Tips for Momtographers - capturing a great sunrise/sunset

It's been a while since I've brought you a segment from "Tips for Momtographers". I was talking to the very lovely, Heather, the other day and she mentioned (oh lord, I hope it was Heather lol) about taking sunset/sunrise photos and having them look right.

In my head, I said "I can do that!" and realized later, that there are a couple simple things that can make a sunrise look even better.

Below are 3 samples.

{#1, ISO200, F4, 1/4000th}

{#2, ISO200, F4, 1/500th}

{#3, ISO200, F4, 1/125th}

Now, something you should know, is that these three photos were taken within 1 minute of each other. No, there was not a quick shift in the light. I only did one little thing different.

I'm sure you can see, that the first photo, the shutter was open the least amount of time at 1/4000th of a second, the second at 1/500th of a second and the third the longest at 1/125th of a second.

Now, you could just manually set your camera to each increment until you get the look that you want. I'm entirely more lazy than that. LOL.

I do the easy way. First, I ALWAYS set my focus point to the center. I will point at the point I want to focus and recompose my shot. This is also the point where your camera will meter for the light.

So essentially, if you want a dark moody photo, pick a light spot and meter for that spot. {I metered for the sun in the photo#1} That will force the shutter to open and close fastest letting in the least amount of light to expose the rest of the photo, this will make your darker parts of the photo, darker than in real life. This might be the dramatic look that you're looking for.

If you want your photo to be bright, or you want to see the details in a darker area of photo, point, focus/meter off of the darkest areas {photo #3, I metered the trees}

I prefered something in between, that felt like what the real sunset was like, so I might pick something of a medium light or tone to meter off of, like a cloud or the edge of the tree line.

This method works best for a landscape photo where you are focusing on infinity. If you are wanting to focus on one thing, but meter for another, then you should expose for part that you'd like to meter for, pay attention to what your readings are in your camera and go into manual mode, THEN focus on the closer item.

This makes no sense if you're not using a DSLR. This CAN work if you're using a point and shoot to a certain extent. If you want more dramatic skies, point more towards the sky, if you want lighter sky, try to point more towards the skyline. If this doesn't work for the composition of the photo, you can crop the photo in your photo editing programs at home, or if your just uploading to a photo processor, they always allow you to crop with their software.

Hopefully this will help your photos when you take us to the bahamas this January!

Anyone?

Hello?

How it should end!

howsyermomandnem?

Saturday, was my mom-in-law's fifty-nine-eleventy birthday!

Hell yeah, those exist!! I'm twenty-nine-eleventy thankyouverymuch.


Anyway, I get a call from this girl on Friday afternoon:

This is my sis-in-law Laura. She's married to the brother that doesn't eat pork. Really. It was so sweet of her to take on someone so deformed.

The message with something like this. "Hey Lana, I was wondering if you guys were coming down Saturday. It's mom's birthday, and I had an idea. I was thinking we should all go out for a girl's day because she's never went before. I could get her a gift certificate, but if you don't TAKE HER, she won't go, and you'll get it back at the end of the year."

I nod.

Yeah Carol, we're onto your end game.

Then I said "Yes please" and "Game on weiners!"



So Saturday morning we trudge down to Olathe. I say trudge because it's really one of my lesser favorite car rides. My least favorite is St. Louis... which I've not been there in 5 years. Sorry St. Louis, you have a lovely arch, and an awesome waterfront, but somewhere between Columbia and St. Charles, I'm fantasizing about playing russian roulette only with 6 bullets instead of 5.

Just sayin.

Once you GET to Olathe it's great tho! It's just that Riverside to Olathe part that makes me wanna hurl. Probably because I did it EVERY DAY for like 5 weeks after our glass shop moved from... Riverside to Olathe.

Yeah I'm still bitter.


So back to Saturday, we visit the in-laws for a while, have some pizza and then while the men paint the house AND babysit the children including an infant.. (that's really the *best part* of the story), Laura, Carol and I went to a spa in Gardner. We told them we were there for Carol's full body wax.

She wasn't game.
wth?

We sent Carol off for a manicure, and discussed the "menu" of items.

Now, for the record, I get my nails done here. I kinda felt like I was cheating on my peeps. They treat me right, however, I think they'll forgive me, if I don't wear flip flops into the nail spa, because I ended up with a pedicure as did Laura.

Carol had her first manicure, and I suspect, we might have her hooked. Feels good to just sit there and have someone else take care of your hands whilst you just stare off into nothingness and wonder if someone will make you dinner.

Then sadly, you crash back into reality.

Laura got the pedicure with the sea salt rub and all the hot oils and stuff. I was annoyed because I thought that's what I was getting but mine was just the basics.

dammit.

Come back, rub my feet too!
Actually, don't! I about came out of my chair when she started in with the pumice stone. Stop stop! I'll take the calluses Please don't torture me!!

I got the french tips.
Gene says "2 thumbs up" and then requested to see my toes 14 times on the way home.

I'll keep that tidbit of information just filed away for next summer.
Heck! I'll have to wear actual SHOES soon, maybe that polish will still be there next summer! lol.


We also held Carol against her will, and made her get a back rub. You see, they were having their grand re-opening by co-inkydink, and had some specials on. So while we were getting our toes pampered, Carol moves into "the chair" for a 10 min back rub.

Yes I was jealous.

Something you should notice about this photo, is that I was required to crop out the MIL's butt. Sorry Carol, now everyone is trying to see your butt. I considered a big "CENSORED" button, or possibly an "As Seen On TV" logo (which I'm sure she would not fine nearly as hilarious as me).

Instead, I opted to be the girl she allows to love her baby boy, and cropped her butt out completely.

And for the record her butt looked FINE. She just is the typical girl, and doesn't want ppl to actually LOOK AT HER BUTT.

You, however, are welcome to draw a butt on her if you must know. You can use the dust collected on your monitor or a post-it. Whichever would make you giggle a little more.

Just think of it as a belated Birthday gift to my Mominlaw. Let me send you a BIG THANKS for her. I know she appreciates it ;)

PS. She emailed me today, to say she won the beautiful purse they gave away! Wha? I think she stacked the deck or pull out the "ohh.. it's my birthday, I'm so sad card."

Man. she owes me big.

RAK = Random Act of Kindness

It's been a while since I gave anything away. I was doing some reorganization of my scrapbook room (which will never ever never ever end!!) and decided I don't use my eyelets enough. Why? Because I have glass top table and I'm too scared to set an eyelet on them. Oh, and I don't have one of those fancy cropadiles so I don't pound with a hammer.

So anyway, I did something that a few years ago, would have made me gasp with disgust.. I mixed together the ones I wanted to keep in one jar!! I have a little project I'm going to share with the organizer later.

So anyway, I decided to part with about 80% of my "collection" (I'm gonna guess well over 1000), and that includes lots of shapes hearts, pumpkins, ghosts, stars, bunnies and eggs, but the cutest is the snowman!), eyelet snaps, regular 1/8" eyelets in every single color, micro eyelets galore.

Only thing you have to do to get them, is just let me know that yourself, or you and your friends will use them. If you want, you can even put them in a pretty jar (or 7) and give them to your scrapping girlfriends as Christmas presents. I won't tell! So those of you out there with a cropadile, that makes punching lives easier, are fixing to get a treat!

I'll pick one person on Wednesday! Enter only once, and be sure to leave a place I can get ahold of you (like your blog or an email).

Oh, and if you don't have a setter, just let me know, I probably can scare up an old school setter (that you use with a hammer!) for you.

Why I love facebook

Facebook....

Let me tell you a little something about facebook. She's quite a little mistress, facebook she is.

My interest in facebook (FB) began innocent enough. I wanted to make some $$. Really. I read on a photography group, that one of the best ways to get in contact with all the seniors/students in your area, is to add them to one of the social networking sites like myspace or FB. I already had a myspace page, but honestly, didn't like it all that much. Myspace feels like a huge website full of tiny websites from 1997. srsly.

So I thought I'd try out this "facebook" thing that people kept talking about.

It was easy to set up my profile, and add a few photos. I found a couple students in the area and then it just blossomed from there. Once you find a couple "friends", facebook suggests more friends for you. Obvious friends. Like more seniors and more students in the area. Soon I had 100 "friends" that I didn't know!

I was still pretty bored, but I would diligently add a few photos once in a while, so that students might remember that crazy chick from FB when it was time to pick their senior photographer.

Then something happened.

Someone from high school found me. No, not here in town, but from my days of big fluffy hair and borderline mullets with blue eyeshadow and twisted sister playing lightly in the background.

Those people.

So that same process I had used to find most of the seniors here in town, worked for most of my classmates. Soon I had added at least 1/2 of the "kids" I went to school with... and their siblings... oh, and then the people I used to chat with when I did Body for Life, and a teddy bear artist from when I used to do that, and a couple friends from my old IRC #England channel days, and my sister, my cousin I haven't seen in 10 years, and my kids, and Gene's kids! and before you knew it, I had this one place that I could go to where I could quickly see what everyone was up to and how everyone was.

One thing I've started doing, is when I get an inquiry, or book a bride, I add her, and her fiance, and I feel like I really get to know them by seeing their pics every day, by seeing where they are going on their bachelorette parties, learning their friends names... I think we end up being closer, and I gain not only a client, but a friend.

If I ever thought "I wonder how Jim is doing", I can just go pop over to his page and see. BTW, Jim was my best friend my Jr year. Long story, and we haven't seen each other in 21 years! It was so good to reconnect and find my old friend. (Heck, Jim is even sending some work my way through his business... I'll share when it's done!)

Repeat that 200 times.

In the end, a few things have happened:

• I didn't make a lot of money/get a lot of jobs off those original seniors
• I reconnected with many old friends, and became actual friends with just acquaintances from high school.
• I actually started getting work from friends of friends when they would see my photos, so even tho I intended to "sell" myself to some kids, I still did, but I did it through the back door.
• I found a whole new group of people, that fell in love with my work, not just because they were my friends either.

One of the coolest things that happened, is that my class has really bonded back together. We had about 55 that graduated my year, and of that, about 25-30 are friends on FB. Soon we had an impromptu twenty ONE year class reunion, and have decided that it will be an annual event. Sadly I didn't get to go, but it was nice to know that they are all there any time I want to.

So, if you're considering a social networking group, if you want to stay in contact with your family and friends from all over the world, of course I'm going to recommend FB. Want a friend?

Click here and add me!

Lana Cease's Profile

Create Your Badge

Heck, be sure to tell me who you are if I don't know you LOL.

PS. Tanner made the above avatar for his facebook page. It made me belly laugh so I had to share.