FAQ: For Photographers • Eastern Idaho Wedding Photographer

Q: Where are some of your favorite locations in the pheonix area?

A: My top two are the Mesa Arts Center and Granite reef.
The Mesa Arts Center is fave mostly because of the water. I save it for the tail end of the session because we tend to get a little wet.

I love the dots

I love the stairs



Granite reef is fave because of the big trees, green grass, and mountains. At different times of the year your pictures will have a different look. It's not always super green but still beautiful.







I do however enjoy shooting at all kinds of new locations. Sometimes we will drive around for a little bit, I'll see something that I like, and we will stop for some pictures.

Back Button Focusing

Melissa Jill posted on how to use back button focusing a long time ago and I have been using it ever since i discovered it. LOVE IT!! LOVE IT!!!

I was a little confused on how it worked but once you get it down you won't want to go back. Normally you would have to adjust the point of focus manually to get it to focus where you want it but when you have back button focusing you hold the * button down till it focuses in the middle of the frame and then let go of the button and move your camera to get the picture you want. I don't think I explained it very good but here are some pictures I took using it to help illustrate.
This first one I focused on the truck let go of the * button and moved the camera slightly to the right to put the truck off to the side. It still stayed in focus and I didn't have to change the point of focus manually.

This next one I did the same thing focusing on the 4 and moving the camera a little bit to the left.


If your camera uses the shutter button to focus as soon as you move the camera and go to take the picture it's going to refocus in the center. If you separate the two buttons you have SO much more control. I hope this makes sense.

FAQ: Large Groups

QUESTION: The family you did with like 50 people... everyone looked good... did you happen to capture a perfect moment or did you photo shop everyone so that they would look great?

ANSWER: The trick is to take ALOT of pictures and act crazy to get everyones attention (I need to get better at the acting crazy part.) One of my favorite photographers Jana bowen taught me a little trick to getting kids attention and getting them to smile. The trick is playing peek-a-boo with the kids using your camera. They will watch you and wait for you to pop out from behind your camera. It's a great trick! Thanks Jana.

Another thing that keeps the kids looking at you is to place a leaf (or business card) on your lens and tell the kids to let you know when it falls off. It works for some but not all.

You get what you pay for

A post from my blog for photographers. I did this post back in May.

Sooo.... I go into the camera store to by a 50mm Canon lens. I asked them if there was a big difference between the 50mm 1.8 and the 50mm 1.4. They said the only real difference was that the 1.8 was cheaper plastic and would break easier. I decided that I would save some money. Well after using it i was quite disappointed. I had it for 3 weeks and was suppose to take it back within 5 days if there were any problems with it. I figured I'd try my luck taking it back though because I knew for a fact that I wouldn't be using it again and didn't want $100 to go to waste. The guy at the camera store was super nice (I made sure to look for the nicest one) and he pulled out a brand new lens so I could see the difference (good thing I took my camera). There wasn't a huge difference between mine and the new one so I asked to try the 1.4 lens. WOW HUGE difference!!! I don't think I'll be trying to save money by going cheaper anymore when it comes to lenses. You get what you pay for!!! Unfortunately the guy took a picture of me to test the lenses so you have to see my eye zoomed in, but I did want to show the difference!
This first Picture was with the lens I bought, Canon's 50mm 1.8New Canon 50mm 1.8 lens right out of the box. Even worse than the one I bought!!

This Last one Canon's 50mm 1.4 lens. Can you SEE the DIFFERENCE!!!! Look at the color difference too!
The guy was nice enough to take the 1.8 lens back and give me the 1.4 lens instead. It was a few hundred dollars more but it's worth every penny paid!

Bigger Pictures on your blog

I removed my blog for photographers because I don't think I can keep up with more than one blog. I do still want to share tips and things I have learned so some of the tips I'll be sharing come from that blog. You can click on "for photographers" in my links to see the tips that I have.

If you would like your pictures bigger on your blog follow the directions on this link: Blue Orchid Designs

Now read this:



Doing a screen capture was the only way I could really show you the html ;)

Before putting my images on my blog I resize them to no more than 11inches on each side and 72ppi in photoshop. You can always go smaller though. I wouldn't go much larger.

AH HA!

My husband comes in the other day and begins to tell me about something he heard on the radio at work. This happens pretty much everyday... he come home and it's yada yada yada... j/k I'm almost always interested because it's usually about politics and I enjoy hearing about it. Anyhow, the other day I got SOOO excited when he told me about a study they were talking about on the radio. It was saying that a persons most creative time of the day is typically around 10pm!!! Hurray!!! I'm not crazy for staying up late! I have talked to a couple other photographers who are on the same page I am. The time they work best is late at night. When I get e-mails back from other photographers it's almost always between 10pm-1am. Maybe the reason I have always had a hard time falling asleep at a decent hour (even when I was a kid) is because that's when my creative brain juices would start flowing! Ah and the time that I want to sleep is in the middle of the day when I'm feeling the least creative! This way definitely an AH HA moment for me!
I couldn't find the study they were talking about on the radio but here is a site that talks a little about it: Ground Report