn’t been yet, and it’s an equipment thing. Horses are really really long compared to people, and unleyou are taking a pic of them from the side, if you aren’t usinga long lens, they will looka little long, skinny and stretched out.  Next time you go to take portraits with a  horse, start looking at  portraits with horses, you’ll notice most of then are taken witha really long lens to compact the background and the horse if they aren’t taken directly from the side and include the horses full body. Bring your regular portrait lens, but also bring  your longest lens.

[cassie]

I try to take pics of my kids around 1/250th a second or faster like mentioned above. My lens AF is SUPER fast and reliable and I typically don’t have issues shooting them at ISO 400/ f2.8 on cloudy days using my 50mm, sometimes if they are further away I even can successfully step down to 2.2. But like I said, my AF is extremely fast and pretty spot on most of the time. The kit lens AF is slower but with the widest aperture being f/3.5, the DOF isn’t super shallow. I’m actually shooting with a Nikon D3100 crop sensor and the noise handling on it is actually really good. I know it’s an entry level camera, and definitely not a pro body, but it’s what I can afford right now.

[cassie]

I think the biggest thing that’s helped me is just practicing. When my daughter was born (2 1/2 years ago) I thought I took good pictures, but then I started practicing and my pictures are probably 100 times better than they were then (now I look at those pictures and cringe, lol). And I try to look at tutorials on lighting, or composition, etc- not even photo editing tutorials- and practice the techniques in them as much as possible so I’m always trying to learn something new. It’s been awhile since I’ve been able to do that but I’m hoping to start again soon now that I’m not dealing with a baby that doesn’t sleep at night and throwing up from morning sickness 🙂

I have a family friend that has become a hugely popular wedding photographer over the last couple years, and I’ll never forget when she said it doesn’t matter what you have, you can still learn how to shoot manual, compose, and what makes a good picture before you drop lots of money into it. You can have a $3000 camera and lens and still take crap pictures if you don’t know composition and you just shoot auto all the time.

[cassie]

Jones I’ve been super happy with my yongnuo 560. I’ve only used it manually because my camera doesn’t have the right support for it otherwise, bit’s super easy to use/ get the hang of. I bought it on Amazon for like $50, you can get the 560iii for around $65 on there right now. I don’t have the $ to drop on Nikon speed lights and the reviews for this were excellent both on and of camera. I’ve yet to try ocf with it but it is supposed to work really well and reviews said the slave was  reliable. It is also pretty consistent. I think for what it  costs it’s a good value.

[cassie]

LOL my toddler was standing next to me when I played that clip and she goes “Camera take lots of pictures!!!” she sure knows what that sound means…

[cassie]

I don’t have very much and it’s all amateur stuff which is OK for me at this point since I’m just a MWAC and even if you have insurance you still get stuck paying hospital bills for having kids for months after hahaha.

I have a Nikon D3100 my mom bought me because she was tired of me borrowing her body all the time and the 18-55 kit lens, a Nikkor 50mm 1.8 (the glass one, not the cheap plastic one), a Nikkor 55-200 which isn’t a very good lens at all but works good for the zoo and I got a good used price on it at least, a handful of filters from my mom, a yongnuo speedlight which I’ve only used on camera, so no clue how well the slave works on it, but it bounces really well and has a built in diffuser and stuff. Also one of those windshield things that I use as a reflector, a white art board I use as a reflector from the dollar store, and a steel 60″ tripod I found at goodwill for $10.

I want to get either a 28 or 35mm for pictures inside (once I actually put the kit lens back on and play around with both lengths) since the 50mm is really long on the crop body for inside. It would be nice to be able to take pictures of the kids when it’s raining out without standing against the opposite wall or outside the door, lol.

[cassie]

LOL @ebi, I opened up that link and my husband was sitting next to me and started laughing hysterically because he bought this pair of “pink” scrub bottoms for breast cancer month and all his coworkers told him they were fuchsia (for the record any woman KNOWS they are fuchsia) and he told them since there are clearly only 7 colors, they are pink haha.

 

Not to brag or anything, but this is a copy paste of the results I just got:

Your score: 0
Gender: Female
Age range: 20-29
Best score for your gender and age range: -160
Highest score for your gender and age range: 198857

[cassie]

The tulle dress really wouldn’t be that bad if they actually put a waistband on it or a ribbon or something to actually give it some shape. I saw the little rolled flowers on it and it took me a minute to realize it wasn’t supposed to be a dog bone lol.

[cassie]

@iliketag as the mom to two little kids, I can definitely say there is no way possible a baby that age could do that on their own. They’d just sort of collapse on their arms and probably keep on sleeping. Actually I’m pretty sure my toddler would just fall over and attempt to sleep through the ordeal even though she actually has the strength to do that.

But poor baby, he looks so cold and they took way too long to get the shot so his arms started to fall asleep and turn blue 🙁

[cassie]

Have you guys ever seen this site? OK I know it is totally off topic but it’s trolling that’s actually funny.

http://www.27bslash6.com/halogen.html

 

And in that regards, can we please stop feeding the troll now?

 

ETA although he does have this quote in it under a really bad quality snapshot of his neighbor: ”
I had to take the picture using the digital zoom from between venetian blinds so I apologise for the quality. I’m not Annie Leibovitz.”

[cassie]

So I’m a little late to this convo, which is freaking hilarious, but are people really THIS bad about reading their facebook user agreements?

It seems most people don’t understand Facebook is public domain. If you don’t want pictures of your kids floating around the internet, Facebook is the last place to post them. It actually says in the user agreement that you click I agree that they can sell your pictures and posts for advertisements. I think THAT is even worse than someone posting a link to your picture.

Oh, and they don’t even NEED your permission to sell the picture, because they already have your permission from your user agreement.

[cassie]

Why would you even mention it on your facebook profile like that in the first place? Do people not realize crap like that is a big business no no? I know I can’t make everyone happy with my business (I teach horse riding lessons) but if someone messaged me with something like that I would just ignore them and not say anything about it at all. Of course I also have a ton of happy clients that are saying plenty of good things about me- so the ignore it thing would work pretty well for me. But if she hadn’t said anything at all in the first place, no one would have known anything about it. Now everyone whose seen that post knows that someone messaged her thinking she wasn’t very smart.

[cassie]

I agree with CC wholeheartedly here. She isn’t misrepresenting herself and even though her photos aren’t the best they aren’t horrible either. I have a friend who got her first dSLR like 4 years ago and she basically poured her soul into photography and started charging 3 years ago. There is a marked improvement in what she takes each year, yes. But in those three years, she’s been published, started a full time business that she can actually support herself on, and has a loyal following. I think ShaFlem could be the same way- her photos aren’t awesome but she looks willing to learn new skills and practice. The fauxtographers being posted here often don’t show any improvement and make the same mistakes over and over and don’t bother to learn more.

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