Hey Girl, Nice Shot

Design Aglow Does it Again

I LOVE the look of this new inspire collection from Design Aglow.  Canvases are my most popular product and being able to show them in collections is a fantastic option.  I know I could spend HOURS figuring out the math on how to put the different sizes together, or just get this collection to do the hard work for me.

Visit the Design Aglow blog to see more about this great product.  They are offering $25 off the full price for this week only but this would be a great tool to have in time for those holiday orders anyway!  And I think I need the hanging guide to help myself...I feel challenged to get things all aligned just right!  :)  These would also look great with stand-outs!

I have some of the other inspire guides and they are super easy to use.  Clients really love being able to see their designs.  And now that I'm offering more digital sessions, I offer the design sessions for a fee as an up-sell for clients looking for help on putting together wall displays.  The fee for the design session is applied as a print credit if they choose to order their prints from me or I keep it as a consulting fee if they decide to order prints for themselves with their purchased digital images.

From the Design Aglow store this collection includes:

• 26 beautiful canvas groupings for all wall sizes and price points
• A 5x7 mini guide (of the contemporary set) for printing convenient "take home" copies for your client (NEW!)
• A wall sizing guide. Know which galleries will fit in your client's home and which won't (NEW!)
• A convenient hanging guide. Send a copy of this lovely tri-fold home with your client along with a tape measure to make hanging their collections super easy (NEW!)
• A customizable price list
• A customizable page to showcase photos of finished canvas galleries (NEW!)

Read more about this collection on the Design Aglow blog, and see how you can earn a $75 gift certificate from Design Aglow!

After all that focus talk...

After talking about setting focus points in the previous post "The Importance of Focus" I thought I would do a quick search and see if there was a handy video that would show you how to set your focus points.  Turns out there is!!!  

(for RSS subscribers, you can see the video on YouTube here)

I came across this video on YouTube that is a quick and simple explanation of how to change your focus points. The guy in the video is using a Canon 40D but I think it is the same on any of the Canon cameras.  One thing I wanted to note is that towards the end of the video he talks about setting your focus and recomposing the picture.  I will say that I did that ALL the time with my Canon 50mm 1.4 lens with fantastic results.  At the time I just left it on center point focusing and always recomposed.  However, my Canon 50mm 1.2L does NOT like it if I try to do that.  I had a really hard time with missing my focus when I first got it because I tried to use the same way that I did my 1.4 but now that I just change the focus point frequently and don't recompose my photos has been much sharper!  Your results may vary.

If you are shooting at open apertures, you MUST get you focus down.  When you have such a shallow depth of field, letting the camera choose what to focus on will WILL will result in unfocused faces and eyes.  The camera is usually going to focus on the closest poing which may be your subject's arms or nose...in either caes, the eyes would not have the sharpest focus.  In most cases you are going to want the eyes to be in focus!  So this is a skill that is essential for you to master!

New Product | Urban Textures

This is a little something I have been working on for a while and I'm so excited to finally launch it.

My very own collection of TEXTURES available for purchase from this site.

I love working with textures and I put together this collection from original images I photographed in the area surrounding my loft.  Visit the Urban Texture Collection page for more information on purchasing the 13 texture files, view examples of the textures, and see a video tutorial on how to use textures in Photoshop.

(Edited Image with No Texture)

(Sample with Warm Rain Texture applied at 100%)

(Pocket of Dust Texture applied at 100%)

See more examples and purchase with online download on the Urban Texture Collection information page.

Remember when I was talking about how fab the Totally Rad Actions Dirty Pictures Photoshop Plug-in looked?  Well, if you have already bought Dirty Pictures, you can actually add these textures into that plug in.  And textures are so addictive once you get going with them!!!

The Importance of Focus

This week I am emphasizing the importance of concentrating on focus with my associate photographers and thought I would include the same information here on the blog

How many of you show your clients pictures from the back of the camera as you go?  Well, do it with caution.  Because sometimes a picture that looks great on the back of the camera is not actually client worthy when you go back and start reviewing your images.

As I review the images from a shoot in Lightroom, I rate the ones I want to edit so I can filter them out later.  And when I see a photo I want to include I always zoom in on the face at 100%.  The reason?  Because some photos may look fine web sized BUT actually have the focus be off just a little bit.  Here is an example...

These two pictures were taken within seconds of each other.  The web sized versions look pretty much the same.  But above them are the 100% crops of one eye from each baby.  Notice what a big difference there is in the focus.  The first picture the eye is MUCH sharper and you can see a little crud to the right of the eye.  The second photo is clearly not in focus and you can't even see where that crud is.  So if you had not viewed the image at 100% before showing it to the client, you are setting yourself up for a bad situation - especially if they decide they want to order a large print. 

So, be sure you check your focus carefully before showing your client your images.  I have noticed a number of new photographers that seem to have very soft focus in their images. Focus is something that you should definitely not compromise on.

Both photos taken with the Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 50mm 1.2L Lens.

Wordsmith: Sale Items

I've blogged in the past about the Wordsmith guides and I just noticed that they are on sale right now so I wanted to point that out in case anyone is thinking about purchasing them and just hasn't yet.

Visit the Wordsmith blog to order the guides at the sale price!

I talk about the Wordsmith guides here:

• Planning for Packages
• At a Loss for Words
• What to Wear - Shortcut

The What to Wear guide is great for generating a PDF file that you can email to your clients.  I tweaked it to suit my style and taste, added in my own pictures, and now I have a document that is easy to send out!

The What to Write guide is FANTASTIC.  Especially if like me, you run your business via email.  When I need to respond to something it takes me FOREVER to think about what to write.  For example, just this week I was sent an email from someone interested in setting up a portrait session for 12 people Thanksgiving weekend.  Now, I don't typically do big group photos...and I'm going to be out of town for Thanksgiving, and instead of writing "no can do" I was able to go to my what to write guide, copy out the "extended family portraits when you don't do them" email, tweak and send.  It took me about 2 minutes instead of the 15 I surely would have spent trying to word it just right!

Finally, the what to sell guide is another great resource.  It gives you step by step instructions on how to sell your prints, even when you don't do in-person ordering sessions.  So many of us are so busy including our clients that frequently email and online ordering are preferred to in person ordering.  Joyce's guide gives you a great head start to putting together your own system.

I do want to point out that in any of these cases...you should tweak the information to suit you!  Consider them inspiration to create your own process!

Animoto Video Samples

Last week I blogged about Animoto's new feature where you can add video into your musical slideshows.  I was really excited to give it a try so I made sure to shoot some video this weekend both at the portrait session I had Saturday morning, and when I took my kids to the zoo on Sunday.  Now that I've made these slideshows I can picture how I can really incorporate more video work into my shoots.  I'm so excited about this.

Since my Canon 5D Mark II has the built in video capabilities, during my shoot on Saturday I would just switch over to video, shoot a quick 15 seconds or so of video, and then switch back over to take pictures. I do not use Live View when shoot pictures.

So here is my first sample using client photos.  I had this session on Saturday morning with an 18 month old girl.  The video portions are of her dancing around in two of the four outfits, and generally running around in a third outfit.  I think in the future I would love to do some more "behind the scenes" type video combined with the finished images. 

18 Month Portrait Session from Jessica Grieves on Vimeo.

I also took my camera to the zoo with me this weekend to try to take some pictures and video of the visit with my children.  They are 2.5 yrs and 4.5 years so they LOVE visiting the zoo.  And since we are members we go frequently so they know lots of the animals.  I took pictures of some of the animals and some video of the lion training and the kids riding on the carousel.  I think this would be a great and fairly easy way to create video slideshows too.

Houston Zoo Visit - August 30, 2009 from Jessica Grieves on Vimeo.

I think this is a great addition to the Animoto feature set.  I would love to see more granular controls on the video length timing but otherwise it was super easy to add in a segment and you have the choice whether to include the sound or not.  Give it a try!  Come back and comment with a link to your video - I'd love to see how others are using this!