As it turns out, we’d worked with a good number of the other vendors in the past, and can happily recommend them to you if you’re still looking for quality service providers for your own wedding. Please note that the following are wedding vendors that we’ve actually worked with in some capacity, and our recommendation of them is completely unsolicited.

Sauer Cakes

We worked with Michelle Sauer of Sauer Cakes at Jen and Dan’s wedding in 2010. In addition to a custom-designed wedding cake and free delivery within 20 miles of Columbus, they offer a 5% discount to referrals and a complimentary 6″ anniversary cake for your first anniversary. That’s right, no yucky year-old frozen cake!

You can find more information on Sauer Cakes on Facebook or review their rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars on Wedding Wire.

Team DJ

We had the good fortune to work with Justin from Team DJ at Brent and Lindsay’s wedding in 2009. I’m pretty sure that was the most-danced wedding we’ve ever attended as guests or photographers, and we’ve been recommending them to clients ever since. A team of specialists who are fun, interactive and attentive to the wedding couple, Team DJ is the cream of the crop for DJs in our vast experience. We were thrilled with Monte’s mixes at the wedding show, and are quite happy to add him to the list of their DJs that we’d want at our own rockin’ party.

Team DJ tweets @TeamDJ1, can be found on Facebook and is rated at 4.7/5 stars through Wedding Wire.

Signature Wines of Ohio

We met Kelly Harvey at Signature Wines through twitter and have worked with her as a vendor for our own business. She offers custom labels (for example, one of your GroovyDoodle Photography engagement photos) on award-winning premium wines made locally from California grapes or juice (never concentrate). If your reception venue won’t let you bring in your own wine for consumption, ask them about ordering through Signature Wines on your behalf. Or, the unopened bottles make excellent gifts for the wedding party, rehearsal dinner guests, or center pieces for your table settings.

Kelly tweets @Signature_Wines and can be found as Signature Wines on Facebook.

Bonus Vendor – Make You

We also met Leigh Ann Ehmann of Make You via twitter and have brought her in as a service provider for a recent video capture session featuring several of our former wedding clients (look for it soon!). While she was not a vendor at Fully Committed, she did attend the event and certainly fits the criteria for professionalism and business values. In addition to acting as the make-up artist to wedding clients, professional models and high school seniors, Leigh Ann is the artist for Fox’s Monthly Makeover. But most importantly, she’s sweet and fun to hang out with, and totally gets that each client has their own limits and style when it comes to make-up. The fact that every one of our clients that she worked with for our video project (even some who’d not worn make-up ever in their adult lives) asked for her card when she was finished should speak volumes. I know it did to us.

Leigh Ann blogs at leighlooks.wordpress.com, tweets @make_you614 and can be found on Facebook.

Are there other wedding vendors you’ve worked with and loved that you want to add to the list? Leave us a comment and a link to their site or Facebook page below and watch for articles on new vendors we’ve connected with in the future!

We get this question a lot. To answer the first question “What kind of camera do you use?“, Adam shoots with a Nikon D300 and I shoot a Nikon D300S model. These aren’t the cameras we started with (which were a Nikon D70 and Nikon D80, respectively), but they’re the pro models we’ve grown into over several years – there are no ‘training wheels’ or auto features, which makes them very difficult (in my opinion) to learn to shoot on for first-time DSLR users and impossible to hand over to a non-photographer to get a decent pic of you when you’re on vacation with that stellar background that you bought the cam to capture in the first place! Why Nikon? I shoot Nikon because Adam already had Nikon when I bought my first “big girl” camera and it made sense to have the brands match so that we could share lenses (the real expense to quality photographs). Adam chose Nikon years before that, quite simply, because of the way the camera fit in his hand when compared with the Canon models available at that time.

(CC) Destin Photographers

Which brings us to the real question, “I want a ‘grown-up’ Digital SLR. What kind of camera should I buy?” The short answer is: the camera body that fits easily into your hand and your budget. While having a top-of-the-line camera body is nice once you really know how to take advantage of all the features, you can just as easily get amazing photos with an inexpensive camera body. Going for more than the entry-level consumer model isn’t going to earn you anything but a painful learning curve and bragging rights for having lots of cash to burn. Save your pennies for the lenses. That’s where the magic truly happens!

Nikon

I started with a Nikon D80. As a beginner, I loved the Auto feature which allowed me to let the camera choose what it thought were the best settings, then switch to manual and set the camera to those same settings so I could play around until I got just the look I wanted. If you can’t lay hands on a well-cared-for used D80 (or even D40, D60, or D90), I would recommend Nikon’s D3000 for beginners to the DSLR camera as it has similar features and runs around $550 new.

Canon

As I’ve said, we’re Nikon users, but if we started over today with all new gear we would be just as likely to end up with Canon gear. They both make great products. To compare the Nikon D3000 to Canon, I’d pick up the EOS 1000D (aka Rebel XS), which you can also purchase for around $550 new.

The only time I wouldn’t bother to compare the two is if you’re intending to study photography in college and/or work professionally photographing sports or news. In those cases, due to the quality of canon lenses 20+ years ago (they’re about the same quality now, but that wasn’t always the case), most school and news institutions have cabinets of canon lenses available for their people. Much like my decision to go with Nikon because I could share glass with Adam, I wouldn’t even bother looking at Nikon if I were going in to a situation where tons of expensive Canon lenses were going to be available for free/super cheap.

Sony/Other

When I first started researching cameras, I considered a Sony. While they do have some innovative products (such as their Steady Shot INSIDE (TM) image stabilization) that seemed attractive at the time, they’re also very proprietary. That means that the storage card won’t be anything you can use in another camera, nor will any of the cables, tripod mounts, etc. None of their gear is standardized to be swapped with the big 2, which in the long-run makes it very expensive to own a Sony. There is no competitive price war to make the accessories more affordable because you must buy everything for your camera from Sony. If you ever hope to use your camera as more than just an expensive point-and-shoot, I’m afraid they’re too impractical to recommend.

Sources: Side-by-side Nikon/Canon comparison courtesy of dpreview.

Do you have experience with or opinions about the brands or models discussed? Feel free to weigh-in by leaving a comment.

So with that in mind, here are our top (totally unsolicited) picks for Columbus wedding locations:

The Bluestone (formerly Bar of Modern Art (BoMA))

The Bluestone has been one of our favorite venues for quite some time. In addition to featuring literally thousands of square feet including 3 separate rooms on different levels, 2 dance floors, a large stage, 7 beautiful bars created by nationally acclaimed artists, a multi-million dollar light system and in-house catering, you get the benefit of The Bluestone’s original purpose – cathedral church – complete with a fantastic stone exterior, amazing hardwood surroundings in the main room, cathedral ceilings and stained glass windows. This is a really elegant venue with a staff who seem to understand the level of service you should receive on your big day. Not to mention, we’re one of their preferred wedding photography vendors. Any Bluestone wedding clients who also book their wedding photography with GroovyDoodle receive an awesome discount on our services!

Graystone Wine Cellar This little wine cellar was new to us in 2010, and what a little bonus find it was! The venue occupies the hand-hewn limestone vaults of the 1875 Bavarian Brewery in Columbus’s historic Brewery District. While they no longer produce any wine on-site, they do offer catering and a historic, intimate setting for either your wedding or reception. And, like GroovyDoodle, they’re GLBT-friendly.

Grange Insurance Audubon Center

Ok, we weren’t sure what to think either when we first heard the name of this place. But we’ve got to say, we were pleasantly surprised. The non-profit center is located just south of downtown Columbus, and serves as a model for sustainable design with 18,000 square feet built with recycled construction materials – it is surprisingly beautiful with a modern, open feel. Their main purpose is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats. So, by holding your reception at the Audubon Center, you’re helping to support these objectives. Obviously, they don’t offer catering themselves, but they do have a list of pre-approved caterers (which includes our beloved City Barbeque). Their pricing is very reasonable, and they allow you to bring in your own alcohol if you are planning for cocktails or a nice local wine to be available to your guests.

Bonus Venue – Grand Pacific Junction Looking for something really unique and don’t mind a bit of a drive (or perhaps you are looking for Cleveland, Ohio wedding venues)? Grand Pacific Junction in Olmsted Falls, Ohio is like walking back in time 100 years. This campus of historic buildings is essentially a small town that will go all out for your wedding. It features a wedding chapel (with a fantastic, balconied bride room), a banquet facility, a wine cellar, a local stable for hiring a horse-drawn carriage and a variety of other services you’re sure to find useful. There’s also a beautiful park with a covered bridge within walking distance of the chapel for your formal wedding photos.

Was this article helpful to you? Do you have another Columbus or Ohio wedding venue where you’ve had a stellar experience? Drop us a line in our comments and let us know!

In the studio, professional photographers can control the four elements of light (quality, intensity, direction and color) with relative ease. But most of us aren’t shooting in a studio and quite honestly, even having a high tech studio available to us here at GroovyDoodle we often prefer the sun’s light over controlled flash, especially in the Fall.  However, daylight is anything but constant. It changes hourly as well as with the weather or seasons. So here are some things to watch out for when shooting your own outdoor portraits.

Intensity

First let’s talk about intensity. The sun’s intensity is mostly dependent on the time of day or the weather. The sun is at its most intense between about eleven and two o’clock on clear summer days. This time of day in a wide-open sky makes strong colors brilliant in photos, but also tends to make weak colors (such as the pale blue sky) even weaker. Shadows are harsh, and pretty much straight down tending to give everything a flat, 2-dimensional look – not to mention the squinting agony of your poor subjects. You’ve been there. You know what I mean.  So if you’re going to be at a given location for any length of time, it might be worth the wait for the light to be a little less intense to get your photos. But hey, maybe you’re on vacation and there’s a brilliant landscape at your lunch-time rest stop that you want behind you in short order. The sun is great for that, right? Sort of… You may actually do better to get yourself and your subjects lined up in a shady spot with all that beautiful landscape behind them and use a bit of flash to fill in their faces, otherwise pale skin and pale skies will disappear completely.

Quality

But what about on cloudy days? Or in the morning or late afternoon? Well that’s where quality comes in to play. We often photograph our subjects outdoors rain or shine as long as it’s not pouring. Cloud cover is nothing more than a giant diffuser between your subjects and the sun, much like the big umbrellas we use in front of our in-studio flashes, and we find it makes for excellent portrait lighting whether we’re shooting seniors or families. Cloud cover when the sun is intense can make for some really jewel-like tones and has the added benefit of softening pretty much all shadow. Another way to get better quality (softer) and less intense light is to shoot in the morning or early evening. Shadows are more angled, and offer a much better 3-dimensional sense of texture.

Direction

Which brings us to direction. Direction refers to the way in which light reaches your subject relative to where you have the camera. There are 360 degrees of possibility when it comes to light direction in the studio, but outside it’s a bit of a different story. Outside, there are 4 major options.

High front lighting is what most people try to use. It’s that 10 – 2 time of day when the sun is high and your subject is standing directly in its rays. The positives to this light direction are that most of the scene will be well lit and depending on intensity, bright colors will really pop. The flip side is that if the sun is directly over head it may cause major shadows in the eyes of your subjects (making them nearly disappear) or at a minimum cause them to squint. A trick we use to get past squinty eyes and faces is to have our subjects close their eyes and relax, then open them, smile and look at the camera only after a count-down.

High Front Lighting

High Front Lighting

Next let’s take a look at Front Lighting. Front lighting puts all the light on the part of your subject that’s facing your camera, and it’s pretty fleeting when you’re using the sun as your light source. You’ll only get this type of light when the sun is low on the horizon. See how the shadows fall directly behind the people in the picture below on the left? Some pros to front lighting are that your subjects will be well and evenly lit and there are very few shadows. Cons are that pictures can appear a bit flat or lacking in texture because of those missing shadows, and it’s hard to keep your own shadow out of the shot!

Front Lighting

Front Lighting

My personal favorite when it comes to light direction is Side Lighting. Side Lighting reveals the sculpture-like qualities of your subject, highlighting contours, textures, shapes or patterns. It takes place naturally during those magical hours of about 8 – 10am and again each day from about 5 – 7pm (if you’ve scheduled an outdoor shoot with us, now you know why we steer you to those times!). I think side lighting is the easiest light to capture because even when the sun is high at midday, you can pull your subject into a shaded area where the light is forced to come from the side rather than above. Here are a couple examples of both natural and forced (indoor) side lighting. Notice the shadow of the fence repeated in the grass and how the left side of the boy’s image is much brighter than the right. And look at how the light coming through the window creates both highlights and shadow on the bride, easily making this a warm, beautiful image.

Side Lighting

Side Lighting

Last in the topic of light direction, let’s talk about Back Lighting. Most amateur photographers are taught to avoid this, and for good reason. With back lighting, the light source is behind your subject, making it very tricky to capture details that are facing the camera. That said, back lighting in the right circumstances can make for some really dramatic and amazing shots. Backlighting is great for capturing a silhouette or providing a natural halo for your subjects. Conversely, you may find lens flare or strange light spots in your images and there will be some (or a complete) loss of detail in your subject depending on the light’s intensity.

Back Lighting

Back Lighting

Color

The final element to light is color. The light of the sun may appear white to the naked eye, but in reality if you put that light through a prism it will split into a rainbow of colors from the warm red, orange and yellow end of the spectrum to the cooler blues, purples and violets. And while the sun does seem to offer warmer tones than your camera’s flash, even this can change over the course of a day. At midday, the blue portion of the spectrum is more dominant, producing crisp, clear bright colors; whereas the sunlight closer to sunrise and sunset produces much warmer golden tones with a softer contrast.

Wow, that was a lot of information. So what’s the point? The point is that with enough of the right light, you don’t have to be a famous or professional photographer to take really good photographs. Whether you’re aiming to casually capture your friend the bride leaving the church after her wedding or just playing around outside with the family, understanding how to use the sun to your advantage can take your pictures from mediocre to stunning. But as always, the most important tip we can offer is for you to simply get out and try new things. Get inspired by others, and don’t be afraid to copy great ideas from other photographers, including us! If you haven’t yet, go check out Flickr or take a peek at the latest round of photos on the GroovyDoodle blog.

Sources:
photography.com
kodak.com

Why do we take the time to meet with bridal clients even if we know there’s no chance of us shooting their wedding? Pay attention here, brides and grooms… This is important. The photographer you choose for your wedding day will be with you on your special once-in-a-lifetime-fairytale day more than anyone… More than your mom, more than your friends, and more than your partner. If you find your photographer annoying, guess what? That irritation is going to be reflected in every picture from your wedding day!

So, with that in mind, here is a list of questions and tips that we offer to every couple we meet with:

• Ask friends who have recently been married which photographer they used and how well they liked them. And if they liked them, find out why. This will help you compile a list of who to definitely contact as well as which ones to definitely avoid!
• When you call around, be sure to share your wedding date with the photographer and have a budget in mind, even if you’re not yet ready to share it with them.
• Look through magazines and cut out wedding photos that you like. This will help you convey your preferred style to the photographer, as well as compare their style against your preferences.
• Find out if the prospective photographers are willing to meet you at either the wedding or reception venue or someplace local and convenient to you because, let’s face it… Your wedding day is (and should be) all about you! A photographer who is unwilling to meet you on your turf is already displaying the wrong attitude for someone you’re going to be hanging out with from the start to the end of your special day.
• Meet with each prospective photographer for at least an hour. During this time, you should be able to peruse samples of their wedding photography, talk to them about any unique services they offer (photo booth, composite dvd services, bride or engagement pics, online gallery, etc.), gather references of recent wedding clients, and find out what exactly the photographer is going deliver and when.
  • Do they have specific predefined print packages?
  • Do they deliver anything electronically or will every family member have to pay for any prints they want?
  • How do family members order additional prints outside of the package you choose? And for how long are they available?
  • If the photographer offers a disc of your images, what size / resolution are those images? Is it all of the images? Or just the ones from your print package?
  • Do the electronic images come with a print release? Is it unlimited?
  • Do they do retouching for blemishes or artistic development? Does it cost extra?
  • How many photographers will be at the wedding?
  • Are the people sitting in front of you the ones who will actually be holding the cameras on your big day?
  • Things happen. Do they have liability insurance? What’s their cancellation policy? How will they handle it if something catastrophic happens on their end and they’re not able to deliver for any reason?
  • Will there be a written contract detailing everything you’ve agreed to?
• If you obtained references, call them! You’ll want to know if the reference’s final photos have been delivered yet, how they felt about the delivery turn-around time, the quality of the final images as well as about their experience with the photographer at the actual event.

Whew… Once you’ve done all of that and asked all those questions and invested all that time, how will you know you’ve found the right one? Well, you’ll feel comfortable with the quality of their work because they were able to show you living recent samples plus offer you the validation of their references, you’ll know they are conscious of and willing to work within your photography budget for the event, and quite frankly, you’ll have just “clicked”. When it comes down to it, the photographer you want is the one with whom you were relaxed and laughing with by the end of the meeting. Because really, isn’t that exactly what you want in your wedding pictures?

Have you recently worked with a wedding photographer? Perhaps even us? What other advice would you offer to couples looking for someone to capture their special day?

First, as always, I’ll preface with the fact that having an SLR camera will make it considerably easier to capture just about anything. However, that doesn’t make it completely impossible to get a great shot with a point-and-shoot, just more challenging. The real key is that your camera allows you some amount of manual control. Things like shutter speed and ISO are important components to capturing fireworks. But if you are in the market for an SLR, some serious deals can be had on the Nikon D40 right now, which is being phased out for the new D60. Don’t let all the new bells and whistles on the D60 fool you, the D40 is one of the most successful and longest manufactured cameras due to it’s success. [ B&H Photo | Adorama | RitzCamera | Best Buy ]

Next up, you’ll need a stable place to put your camera while you’re waiting on the beast to spring forth. This can be any number of items from your standard generic tripod to something even as simple as a beanbag or sandbag. In a pinch, you can always use a ledge or a rock, but flat surfaces can pose an issue when it comes time to aim the camera because when the time finally comes to take your fireworks photos, you don’t want to touch the camera at all. Other exotic options for holding your camera steady are the MonsterPod, which sticks to just about anything, and the GorillaPod, which wraps around just about anything. Another nice thing about the GorillaPod is that you can also extend the legs and use it like a mini tripod.

Next, you need a way to take pictures without disturbing your camera.  Even the motion of pressing the shutter release button to take the photo can cause blur, but there are a couple ways you can work around this. If you have a point-and-shoot, the best way to accomplish this is probably going to be to use the timer mode on your camera. The timer/delay mode is the same mode you would use when you’re setting up a picture and want to be in it. You know, you push the button, scramble to get in the picture, and 10 seconds later it snaps the shot. The same applies here, except you’re using the delay to give you a chance to back away from the camera and minimize any shaking.

If you have an SLR, you can also use the timer/delay mode to minimize shake, but you probably have a few more options to be able to take more photos without having to wait on a timer. Most SLR cameras have some form of remote that you can either attach or use wirelessly that allows you to trigger the shutter without actually touching the shutter release button on your camera. Sometimes these remotes can be expensive, but if you have a D40, Nikon makes the ML-L3, a wireless infrared remote for less than $20, that does a great job [ B&H Photo ].  We actually use one of these ourselves on our Nikon D80.

Now then, let’s talk about your camera’s settings. You just might be lucky enough to have a “fireworks” setting on your point-and-shoot. For the no-brainer-set-and-forget option, the fireworks mode will make things a lot simpler for you. But, if you don’t have a fireworks mode, here are a few pointers:

ISO: Even though you’re going to be shooting in the dark, you want the lowest ISO setting your camera has. This should generally be ISO-100 or ISO-200.  The fireworks are going to be brilliant.  Shooting at a lower ISO will give you less noise (graininess) and make the fireworks in your photos sharper, especially if you ever want to print them.

Focus: Turn off your automatic focus. You can do it, trust in the manual focus. Otherwise your camera will be hunting in the dark for anything to focus on, and by the time it “sees” the flash and tries to focus, it’s going to be too late. If your camera has a manual focus, you want to set it on infinity. Some point-and-shoot cameras don’t have any way to set the focus specifically at infinity, but if you set the mode on the camera to “Landscape mode” (normally looks like a mountain), you’ll basically get the same thing.

Aperture: Depending on the sensor in your camera, you’ll want to start somewhere between f/8 and f/11 then adjust as needed. If the previews are looking a little washed or blown out (too much light), crank it up a few notches to somewhere between f/11 and f/16. If it looks like it’s a bit dark, back it down to somewhere between f/8 and f/5.6.

Lastly, your Shutter: This is what will determine how “long” the fireworks will appear in your pictures. The longer the exposure, the longer the streams in the photos will look. But, the longer your exposure, the more you have to play with aperture to keep from over-exposing your photo. Personally I find 1-second exposures look best, but you can get really intense groups of multiple blasts with longer exposures.

If you have an SLR and are using a wired remote, you might have even more flexibility with “bulb mode”. Bulb mode essentially lets you hold open the shutter as long as you hold down the trigger button on the remote. This can give you the flexibility to hold an exposure open the entire life of a blast instead of only getting a partial exposure with a timed shutter. This can be used fore all kinds of fun creative things that we’ll cover in a future GroovyTips article!

So, what are you waiting for? Go pack up all your goodies and get shooting!

(click for larger images)

Additional Resources:

PhotoJoJo: 11 Tips for Sparkling Fireworks Photos (http://photojojo.com/content/guides/11-tips-for-sparkling-fireworks-photos/)

DigitalPhotoJournal: Tips to Shoot Fireworks (http://www.dphotojournal.com/how-to-shoot-fireworks/)

Scott Kelby (Photoshop Insider): How to Shoot Fireworks (http://www.scottkelby.com/blog/2008/archives/1633)

… and, last but not least

How NOT to shoot fireworks: Lady GaGa shoots fireworks (kids don’t try that at home… or anywhere for that matter)

Sometimes you just want a light, simple program that doesn’t take forever to load and will let you do a few standard tasks. Well, here is a list of 8 simple free Photoshop alternatives under 2MB that will save you time and headache.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/8-simple-free-photoshop-alternatives-that-are-under-2-mb/

But before we share our first GroovyTip, let’s chat a little bit about your pictures. It really doesn’t matter if you love how your photos turn out, if you think they are just ok, or if you don’t like anything that comes out of your camera. The most important tip we can give you is to simply get out there and try new things, get inspired by others, and don’t be afraid to copy ideas from other photographers, including us! If you haven’t yet, go check out Flickr or even take a peek at the various photos on the GroovyDoodle blog.

To improve your own pictures, we encourage you to keep a folder of photos you’d like to try to recreate, or search around for pics similar to yours to see how you might improve ones you’re already taking. Make notes on how you think the photos you like were taken, how you tried to take them to match the result, then get out there and try it again! We’ll assume you’re using a digital camera of some variety, so try as much as you want, it’s essentially free. And if you see something you like and just can’t figure out how to recreate it, send it to us. Who knows? It may be the next GroovyTip!

So with that, here’s our first article…

GroovyTip: Get Up-close!

You know the pictures we’re talking about – All those pictures of flowers, or bugs, or some cool root growing out of a rock. You take picture after picture but something about your shots just doesn’t look as nice as you’d like.

You don’t have to have a super-fancy SLR camera to get close to your subject. You probably have a setting on your camera you’re not even aware of that will help you do it. It’s usually referred to as “macro-mode”, or sometimes people call it “flower mode” since the icon to use this mode on your camera is usually represented by a flower, like so: . If you look at the dial on your camera, even a point and shoot, it most likely has this setting and looks like this:

Macro-Mode

The macro-mode will usually allow you to focus with your camera physically closer to your subject than you can normally get with any of the other automatic modes. However, one of the challenges with using the macro-mode is an increased sensitivity to camera shake. Because you’re closer than you would be taking a picture of a person just sitting, any shaking you introduce from just holding your camera will be amplified in your pictures. To work around this you have two choices: use something to stabilize the camera while shooting (like a tripod) or add more light.

A tripod is a useful tool that you can use for more than just macro photography. You don’t need something super-fancy, and you can get by with something as simple as a little inexpensive table-top tripod or even a something like a Gorilla Pod or MonsterPod. The benefit of a tripod is that you can use your camera’s built-in timer, slow down your shutter speed, and really get some sharp, crystal clear images even in lower light.

Your other option for getting around camera shake is to add more light to the scene, which for most people means using the automatic built-in flash that will be enabled with your macro-mode. But you’ve got something else that will help add some light to the subject – something that’s completely free and we personally find looks better than flash for lighting macro pics anyway. Yup, that giant fireball in the sky provides all the light you need to put your macro-mode to perfect use with little worry of blur.

So now that we’ve got the blur out of the way, let’s talk about macro composition. When shooting macro, most people have the tendency to park right over the top of their subject to take pictures because they are used to standing right in front of people to take their pictures. And just like with people, this tends to result in flat looking images. Below are a couple example shots we took with a simple Olympus point-and-shoot:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

Notice the picture on the left is taken straight on, from far enough away to get the whole flower into the frame. The picture looks ok, but not very interesting. By getting close-up, we end up with the image on the right. It looks like a completely different flower!

Here’s another example of a typical shot of a small group of flowers:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

With the photo on the right, instead of shooting the entire cluster of flowers we got close-up and focused on just one, but still used the others as a nice backdrop.

Lastly, sometimes it’s not just getting close that makes the shot, but also playing with the angle that you’re shooting from a bit. In the photos below we’ve already isolated a single flower, but the one on the left is kind of blah. With the one on the right we got just a little closer and adjusted the angle, and totally changed the look of the picture:

Click for larger image

Click for larger image

So, now that you’ve discovered this new-found power with your camera, go put it to use! It may be too cold to shoot flowers outside, but there are lots of things to shoot inside too!

Ringlight shots are not specific to adults though. We’ve had a few seniors that wanted to give it a try and absolutely loved the really unique results:

Kids also look great in ringlight shots…

You may notice that the photos above are black & white and standard portrait orientation (If you haven’t yet, just click on the pic of your choice to see the full version). Because of the style of processing we use for the ringlight shots, they look best as black & whites and cropped vertically, but they don’t always have to be…

So that’s basic ringlight shots, 101. Just another service we can provide for you next time you’re in our studio! Don’t hesitate to ask as it only takes a few minutes and it’s included in your session time should you want to try one. Just let us know!