The following video is our way saying thanks for a wonderful year. Click on full screen in the right hand corner to get the full effect.

Watching this video, Point, Shoot, and Share DVD with Will Crockett, makes me want to get up early, grab a camera and go shoot the details in my neighborhood. Will Crockett uses every day language to demystify photography terms so that everyone can understand it, young and old alike.

It is a great introduction and overview to using any digital camera, whether you are shooting a point and shoot or a DSLR, including post production and printing. It explains the basics of how to set up your camera and keep changing those basic settings to get a the photo you want. It both shows and tells you had to take a photograph, the walk through the streets of New Orleans really demonstrates how one builds a photograph so you can go out and start taking amazing photos.

Even though this video is for the amateur, I think pros would grow as a photographer by watching this, it really goes into Will Crockett’s way of thinking about photography on a personal personal level, how to grow our photography outside of client time, just to ride our passion.

Here are some photos I took that were inspired by this video

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Happy November!

This year’s fall sessions have been so much fun and we can’t wait to do more!

We’ve photographed everything from father daughter domino games, to siblings jumping in leaves, to kids playing chess…the perfect kind of photo session. (Read the chess story here!). I love my job, thank you for making it possible!

What could be better than capturing what you want to celebrate about your family this year, while benefiting a great organization. We want to celebrate your family with photographs, and raise more money for Artemis House while doing it.

Here are some ideas for what your session could look like.

• Photos of the entire family when everyone’s in town for Thanksgiving
• Photos for holiday cards (yes, there’s still time!)
• A New Year’s card
• Documenting your family’s favorite holiday event or tradition
• Sitting around a fire roasting marshmallows and drinking cocoa

To meet our goal for Artemis House we’d like to offer additional mini sessions at the day and location of your choosing, with a special sitting fee of $75 ($60 of which will be donated to Artemis House). We still have sessions available this coming weekend as well as Thankgiving and of course throughout December. The number of sessions is limited to ten, so let us know right away that you want your mini session!

Warmly,

Jessica Wallach

This fall the photo sessions have been amazing, the other week we did this session that is just the way I envision a photo session should go.

We were doing the Artemis Fundraiser’s first day and we were about to photograph the host’s kids. Now they have done tons of sessions with me and we have tried lots of different thing and always get amazing photos. This year it was just going to be the kids, and mom and dad were going to make themselves scarce, leaving me with instructions of somethings mom wanted.

However, other things happened…when it was their turn to do the photo session, the kids were playing chess down stairs and they did not want to leave their game, so I invited them to bring it upstairs and play in front of the camera. They loved the idea. We made a deal with them, they play for 10 minutes and then they do what mom wants for 10 minutes and then they could decide again. Every now and again they would stop playing and hug, the chess photos are really cool, they are so intent on the game, so much expressed in those photos about their relationship, mastery and playing.

After they stopped playing, they were ready to take direction and try a bunch of stuff the mom wanted and then there would be times they just crack up and fall down in each others arms..what more could I ask for.

Here’s a cool way to think about ISO! ISO functions similarly to our eyes adjusting to different amounts of light. Like when you go inside a movie theater, and at first you can’t see anything but then your eyes adjust and you begin to be able to see things more clearly.

The ISO numbers correspond to different amounts of brightness. Here are some examples.

• ISO 200 , for the brightest light, i.e. outside.

• 400 bright, but not quite as bright.

• 800 for a little dimmer light such as a well-lit room and late afternoon outdoors.

• 1600 is a little dimmer still, dusk .

• 3200 is for a larger depth of field inside or in a darker situation

Now you would just think that you would want to change your ISO for these situations, but sometimes it’s better to use a flash than to go up in ISO, because the higher the ISO the more digital noise you get. Newer and higher quality cameras can go higher with less digital noise than lower quality or older cameras.  Some cameras can go well beyond 3200 without getting too noisy.

In 2011 I had the pleasure of photographing at Frying Pan Farm Park again and again. Here are my favorites.

Our holiday cards are custom designed for and with you. Here are some samples of holiday cards we have designed for others.

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