Related Posts

• 
  It's a BLOG PARTY!

  Ok, ok.  We admit it.  We are SUPER proud of how the blog is shaping up!  Lots of educational blog posts.  Lots more in the chute.  We want people to come to our blog to learn and we want them to come away inspired, uplifted, and educated.  Ideally, we'd like people to come away going, "Wow, I didn't know that!"  Learning is empowering, we also feel it will help the industry to have a more photographers who know just what is going into photography.

  So, we want to reward people for coming to the blog!  We know we're the newbies on the blogging block, since we used to put ALL of these tutorials on Facebook, but we have learned our "own your content" lesson and we are planting our flag here.  So, to help people remember to check us out, we intend to have a weekly BLOG PARTY!

  What's a blog party?

  Well, for this first one, we will be choosing one winner to get a set of their choice from ANY of the comments on ANY of the blog posts.  (The only catch is that it has to let us know you probably read the blog post.  So just a generic "Great post" won't win.  Let us know that you've read with a good comment and you'll be entered for EVERY comment you make.  Not only that, you might learn a bit from the post!  Woot!

  Then every Friday we will host a NEW blog party!  For each new blog party, any comments you make on the previous week's posts will be entered to win!  

  We are so excited.  (And I bet the early weeks of this will have GREAT odds!)

• 
  Why We're So Committed to Blogging

  Owned Content.

  If this is a term you're not familiar with, get to know it. 

  For the last 3 or 4 years, Facebook has made us all so complacent. We could post an image and get a ton of immediate positive feedback. It's pretty exciting and more than a little addictive. Back when we started our photography business, the way to reach clients and be found on the web was though a good website and a well-kept blog. But as Facebook crept in, the blog got more than a little neglected. 

  But little did we know that all of our hard work was only going into a black hole. We didn't keep control of it. It was not helping us move up in Google searches. It was not getting Pinned on Pinterest. A lot of photographers (most that we've spoken to) fell into this trap too. We blogged a little here and there, but mostly we just added our content to Facebook. 

  Good for Facebook, bad for us. 

  All of our lighting diagrams, and action recipes and posing ideas were just...gone. Poof. Well, not anymore. Now that Facebook has tightened it's algorithms (and before anyone says anything about it being free...it is not. We've paid long before now out of a sense of fairness), we are moving the equivalent of almost 4 years of thoughts and ideas to our blog. Slowly and surely we are planting our flag here. 

  Yeah, we'll post on Facebook and Google+, but amazing tutorials will live here. We have dedicated days and days to blogging and putting our most popular content here and we will be adding often. If you are looking for great info on getting started as a photographer, or on adding polish and professionalism to your workflow and in-camera work, check us out. 

  Thanks for stopping by.

• 
  Why a First Look?

  If you've shot a wedding, or been married, or been to a wedding, or seen a wedding on TV, you probably are aware that the day is pretty busy.  It is filled with so many moments that need to happen on schedule and yet it is also a day that so many people from the couple's lives are there to celebrate with them.  It can be an absolutely confusing day for couples.  On the one hand, they want to be sure that they are doing all of the traditions and getting all of the perfect shots for posterity, but they also want to celebrate with their guests.  It can feel overwhelming to try and achieve the perfect balance.

  This is why we offer a First Look session to our couples.  Usually this session takes place a month or so before the wedding.  It is along the lines of traditional bridal photography, where the bride in all her finery is photographed so that images can be used at the reception and kept for memories.  But we also add in the groom to the shots.  If possible (and desired), we go to the couple's venue at a time when the light is just magical, usually Golden Hour, and we capture the first time the groom sees his bride in her gown, and we provide a more personal, leisurely photography experience for the couple.  It is often a little oasis of time in the hectic wedding preparations where the couple can be together and focus on each other and at the same time have their images made in perfect conditions.  

  This also gives the couple a bit of a break on their wedding day.  There are still a lot of formal portraits of the family and guests to be made, as well as detail shots, candids and a few formal couple portraits, but the pressure is off of the couple to pose for portrait after portrait, in hopes of getting every detail of their wedding captured.  Now, they can focus more on the wedding day and less on the formal portraits.  The day becomes less about posing for pictures and more about their love and those who love them

  The upside for the photographer is that it also alleviates stress.  There are MANY details to be captured, but the photographer knows that the couple has been captured at their best and in the best light, rather than leaving wedding portraits to chance.  Inclement weather, wardrobe malfunctions, harsh overhead sun?  Those won't be as pressing of issues for the photographer or couple.

  We recommend that the session be not closer than 2 weeks from the wedding, since the dress might need a dry-cleaning and the photographer needs time to edit the images for the couple and deliver them and have prints made for the reception.

  Our couples who have chosen First Look sessions are always so positive about the experience.  

  Below are images from a recent First Look Session:

  

  These images were taken on a lovely spring day, when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and the weather was nice.  On their wedding day, the blossoms were mostly gone, and there was a fierce 65 MPH wind, followed by rain that evening.  But there was very little stress about the misbehaving wedding weather, because everyone knew that the portraits were "in the bag" already.  We got some on the wedding day, but when it got uncomfortable, we packed it up with no regrets.  (Edited with Pure Presets 1 Basic Workflow in Lightroom and then finished with Sunny Matte from Pure Matte in Photoshop.)

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

• 
  The Best Camera You Have Is the One You Have With You

  Confession:  I am the mom at Disneyland with the overly-heavy camera bag and a 70-200 on a gripped 5D Mark III.  In fact, I usually bring my whole kit to the hotel and each day we go to the park I will take a 24-70 and then one other lens that rotates by day and I will have a theme day.  70-200 for close ups on the rides of the kids.  Macro for park details.  16-35 for the wide, storytelling shots.  

  

  I fully admit that I have a slight problem.

  

  After I got all my kids in the car and took the picture, the lady behind me started giving me directions for how she wanted her kids posed in the car, thinking I was one of the photographers that worked at Disneyland.  Kind of a fair assumption since I had my lanyard for our tickets around my neck and a stupid amount of gear for a tourist.

  

  But I'll admit I get a thrill from capturing even the smallest moments forever in the best format I can.

  I bet there are a lot of people reading the blog who can completely sympathize.  I never even used a cell phone camera until about 3 years ago.  I didn't do it often for a long time.  I felt like it just was not good enough.  But I have 7 kids.  And so I would take little snaps here and there.  (Usually when I didn't have my big SLR, and when I reasoned with myself that the action was happening so fast and the light was so bad, my big camera would not have made much difference anyway.)  I got the memories, and told myself it was ok.  But I still didn't like it.

  Then, as I have mentioned before, I had my son Henry and he was in the NICU for almost a month.  I honestly felt so emotionally and physically exhausted that I really only had the energy to take snaps of him with my cell phone.  I felt so awful.  Every day I would load my big camera into my bag, but every day it stayed in the bag.  The pain and frustration and exhaustion just made it so hard for me to do what I WANTED to do.  So I came home from my son's first month of life with a cell phone full of pictures.  And a scant handful on my big camera.  

  So I set about figuring out what to do to make these photos look as good as I could.  I also had to let go of the guilt.  I knew I had done the best I could do, and those photos were better than nothing.  So I figured out how to get my photos off of my phone.

  A lot of my photos were uploaded to Instagram to share with family and friends.  So, if you want to download your Instagram photos, you can!  It is so easy.  Just go to Instaport.me and it will compile your entire Instagram account (or selections of it) and download it as a zipped file for you.  The only downside is that there is no exif info attached, so they kind of come up in random order.  If you're not an Instagrammer or you want to use the images right off your phone, there are a lot of ways to get them off the phone, but for me, the easiest and most universal is letting Dropbox download my photos for me.  I can quickly look through there by date and find photos I am looking for.  Either way, getting photos off your phone is important.

  Then I imported my photos to Lightroom.  

  Ha!  Yes!  Just like a session.  I grabbed that Instaport.me zipped file and I unzipped it and uploaded it to Lightroom.  

  

  That's my cell phone file in Lightroom!

  I was astounded at what a little Basic Warm Workflow 2 (from our Pure Presets 1 collection) did for the phone photos.  It cleared up the noise and grain that can happen in cell phone photos.  It warmed the cool white balance.  It brightened them up.  All of those little downsides of using the cell phone were looking much better.

  Then we made some album templates in Lightroom.  We started off with the idea that the templates would be awesome for wedding photographers.  They could easily put wedding albums together as they were waiting for their wedding images to export from Lightroom as jpgs.  But, then I got thinking.  What if I made some templates that specifically fit cell phone pics?  Lots of slots for lots of pics (sometimes multiple angles of the same place, since it is from the cell phone, right?) and smaller slots so the imperfections of the phone files would not be as obvious.  That lead to the InstaPure albums.  And really, even if we never sold even one of these, they were worth it to me.  I got all of my photos of my sweet little Henry off of my phone and into an actual printed photo album.  His NICU journey is beautifully bound in leather and his pictures are perfect.

  

  

  

   

  Here is just a sampling of the images I saved from my phone.  A whole story just waiting to be claimed.  It gave me a greater appreciation for having a camera on me at all times. I still love to use my DSLR whenever I can but I know that I can use my phone and tell a story that is worth telling.  If that is all I have, it is worth a lot.  I challenge each of you to find the stories you have locked up in your phone and save them for future generations.

• 
  At Home With Pure--Rachel's Chickens pt. 1

  Part of our triumphant return to blogging is that we wanted to blog a little about us.  About things we liked to do, when we were not being Photoshop ninjas or out doing photo sessions.  It gives us a chance to share who we are and what makes us tick.

  Usually when I write this blog, I write it as both Crystal and Rachel, but for the At Home portions, we'll just be posting as ourselves.  So in the case of today, Hi, I'm Rachel and I'll be your blogger today.

  I am not quite sure how all of this started.  I think the more kids I've had (and I have 7), the more I have gotten interested in ways to be a little more natural.  I've gotten more and more mindful of what we're eating or buying or wearing, etc.  I got into cloth diapers for real (I'd dabbled off and on) a little over a year ago.  We love to grow our own garden and have fruit trees.  But gradually, the desire to have backyard chickens has been sneaking up on me.  Yes, I admit I love animals, so the idea of so pretty chickens wandering in the yard appealed to me.  And then the lure of multi colored eggs?  Yes, please.  But the real drive came from the idea that I could know exactly what I was feeding my chickens and I could know that our eggs were nutrient-rich, and also free from lots of junk.  Studies have shown that chickens that are able to free-range produce eggs of VASTLY greater nutritional content than those who are not allowed that.

  So, about a month ago, we took the leap.  I will probably do a few blogs detailing the journey, but this is how we got started and what we have learned (and what others could learn from our mistakes.)

  I had been researching chickens for awhile before we went out and got our chicks.  I had a vague idea about what needed to be done, but I really just didn't know how it would all play out.  But one thing I did know, with so many little kids in our house, I needed to have chickens with good, docile temperaments.  There are quite a few that are really sweet, but we walked into IFA that Friday afternoon, determined that we would be leaving with some Buff Orpingtons, Barred Rocks and at least one Ameracuna.  Well, it didn't turn out quite like that.  The Amerecuna's were sold out.  So we went back the following Monday and picked one up.  (Actually...that's not quite true, we discovered that many feed stores sell "Amerecunas" that are really sweet mutt chickens called Easter Eggers.  No big deal to me, but good to know!)  Why did we want these specific birds?  Buff Orpingtons and Barred Rocks are well-known as very sweet chickens that behave almost like pets.  And the Amerecuna is also known to get along well with humans AND it lays blue eggs.  Yeah, pretty tempting.

  So, I got home from the feed store with my chicks, their starter feed, some probiotics and electrolytes for their water, and a heat lamp for their brooder. I got everything set up and stuck the chicks under the heat and gave them their food.  They were pretty peppy and ate and drank right away.  I did check all of the chicks immediately for what is called "pasting up."  Chickens have one way for things to leave their bodies.  They lay egg and do...other things...through their vent.  As chicks, this can get caked over with droppings and the chick can quickly die if this is not attended to.  Two of our chicks had mild pasting up.  So I had to clean them up gently with warm water.   Chicks have to stay warm.  Since they have no feathers, only down, they can chill quickly.  So I worked gently and carefully, but quickly and cleaned them up and then blow dried them.  I was worried how they would react, but on medium heat and low air, the chicks LOVED the blow drier.  They fell asleep immediately.  It was great.

  

  Here were the chicks on their first night home.  (Minus my Easter Egger, since she didn't get home until a few days later.)  I learned quickly that newspaper should NOT be used in the chicks' brooder.  It can cause splay leg, so that was changed out for old towels quickly.  They seemed much happier with that too.  

  

  Here's Lucy, the day she joined us.  She's established herself as the head of the pecking order, if you can't tell from her cheeky look here.

  Baby chicks brooders (our brooder is just a plastic rubbermaid container) need to stay at 95-100 degrees for the first week.  After the first week, you can start slowly dropping the temp by 5 degrees a week.  They will need to stay under a heat lamp (especially if it is not warm outside) for about 6 weeks, which is when they will be fully-feathered.  It seems amazing, but in just a few weeks, these tiny little balls of fluff were more like teenage chickens.  They grow so quickly.  We've made sure they have fresh food and water available at all times and they are eating machines.  

  The kids all got to picks a name.  Actually they all suggested many, and I picked my favorites.  So we have (starting from the top and going clockwise):  Goldie (a Buff Orpington), Lucy (and Easter Egger), Juliet (the Barred Rock on the bottom),  Stella (the Barred Rock on the top) and Caramelina (the Buff Orpington looking the wrong way!)

  

  And a final image to make you laugh.  The girls think I am their momma hen.

  

• 
  Outside of the Box

  Wedding days can be exhausting.  Carrying all the gear you need to properly shoot the wedding is quite a load.  All the lenses, camera bodies, flashes, batteries, etc. will take up all your strength and hands often.  So bringing a lot of props is really not possible.

  This is where you can look around at what you have and what is available and you can tell the story.  This is especially true for detail shots.  Posing and styling details is critical to create a professional, polished image, but it can be done without a lot of fuss.  It gives more meaning to the images when you are able to add in elements of the surroundings.

  Below are some detail shots with set-up explanations to get your creative juices flowing.

  

   

  You'll never guess where we got this beautiful background for the ring shot.

  

  It was the shoe box top for the brides' shoes!

  

  This set up with the bridal gown and the bridesmaids' dresses is a lot less glamorous than it would appear from this shot.

  

   

  They were just posed inside the closet!

  

  Just using the flowers at the venue.

  

  On a tablecloth at the wedding reception.

  

  On the bride's unique bouquet

  

  On a tile on the balcony of the bride's hotel room.

  

  Hanging from the canopy of the bride's suite, using window light from the balcony.

  

  Using the box that the rings were brought up the aisle in.

  

  In a tree at the venue

  

   

  Wait for this pull back!

  

  Just a white table with 2 flashes triggered behind it.

  Great looking details can come from anywhere.  Just be open to seeing what magic you can create.