breaness

aukelly · May 2011

Hey Brea!

I've seen you mention a few times that you take pics. I do to. Not much lately. And I really need to take some photoshop classes. But I'm wondering what kind of camera you have? Just being nosey really.

breaness · May 2011

I have a Canon T1i. It's enough for now. I'm saving for a 5D Mk II. Honestly the T1i takes beautiful photos. It's all about the lenses, not so much the body. I love my T1i, it was extremely affordable too!

Photoshop is wonderful! I have been using it for more than half my life now (strange, I know) and I teach it in the class I teach at Towson University (along with Illustrator and After Effects). While I love it and I know the program inside and out, I think that Lightroom is a more powerful tool for photography. I actually rarely use photoshop with the exception of really intense touchups. Most of my photos never see PS, only LR.

Here are a few photos that I've taken in the last year during sessions with friends (and clients) none of which ever touched PS except one and I'll explain which one below

My lovely mother & father:

Our best friends' kid Ethan! Cutest freaking child ever:

Family photo:

Photo from our friends' engagement session, it was their engagement gift from me:

I just love this one. These little boys were so hard to work with. The youngest one kept running and running and running... then he layed down on the ground and I told his brother to lay with him and grabbed the opportunity

This one is the only one I used photoshop for, and that's because it's made up of 5 separate photos. There wasn't a single take where everyone looked good, so I PS'd 5 different pictures together to form one good one. I also did several other PS edits for this session, like editing one kid out of the background of another kid's shot, etc.

And one last one to leave you with. Don't become a child photographer unless you're prepared to deal with THIS

This was nonstop the entire session. CRYING and SCREAMING for the entire 2 hours I was there. lol At least the pictures are hilarious!

breaness · May 2011

What camera do you shoot with? Do you have any prime lenses? Ever since I got my 50mm 1.8 (cheapest lens ever $$-wise, but INCREDIBLE value) I don't shoot with anything else.

aukelly · May 2011

Wow! Those are really good. I love lightroom and I can manage basic changes in them but it's all stuff I just taught myself. I def need to take some form of editing.

I've got a Nikon D50. I couldn't agree more about the lenes. My dad gave me a few older lenses and the SUCK! Matt bought me a 50mm 2 years ago for Christmas and I love it. I use it all the time. It's not the best for a lot of stuff but the pics are so much better. Now I'm trying to get him to buy me the 18-200mm but that one is pricey.

I love how people get the vividness of pics and I just haven't figured that out yet. I've decided my photo skills aren't bad but I don't have any editing skills.

breaness · May 2011

Lighting is really important. FI goes on every outdoor shoot with me and works the reflector to make sure I get good light.

The only adjustments I make in most cases in LR are contrast (it's easy to go overboard though) and in some cases I'll boost the saturation a little bit, but most of the time I don't touch it because it really makes people look orange. I do boost the saturation on individual colors to bring out certain parts of photos though.

I did these pictures last weekend for my friend Jess for her college graduation. She didn't want anything "stuffy" or "normal" and she wanted her fun colored hair and tattoos to stand out. I don't know if I've ever showed a before and after, but here's the unedited and then the edited. All I did on this one was fix the white balance (it was raining and I left my custom white balance cap at home so I just used auto and auto failed miserably) upped contrast a tad and boost reds & blues.

breaness · May 2011

and yes, there's a mustache on the tiger.

breaness · May 2011

P.s. do you have any place I can see your photos?

aukelly · May 2011

See I want to have my pics come out like that. Those look amazing. I just feel like my editing skills suck.

I actually have a website. I haven't done much lately though. Feel free to take a look.

http://www.kellysuzannephotography.com/

You must have being typing when I was because I

my 50mm.

breaness · May 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-theme-boards_destination-weddings_breaness-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Theme%20BoardsForum:54Discussion:973cf7a4-4cc7-4950-a920-f48f2ae98ad0Post:592afba4-b22a-4021-b203-a4ad0cfb74e6">Re: ***breaness***</a>:
[QUOTE]See I want to have my pics come out like that. Those look amazing. I just feel like my editing skills suck. I actually have a website. I haven't done much lately though. Feel free to take a look. <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.kellysuzannephotography.com/">http://www.kellysuzannephotography.com/</a> You must have being typing when I was because I <3 my 50mm.
Posted by aukelly[/QUOTE]

<div>Haha that's funny! </div><div>
</div><div>The pictures you did of the kids in front of the Christmas tree are really good and I think with a little LR love they would be wonderful! I really like DSC_3944-2 as it is!</div><div>
</div><div>I don't know how you feel about this-- but I am a lynda.com junkie. For $25 a month you get access to all of their video tutorials. I did the Photoshop for Photographers a few months ago and even though I already know PS I learned A LOT about "subtle but significant" retouching, and I'm pretty sure they have a title on LR too. </div><div>
I've used lynda a couple of times. I've learned that you can pay, then cancel your membership and you'll have access through the whole month without needing to worry about your card being hit without knowing it. I do that all the time because I'll go months without using it and I can just pay for it when I need it again.</div>

shytownkelly · May 2011

I'm going to butt in here because I'm a camera/photography junkie!

I have the same Canon camera - and a collection of lenses from my pre-digital SLR days (I still shoot with film but not nearly as often).

I have never ventured into the photoshopping though. Aside from cropping/sizing and such. But that has more to do with me being just a junkie - not trying to make it my profession.

Here's one I took last summer on a work trip to Moscow:

I tend to take more architecture and landscape style photos. I do the family photos though when my grandma decides we need a new one. (they suck at posing though.)

Any recommendations for someone that just does it as a hobby?

breaness · May 2011

That photo is awesome! What a fabulous, fun subject!

What do you want recommendations on?

aukelly · May 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-theme-boards_destination-weddings_breaness-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20Theme%20BoardsForum:54Discussion:973cf7a4-4cc7-4950-a920-f48f2ae98ad0Post:afd6eb01-9a9c-43c7-984a-42f47e378042">Re: ***breaness***</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: ***breaness*** : Haha that's funny! The pictures you did of the kids in front of the Christmas tree are really good and I think with a little LR love they would be wonderful! I really like DSC_3944-2 as it is! I don't know how you feel about this-- but I am a lynda.com junkie. For $25 a month you get access to all of their video tutorials. I did the Photoshop for Photographers a few months ago and even though I already know PS I learned A LOT about "subtle but significant" retouching, and I'm pretty sure they have a title on LR too. I've used lynda a couple of times. I've learned that you can pay, then cancel your membership and you'll have access through the whole month without needing to worry about your card being hit without knowing it. I do that all the time because I'll go months without using it and I can just pay for it when I need it again.
Posted by breaness[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>I haven't heard of that site before but I will def check it out. I feel like I have to see things done, I just can't read about what to do. So if this has like step by step tutorials I can see it being very helpful and cheaper then taking a class at the local camera store.

</div>

breaness · May 2011

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-theme-boards_destination-weddings_breaness-1?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding Theme BoardsForum:54Discussion:973cf7a4-4cc7-4950-a920-f48f2ae98ad0Post:b1607449-032c-48fa-ac93-054a6717ac65">Re: ***breaness***</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: ***breaness*** : I haven't heard of that site before but I will def check it out. I feel like I have to see things done, I just can't read about what to do. So if this has like step by step tutorials I can see it being very helpful and cheaper then taking a class at the local camera store.
Posted by aukelly[/QUOTE]

Yep! They are video trainings. And each software is broken into chapters and even further down from there. Each video is only a few minutes.

breaness

Re: breaness

Choose Another Board

Search Boards