Darice Michelle Photography

Monthly Archives: January 2010

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Another Photography Question

January 19, 2010 – 9:06 am

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Kimberly Makinster is a new photographer out of Jacksonville and posted a question for me on facebook that I couldn’t resist answering. Why? Simply because she stated one word that grabbed my attention, CALIFORNIA!

Question from Kim:

Hi Darice!

Just wanted to ask you if you had any pointers for me-I am heading out to Cali next week with my clients out there and I will actually be shooting my first real professional shoot.

Im really excited. I have put together a list of shots on the beach, action shots, urban shots downtown, and studio shots. I have a d5000 im working with and im wondering if you would suggest some lenses outside of the 55mm and 200mm.

I love your photography and any advice you could give me would be greatly appreciated. I am a graphic and web designer but I am just getting into photography. I would also love to volunteer if you had any shoots coming up that I could help you with and learn from the best!

thanks again!

Kim

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ANSWER:

Hi Kim! I should be asking you if I can assist you! You’re going to my favorite place, CALI! It’s funny you sent this message to me at a time when my thoughts have been grossly dominated by my desire to return back home. My memory flickers with moments spent at the Pacific Ocean, strolling down the neatly lined palm trees streets with their neighboring one-of-a-kind old spanish-style homes and carting through the Bixby Knoll’s Von’s grocery store that looks more like a furniture interior design store with it’s dark hard wood floors and modern track lighting.

California brings forth culture, beauty, landscape variety with its hills, valleys, mountains, and less we forget the glistening ocean with homes sitting atop monstrous cliffs. Or the city where all are welcome: Santa Monica. Her sidewalks never grow lonely with bikini women rollerbladers looking to be admired, the pronounced bikers group with their spikes and long beards, the independent tattooed shirt-less skate boarders, young couples smothered by their impetuous feelings, and old couples envying them. Oh yeah and then there’s the occasional dressed up wanna-be-star or those that seemingly appear blind since they saw it acceptable to boldly show up in their disharmonized attire starting with a bonnet shadowed by a country leather vest followed by a hot pink too-too ending with florescent green and black horizontal candy-cane-like tights accompanied by their 20-year old beat up southern boots even a homeless person wouldn’t dare wear. “People watching” in California certainly is entertaining and since no one is camera shy, click away! Cali certainly provides endless photographic subjects, backgrounds and opportunities so I wish you the very best photo shoot during your stay!

Having said all that, now I will answer you question…sorry, had to get that off my chest…I miss California dearly.

Downtown Los Angeles, California

Downtown Urban Shots:

Be careful, DT LA has every homeless person imaginable. Unlike DT Jacksonville, the homeless in LA disregard manners and have lost their fear for authority. So be wise and come fully equipped…and I don’t mean camera equipped. If you are shooting before sun down, be sure you have a pack with you.

I am not sure where in California you are staying so it’s hard to make suggestions. However, if you’ll be in the LA area these were my favorite beach locations to shoot at when I first ventured as a new beginner photographer: (such memories)

1. Corona Del Mar

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1. Newport Beach

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3. Huntington Beach

4. Redondo Beach

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5. Laguna Beach

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6. Santa Monica Beach

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As far as lenses go:

1. Be sure to have a wide angel

2. Include a portrait lens (even if all you have is the Nikon 18mm-105mm 3.5-5.6)

* If you’re shooting outdoors before sunset, you will be okay. When I started out practicing at Little Corona Del Mar Beach, I only had a 75-300mm 4.5 lens. Using a tripod (yes it can be tricky to use one in the sand) I got great results with this lens!

3. A flash (Nikon SB 900 Speed Light).

Since California has the most amazing sun sets, I highly recommend you use a flash to capture the oranges, pinks and blues at sun down!

I have some weddings coming up if you are interested in shooting with me. Email me at darice at daricemichelle dot com and we’ll go over the details!

Have a great day Kim!

Sincerely,

Darice Michelle

Photo Card Creation.com

January 13, 2010 – 9:57 am

jse_Use_Zedan_Christmas_2009 Photos By: Darice Michelle

So what do you do with your disk of images once your wedding or family portrait session is complete? Don’t let your disk collect dust, do something with your photos!

I know an incredibly talented woman who will turn your photos into adorable Invitations, Announcements, Birthday Invites, Thank You & Holiday Cards, Wall Art and much more! So if you haven’t already made good use of your photos, you have to check out Terri’s website at Photo Card Creation.

jse_8x6_NewYears2 Photos By: Darice Michelle

Terri is not only creative, but will without a doubt touch your heart and make a long lasting impression. I met Terri when she first came to me wanting family portraits taken, well after several photo shoots over the recent years, I have grown to value and appreciate her loving, caring, and sweet natured spirit. Terri is a woman that goes above and beyond for her friends and clients. If you haven’t had the pleasure of working with Terri, I highly recommend you check out her work. Her colorful and vivacious heart just pours out in her photo cards.

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To learn more about Terri’s custom-made cards, check out her website or contact her at 904-651-7258 to see more samples.

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Photography Question Time

January 11, 2010 – 6:41 pm

I get a lot of emails with questions from other photographers or photography hobbiests. Since I receive similar questions I thought that posting some general questions here might be of use to others who want to pick my brain : )

From Sherry Caterson:

I was wondering if you might know the answer to a couple of questions I have…
1. Is it the computer or the photo editing program that is important when editing a photo? I have I-photo, which is limited, but also I am not sure that when I edit a photo I am getting a true image result on my computer screen. What do you suggest?

My Answer:

There are a multitude of different photo editing programs out there to retouch photos with. For the professional photographer, most use Lightroom or Adobe Photoshop.

For the hobbiest, prancing around in Photoshop may be a bit intimidating and trippy; therefore you can opt out to use more simple programs like Lunapic or Gimp.
2. How do you back up your photos? I plan to be scanning alot of photos, plus ones from my camera… what is an easy way to back these up so I won’t lose pics when my computer crashes (which has happened in the past). A lot of photos also seems to make my computer run sluggish (i have a mac laptop) I can burn disks..but then do I delete the pics from my computer?…what would you suggest as the best way to back up a lot of photos.

My Answer:

Sherry, I feel your pain. I, along with many others, have lost photos from computer malfunctions and the like, so you are not alone. To avoid any future heart attacks, I now have a complete back up system thanks to a fellow photographer friend, Brian Smith with S & R Photography, who hooked me up. My backup operating systems consists of a Linksys Cisco Network Storage Unit with 2 One-TB Seagate Internal Hard Drives that mirror files so if one fails or shuts down, I can still access the second one…phew! Manually, I drag my photos from the computer to the system. Yet, since life still likes to surprise us with what could go wrong, I still back up my files on disks because you never know what can go wrong.

I’m planning to make digital albums (which I still have to learn about- know anything?), after I scan all my loose photos (tons of them) onto computer and organize them by year, event & faces. I also want to edit them properly if they are faded, or red eye, and maybe do some artsy stuff with them and want to be able to print them out and look good if I wanted to have a print.

My Answer:

Depending upon how much time or money you want to invest your project into will guide you to which album software program or on-line album-making program would be best for you. Try looking at these sites:

I’d be ever grateful if you could answer any of these questions, as I embark on this seemingly never-ending project.

Sherry

Good luck Sherry and I hope that helps!! : )

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