I live too far away from my photographer, now what!

My first couple of shoots, Tim Eatherton was my photographer. He's totally fantastic! Like super fantastic! But now I live 4 hours away, so I've had to figure it out on my own. 

Let me make this perfectly clear. . .I am, by no means, a photographer!

​I have a camera, actually the same camera as Tim. A Canon EOS Rebel T3 with a basic 55 mm lens. But somehow, his photos always looks more beautiful than mine. 

​See, look at how beautifully Tim captured Melissa's sweet smile, that beautiful bokeh in the background, the colors. It's all perfect!

Someday, I'll be able to capture that "bokeh!" Bokeh is the effect of a soft out-of-focus background that you get when shooting a subject, using a fast lens, at the widest aperture, such as f/2.8 or wider  The word comes from the Japanese word boke, which means "blur" or "haze", or boke-aji, the "blur quality." Bokeh is pronounced  BOH-kay. Ok, enough geeking out about the word itself, how do I achieve it!

To me, bokeh makes the photos so dreamy, so wistful, so beautiful, like in this photo Tim took of Shelly. 

It seems simple to achieve bokeh. You just need to increase the distance between your subject and the background. You can do this by decreasing the distance between the camera and subject. The more shallow the depth-of-field, or further the background is, the more out-of-focus it will be. 

I love this photo Tim took of Melissa. I wonder what she's dreaming about?

Depth of field, aperture, bokeh, these are all the things I need to learn! And slowly, I'm getting there, photo by photo, I'm learning. 

There are two photographers that I follow, in my effort to learn how to take halfway descent photos. The first one is Irene Rudnyk. Here's a link to her youtube channel: bit.ly/2E9Du4M

Irene Rudnyk, photographer.

One of Irene's many beautiful, and magical photos. (c) Irene Rudnyk

Irene  videos behind the scenes during some of her photoshoots, teaching you how to set up the shoot, how to work with a model who hasn't modeled before, and how to pick a location. 

She also shows you how to edit your photos using Photoshop. She has a wealth of information!!

The second youtube channel I follow for photography is Jessica Kobeissi. bit.ly/2OhKXjo 

Jessica's work is completely different than Irene's. But it's always good to have two different views to what you are trying to learn. Jessica also teaches you how to shoot, and how to edit, but in a completely different way. It's a bit more confusing for me, but if I keep at it, I'll learn!

I certainty haven't achieved bokeh, Mackenzie is too close to the door, but I liked the contrast between the white chippy door and the blue shawl. 

There's so many things to think about during a photoshoot.  Does the product sit right on the model, is it puckering somewhere, is her hair blocking the item. . .small little things to keep track of but they have a huge effect on your final photo

But just as my grandmother Josefina would tell me, "patience mi hija, patience." With patience, my photography skills will get better. . .hopefully!

I have another photoshoot tonight. Maybe this time I'll figure out the whole bokeh thing! Wish me luck.