How to take BEAUTIFUL pictures of your Christmas Tree

Merry Christmas everyone!!

In honor of this wonderful time of year, I give you a tutorial on how to take bright, beautiful pictures of your Christmas tree.

1. Set up your camera on a tripod. If you do not have a tripod, set it on a solid surface where it will remain steady.

2. Set your camera on Shutter speed priority. There should be a setting on almost any camera, whether it is a DSLR or not.

3. Set the shutter speed all the way down to 5" which will hold the shutter open for 5 seconds. 

4. Set the camera where you want it, and then click the shutter button. You will hear one click, and then 5 seconds later, a delayed click. Try not to let the camera move during this time.

5. A bright and beautiful pictures should come out. What you are doing is telling the camera to take in 5 seconds worth of light, instead of just a split second.

And there you go!! A beautiful picture of your tree. Try it a couple time adjusting other settings. Comment below if you have any other questions!

Merry Christmas everyone!! :) 

Jeffrey's Senior Pictures

Jeffrey is my kid brother, and he is a Senior in high school this year. I did some of his pictures this summer, but we decided to go for round two and get pictures in his band and soccer uniforms. He is on the Varsity soccer team and the Senior drum major in the marching band, the Big Red Marching Machine. He's a great brother, and I was so thankful to be able to take his senior pictures!

Lindsey and Josh

So, Josh and Lindsey have been my friends ever since we met freshman year. Lindsey was my roommate, and Josh is my boyfriend's best friend. This spring/summer they began to get to know each other a little bit better, and soon their friendship gave way to feelings for each other. Now they are dating and they are so super cute! They are famous for "dorking" around, playing Zelda, watching star wars, or doing other "dorky" things. They are super fun and I'm so glad these two finally got together! :)

For this shoot, Josh messaged me and we worked out a surprise. He brought Lindsey down to the park where I was waiting, and the photoshoot was a complete surprise to her! It even rained, but it didn't matter. We still took pictures! They are super fun people, and look how cute they are:

The Origin

Taking pictures has always been a huge part of my life. When I got into high school, my mom bought me my first point and shoot camera, and I then became obsessed with taking pictures. For me, pictures were so important. If I didn't take pictures, I felt as though I was going to forget. Forget what everyone looked like, forget what we did; forget us. I look back to the thousands of pictures I took in high school, and I am so grateful that I took as many as I did. Even though the quality of pictures was bad, and I annoyed every one of my friends in the process, I managed to do what I sought out to do; to capture the essence of our lives. All the highs were there. All the lows were there. All the spontaneous nights, midnight drives, sleepovers, band rehearsals: its all there for us to see. You can see it in the pictures- our high school years, protected and forever immortalized in the pictures.

It is that fierce need to document and capture life in photographs that really drove me to become good at what I loved to do. I began to realize that as much as I loved to document my own life and my own adventures, sometimes I needed to just live it. I spent way more time documenting each experience than I did actually experiencing it, and it took me a few adventures robbed from me to realize that I needed to put the camera down. But I so wished that I had some random person tailing me and taking all the pictures so I could still have them and the experience all at the same time.

I began to become interested in taking pictures of other people's lives. If something interesting was happening to someone I knew, I would grab my camera and document the whole thing, and then give them a CD with the photos on it. They would thank me, saying that they were so happy with the pictures, and that is when I began to think about potentially becoming an actual photographer.

I bought my DSLR because my point and shoot finally gave out. (Poor thing, it lived a long and active life.) I bought it used off a photography buddy of mine, and my obsession blossomed into full on crazy. I couldn't put it down. Day one of owning it I took it to Guatemala and shot about 500 pictures. I loved it. And as soon as I began to understand the basics of how it worked, and I saw the quality difference in the pictures, I wanted to become good at it. I knew, then and there, I wanted to take this somewhere.

Self doubt held me back for a long time. Now that I understood some components of actual photography, I realized how much I didn't know. Suddenly, I just felt limited by not knowing what white balance was, or what a proper photo composition was, or how to edit like a pro. I was, and still am, my own worst critic, and I truly didn't think that my pictures were good enough. I knew nothing of how to run a small business, or marketing, or web design. I felt inadequate and hid behind my lack of knowledge and equipment for a while. However, in due time I realized that the only way I'm going to get better, is to try, fail, and get better. So this summer, I dove in, head first. I still have a ton to learn, but I'm practicing and learning new things daily.

I have no idea how this photography business adventure will end up. It could flourish and be very successful, if I am wise enough to never stop learning and always push myself. Or it could not, and that is okay. What I am about is capturing life. I will do it as a pro, or I will do it just for fun. Regardless, this is what I am passionate about, and why I do what I do. I want to be able to look back and have the pictures tell me the story of my life, and the story of the lives of those I take pictures of. That's what I am all about!

-Kristen

How to Capture Writing With Sparklers

Hey all!! With it being the forth of July, here's a helpful "How to" post for capturing a cool new photo trend on the forth. I am of course, referring to

Writing with Sparklers!!

Here's how to achieve a picture such as this one with my family being super patriotic!

1.) You need a tri-pod. Or something that you can set your camera on that will not move. Set your camera up so that all the subjects can be seen.

2.) Crank the the shutter speed down until its low. If you speak photography language, or own a DSLR, you will understand what this means. In normal people speak, that means that the speed in which the shutter opens and closes to take the picture will be really slow. You know how you usually hear a "click,click" when the picture is being taken? Now it should sound like "click....... wait for it.....click". This is important, because in between the first click and the second click, the camera is capturing all the movement of the light and blending it together. If you don't own a fancy camera, I believe this can be done with a point and shoot. You might just need to pull out your manual and find out how to adjust the shutter speed. 

3.) Have everyone line up and light their sparklers and stand completely still. Press the button, and have everyone draw their letter/shape. Just have them continue to retrace their letter until the camera does the second click.

**Disclaimer: Your letters need to be done backwards if you are trying to spell something out. My Number 4 (cough cough, little sister Emily) needed a couple of tries because she was drawing it the correct way, but it looked backwards on the camera. 

And that's all, folks! Obviously depending on how elaborate your sentences are, it might take a few tries, but its easy to figure out. 

For those who do speak photography speak, this picture was taken at:

1600 ISO

5" Shutter Speed. That held the shutter open for approximately 5 seconds.

1.8 F-stop.

And my white balance was on auto.

I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions comment below I and I would love to attempt to answer, and just because it's cute, here's a picture of my 2 year old cousin watching fireworks for the first time:

AWWW. He was soo cute! Anyway, Happy Forth of July!! I hope everyone spent it eating hot dogs, watching baseball, doing sparklers and fireworks, and other American stuff! Have a great rest of the day!

Alex's Head Shots

Alex is an up and coming dancer and actor, and asked me to take her head shots for her audition next month! She is absolutely gorgeous and they turned out beautiful! Break a leg at your audition, Alex!

Bark For Life

I had heard of Relay For Life, but until 2 weeks ago, I had never heard of "Bark" for Life. I was asked to be a photographer for the event, and I soon learned all about it! The concept is the same as Relay for Life, only instead of humans walking around the track raising money to fight cancer... it was their cute doggies! I was a photographer for Alexander Fine Jewelers, who was a sponsor for the event and who hosted a "Cutest Dog Competition". If you go to their facebook page, Alexander Fine Jewelers, you vote by "liking" your favorite pooches, and the one with the most likes wins! But most importantly, every 'like' that the dog's receive is a dollar that Alexander Fine Jewelers donates to fight cancer! What an awesome thing! Go to their page and like the pictures, but you can check them out here first!