Photographic Eye

First and foremost WELCOME to all of my new followers!! I’m glad you all decided to stick around and I hope that, if nothing else, this blog proves to be somewhat interesting and that you will find some photos that you enjoy.

 

Since I made my mind up a few months ago that I wanted to pursue photography professionally, I have discovered myself looking at each and every moment during the day with a photographic eye. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, what we are doing, where we are, or what’s going on…I am constantly on the lookout for a unique photo to take. Right now, my favorite thing to photograph is still my sweet Little Man {when I can get him to cooperate}. And I’m falling more in love with the post-production aspect of photography as well. I have always enjoyed tweaking with photos but I’m doing my best to learn as much as I can about how to do it correctly and how to make the pictures look like I want them to. There is so much more that goes into photography than I originally anticipated, but I am loving every single minute of it.

 

Before I get into showing off some of the before and after work I’ve been doing, let me just give a teeny tiny little update on where I stand ‘business’ wise.

• I am doing my very first actual ‘shoot’ in July. My very best friend is having a baby and I volunteered to do her maternity portraits. Since I am just starting out and need the work to build my portfolio I am doing them for free. Well, technically I am doing them as part of her Baby Gift, so I don’t know that I would necessarily classify that as free.
• I am in the market for a new computer. Since I’m going to be in Alabama all summer, I’m going to buy a new laptop. Right now, we have a Net book with very limited storage so I’ve got to upgrade to something bigger. I know that when we get moved and situated that I’ll be buying a desktop because I’ve had a lot of people tell me that they work better when it comes to editing and storing photos. Mainly, just because the hard drive is bigger. But for now, since I’ll be traveling and going and running the roads for several months, I need something compact and easy to carry. Any recommendations on brands? I’ve heard a lot of good about HP’s {in fact I had one for 3 years before I finally got rid of it} and Mac’s. I’m not really wanting to spend that kind of money on a Mac Book, because I really think I can get the same kind of results from a PC. But we shall see, I guess.
• I’ve chosen a designer for my photography website, which I hope to get up and running sometime this summer. I won’t reveal who I have picked yet, because, well I haven’t officially hired her. But I am in love with her work and she’s gotten rave reviews on her business mannerisms and that’s definitely the kind of person I want to be working with .
• How do you like the blog? I did the design {including the header} all by myself. The layout is from “Our Blogger Templates” and I was able to totally customize it to match the header I made. I’ll be setting up a custom domain name in the next couple of weeks I think. Because I really don’t like the [.blogspot.com] thing at the end of my site address.
• I bought my 50 mm lens and I’m loving what it can do!! I’m only planning to purchase one other lens before I do my maternity shoot in July, and that’s the 85 mm f/1.8. Read some really fantastic reviews on this one, and I can’t wait to get it and try it out.
• I also learned over the weekend [and I’m sure several, if not all of you probably already knew this] that if you have a College Student ID card, you get a discount on all Adobe Software. I was looking at Photoshop CS4 [full version] online the other day, and without a Student ID it’s like $800. With a student ID, it’s only $200. So, I’m thinking [unless I find it cheaper on EBay, which someone told me to try because they got their full version there brand new for less than $200} if I don’t find it this summer, that I’m just going to buy Photoshop Elements 8 [which is only $100-$80 once you get the mail in rebate] and then buy CS4 when I start back to school in January. No sense wasting those big bucks, right?

Ok. Enough of all that. I’ll get on to the pictures now.

 

In case you didn’t notice, I forgot to save all of these so I could show off the before and after on all of them. I was working on some of these last night and my computer froze. Thankfully it saved all of my photos when it rebooted, but it saved them over the others. So no more originals for me. Hope you guys have a great Monday!