Becky Earl – be ART

Just sharing some hints and tricks to try and remember next time you are out shooting. All of these go along with the post above, where I shot in many different lighting situations….

First tip- Change your ANGLES

Look at the difference in the shot (same shot) but changing my angle changed the entire feel of the shot…The first image, I was standing level to my model. In the next shot, I laid on the ground on my side and shot up at her. It takes away most of the distracting mountains, lake bed and even her shadow. The second shot is absolutely stronger, yet has an airy, free feeling to it.

Here is another example of how changing an angle can entirely change a picture…

neither are right or wrong, just totally different.

One shot I was level to her, then next I dropped to ground and shot up at her. Even just the sky changed dramatically.

Get it? So next time try taking a shot and changing angles all around and see what you get. Try shooting down on your subject, to the side…the possibilities are endlesssss

Second tip- Don’t fear the SUN. not.one.more.day!

What do photographers and vampires have in common? They both think they will DIE a certain death if they step into the light. Now we know the actual truth to this…vampires actually sparkle (oh Edward my love) and photographers can take some amazing shots using that big scary ball of fire…

Some scenarios that work beautifully with full sun…

Baby got Backlight!

Is there anything more heavenly, more dreamy then some good backlight? I think NOT!

One big tip for shooting in backlight situations?
-Set your metering mode to SPOT. Meter off your subjects face and make sure you expose a little to the right. It’s important that their face in correctly exposed. It’s okay to blow out the light in the back. I think that’s what adds to the prettiness.

-Haze is great in backlit shots (in my humble opinion) It adds to the dreaminess of it. So don’t go and add a bunch of contrast to your shot to get rid of it. Embrace it. Love it.

Next…

Off camera flash for the natural light snob (it’s cool, I used to be one) nothing but love folks!!!
Really though. You can use the sun as you would artificial light…except you obviously can’t move it around…

It can create beautiful flattering shadows. Shadows are not evil. They are beautiful and add lovely dimension to a persons face.

What are shadows you want to look for?
The ones under the chin, that can totally thin out a face. A nice sliver of shadow under the nose…make sure it’s not too big and reaches the mouth. Lovely shadows under cheek bones are great too.

Avoid shadows under the eyes.

You can expose for the person, light them nicely, and still get a nice blue sky behind them…

So what’s the trick?

Use the nice and lovely sunset sun and not the harsh mean ol’ noonday sun.

If you use the sun at sunset, you will notice many awesome things. The light is nice and golden. The light is angled perfectly so that it lights your subject face on (and a little above) so it again creates nice shadows on the face. And somehow someway you can get that nice big blue sky.

The only hard things is, the sun is still pretty strong so it can still hurt your subjects eyes to look directly at you. Which is why most of my shots like this are angled down with my model looking elsewhere as not to burn her eyes. We don’t want burnt eyes. Not a good thing.

Once you get out in the full sun, turn your subject in a full circle. Look for the nice light in the eyes. Look where the shadows fall. Are they flattering or are they harsh and icky?

Third tip- Aint no sunshine when she’s gone…
What to do once the suns gone down…

UP THAT ISO!!!

This entire series were shot after the sun had set behind the mountain (all natural light). I had lost a lot of light and had to change those settings. My ISO went up to 1250. Downside of that…lots of grain. Upside to that…I don’t mind grain. haha

One tip for shooting with high ISO’s??? Overexpose. It will lessen your grain. When I meter with high ISO’s my little ticker is almost all the way to the right. You still will get grain, but not as much.

Also, even though the sun had went behind the mountain, I still faced her towards the light. If I had turned her back, she would have lost most of that light in her eyes. So just remember even though the sun is behind that mountain, or building, or whatever..still face them to the light!

Fourth tip- Dress to Impress!

None of these pictures would have turned out as well as they did, had Missy been wearing jeans and a tshirt. As cute as jeans and a tshirt can be on a normal day, it just wouldn’t have worked here. As you can see with each outfit, it changed the entire feel of the shots.

With the first ones with the cream dress and blue scarf…they outfit created a light, freeing feel to them. The shots just wouldn’t have been the same if she were wearing something funky or boring.

When we wanted funky we had her change into her pink skirt with her crazy cool tights. It immediately changed her attitude and the feelings in the shots. Her poses automatically became stronger, sassier and with much more att.ti.tude! They wouldn’t have worked with her cream dress on. They wouldn’t have worked with jeans and some cute heels.

You get the idea…I don’t need to go through the other looks. But just try to remember when you are going to get your picture taken, remember that clothing can truly make or break your images.

If you are wanting a vintage look and feel to your images, then you have to look the part. Get a vintage looking dress, do your hair and makeup in that style. And WORK IT!!!!

Hope these hints, tips, crazy ramblings of mine have helped or if not at least made you giggle a bit. baby got backlight? come on? a little funny? haha

Thanks friends!

Chisses!

♥ be

Well almost. August will be my two year anniversary of taking pictures! Can you believe it? I can’t. I decided to get this up today because I will be leaving out of town this weekend and August is looking reeeeaaalllyyy busy. So last August I did my 1 year anny. See HERE for some laughs and maybe some hope. My second year turned out to be much better of a photography year. I feel while of course always learning new things, I really developed my style. Let’s take a look.

ps- it’s a long one!

When I ended my 1 year anny post I was headed to the Secret Workshop, hosted by the totally awesome Cheryl Muhr. This really kicked off a great year of shooting. Not only was the workshop great, but I was able to meet my photography idol, Tara Whitney. Yep it’s true. I have proof

These two girls were my FAVS. They were so great in front of the camera.
But really all the kids were great.

So I came back from that with a new sense of confidence. Did a newborn shoot and finally felt l could handle those little buggers.

While I feel I was taking consistently good properly exposed, properly focused images, I could still sometimes go a little overboard on the post processing. I have learned that you don’t always have to do everything to a picture just because you can. Sometimes it’s perfect being just what it is.

But on a positive note, I also learned to be able to see a picture for what it could be and not always what it was. I loved this picture of Sadie, but knew I didn’t love it as was…so I took it….

Like I said earlier this is the year that I really developed my sense of style.
I went from this….shot in late ’07 of my in-laws

to this…different post processing and look all together- shot in ’08

Part of finding my style was getting out of the play it safe shade and get into the light. Full sun became my friend…

Another important part of my style was finding different angles to shoot, focal lengths, off beat compositions and…distortion became my friend…(man I sure did make quite a few non people friends) haha

But still, capturing the connections and personalities was always the most important…

So what are my goals for this next year? I am shootin for me. I will not be in business so I can focus on the art. Focus on shooting things and people that I love. I can’t wait to get good at off camera flash. I would love to do charity work. I have a lot of fun things in mind and can’t wait for them to happen. I just wanted to say that I love my family. They support me 100%. My husband has been by my side through this entire journey and I love him so much! Our little boy will be here soon and our family will be closer to being complete.

Thanks for looking! Thanks for sharing in my journey. I encourage all of you to do the same. Reflect back and see how you have grown. It really gives you a boost that you might need.

CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHAT THE NEXT YEAR WILL BRING TO ALL OF US! I have a lot of fun shoots coming up. The next few weekends will be crazy with fun shoots. See ya soon!

♥ be

First off let me tell you I am not a HUGE textures person. I like them, but hardly ever use them. The photograph really would just absolutely NEED it. I used it on a few on the latest bridal shots. I feel it worked with a lot of those because they lent to a more vintage feel. But since I feel I do more “lifestyle” images, textures just aren’t a big part of my post process. BUT, since the bridal post I have gotten quite a few inquiries on how to do textures…so here we go.

Before you start make sure you pick an image that would look great with texture. Then…you will need some textures. There are many places on line where you can buy textures. I have bought a few different ones from Nichole Van. You can also go HERE Deviant Art. They have many free textures that you can use. Google free textures and tons will come up OR you can take pictures of your own textures. You can take pictures of tree bark, textured walls, peeling paint, basically anything with well…..texture. I have a file called, you guessed it, Textures and place all of them in there.

My adorable model for today is a gorgeous girl from The Secret Workshop I went to last year. I was looking over the images and decided to use this.

Okay Step 1- Edit your picture to your liking. I usually will edit skin, color and contrast before the texture is applied. Here is my image to begin with.

Step 2- Choose a texture. I have fancier textures, but for this I decided to go more “urban” since it’s more of an urban shot.

Step 3- Apply your texture to your image. I am sure there are many ways to do this and probably easier ways…but this is how I do it…
-Open your image in photoshop.
-In another window open your texture of choice.
-On your texture image grab the marque tool (circled below) then drag that tool from one corner to the other. So you see “marching ants” around your image.

-Then you will copy. I am on a pc so I just hit Control C.
-You can now close this image (if you like) I do because I hate knowing things are open all over…I’m crazy
-Now open up your image you would like to have your texture applied to. Paste your texture right onto it. I just hit Control V. Photoshop will make a new layer automatically.
Should look like this…

-Now you want to hit Free Transform. On my puter I hit Control T. You can also hit Edit and go down to the Free Transform option. This will let you move any and all sides of your texture. (Make sure Layer 1 is selected and not background). Drag the corners of your texture so it covers your edited image completely.
-Then hit enter or double click inside the texture image. This will set it in place on your image.
Now, the fun begins…..
-We need to choose a blending option. I “usually” choose between Overlay, Soft Light and Hard Light. BUT you can play with all of them and see what you like. It really depends on the image for me. On this one I chose Hard Light. Let’s go big

-You can adjust your opacity to whatever you like. On this I am going with about 70%.
-Now this part you can EITHER mask back the skin by creating a clipping mask or you can do what I do and use my handy dandy SMUDGE tool. (Looks like the hand with the pointer finger) If you use the smudge tool don’t create a mask. Just do it right on the layer.
-The great thing about the smudge tool is that it will only smudge away the texture, but not the color of the texture. Because I don’t care for it when pictures have color textures but the skin is erased or masked back to the original color and it just doesn’t look right. So this is a great tool for texture.
-Once you have your smudge tool selected then you just drag down where you want the texture to be gone. I usually do all skin on the face and actually most anywhere with skin, but will leave a tad on arms and a tad on clothing. Just so there is a good transition to the full texture. The arrow on the face is where I dragged the texture down.

-I do that as much or little as I like and then if there are any other edits I want to apply after that then go ahead.
FINAL PRODUCT…

Hope this helped.

Just a reminder….this helpful hint is for photographers or people who take their own pictures. Please remember that if you have purchased photos from a professional photographer and you were not given full copyright, adding textures or adding any changes to a photo is against the law. Please only play with your own photos

Thanks everyone. Let me know if you have any other questions.

-be