Last Friday, I had an unexpected and wonderful photo shoot at Valley of Fire. I checked my email early that morning and discovered that a family visiting from out-of-town was looking for a photographer to take their family portraits at Valley of Fire! Fortunately, my wonderful husband pitched in to help me rearrange our day’s schedule so that I was able to go.

And I’m so glad I could! The two little boys were amazing. Ages 1 and 3, they had been travelling since December 26th and yet were still happy, cooperative and fun to work with. I may or may not have danced with an octopus on my head and worn my flower petal headband, but that is little enough when trying to take photographs of children that young.

It’s been gloomy, overcast and a bit chilly for the past several days here in Las Vegas but last Saturday luck was with us. The clouds broke, revealing a beautiful blue sky; the sun made its appearance and the temperature went right up. This is the time of year I love! The leaves are changing colors and the autumn sky is even more beautiful than the summer sky.

It couldn’t have been a better day for family pictures.

I haven’t finished edited these yet, but that’s no reason not to share a tiny bit. This first image is my favorite family shot and guess what? The location was picked by the 10 yr old. We were walking around the pond and he said, “Right there. This is where we need to take a picture.” I love getting a little assistance during a photo shoot!

Brothers

I always like to get some action shots. The kids just really seem to love being able to goof off and enjoy seeing themselves up in the air if I catch them when they are jumping. They may not be the wall-portrait type pictures, but they sure capture personality and are just a fun bonus.

And now I should get back to editing the rest of the photos!

Take one absolutely adorable 5 yr old girl….

Add in a cute toddling nephew….

And her exuberant best friend.

It just doesn’t get any better than that, does it?

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

But since the weather is cooling off and the holidays ARE approaching (as much as I might try to deny it), this is the time to get in on the great deal that is a mini session! Bring your family, your kids or even your dog and I will spend 30 minutes photographing them in all of their splendor and glory and then will perfect edit the images and place them on a CD for you to use to your hearts desire, all for only $60 (plus tax, sorry). This is a super low price, much, much lower than you’ll find from most other photographers and probably will not be the price I charge for future sessions so that’s an even better reason to rush out and take advantage of this great deal!!

For now, I am planning two sessions: Saturday, October 15th and Friday, October 28th from approximately 4:00-6:30 pm. If you’d like to squeeze in earlier or get dusky sunset pics (I can bring my flash) and go later, simply let me know. I’d also be more than willing to consider another time or day so contact me if something else would be better for you and perhaps we can work it out!

In the meantime, check out some fabulous families I’ve photographed in the past!

Like what you see?

Monday I had the opportunity to photograph FIVE girls. Yep, they’re all in the same family. My husbands says that he’s greatful to have at least one male representative in our family, but I think it would be fun to have a bunch of girls. Think of the clothes sharing, the doll playing, the dressing up that could go on? My own girls are seven years apart and, while they adore each other, they aren’t really on the same level for ‘play.’

I don’t have much else to say. They were wonderful, gorgeous and fun to work with. We did a series of shots in their red, white and blue dresses and then moved onto tutus but you only get to see the dresses today.

Also, I’ve decided that I’m a pretty lousy teacher. I have a head full of information and try to give it all at once which usually just confuses people. I was trying to teach my son how to tell time last night and it just wasn’t a pretty sight.

But, I am determined. I will try, I will break everything down into small blocks of information and I will not give up. And if I completely confuse you, just leave me a comment so I can update better for future readers.

Enough rambling! Three things

Exposure: According to dictionary.com, the definition of exposure when related to photography is: the act of exposing a photographic film or plate to light Basically, when the shutter moves back on your camera and light comes in, then the film or plate is exposed and an imagine is the result. Hopefully.

Exposure can be too bright and ‘blow-out’ the plate, resulting in a white image or too dark, resulting in a black image but the goal is to get just the right amount of light to reach the sensor so that an image is formed that isn’t too light or too dark. And the first goal of a photographer is to figure out how to do that. Consistently. Every time. Without fail. Because it doesn’t matter how cute an expression is or how beautiful the sunset is or how perfect the pose is, if the exposure is off then the photograph won’t be a good one. Yes, there’s a little variation that can be fixed later, but we’re not going to worry about that now.

There are three things that determine how much light hits the sensor.

Shutter speed The shutter is the thing that covers the plate to prevent light getting in before you push the button. When you finally do, it opens for a certain amount of time. As you might expect, the amount of light let in depends on how long the shutter in open. Pretty self-explanatory, right?

ISO ISO stands for International Standards Organization, which pretty much just means that a bunch of different countries got together and decided on a standard measurement. It’s nice to know the ISO 100 means the same thing in the United States and in France, isn’t it? What it refers to is the sensitivity of the actual plate. In film photography, you purchase film with different ISO sensitivities. ISO 100 is great for outdoors but you’d need something higher (more sensitive) for indoors. The great thing about digital photography is that you can change the sensitivity almost instantly, without having to switch out rolls of film or carry around multiple cameras. Higher numbers always means more sensitivity.

Most digital cameras will determine these three things for you on their own, either by default or if you set them to ‘auto.’ However, you can get a much better picture if you control them yourself. Next, we’ll get into the details of each individual component….

Contact me: Caren Keyes

702.882.4694

carenkeyes@keyephotography.com

North Las Vegas, NV]]> http://keyephotography.com/the-elements-of-exposure-what-is-exposure/feed/ 0 http://keyephotography.com/friends-facebook-and-photos-win-25-for-shutterfly/ http://keyephotography.com/friends-facebook-and-photos-win-25-for-shutterfly/#comments Sat, 02 Jul 2011 17:01:42 +0000 Keye Photography http://keyephotography.com/?p=848 *Extended through the end of July!!!!***

What to do with all the digital photos that you’ve been collecting????

Well, photo books and all the other great photo products at Shutterfly are a great option (and make fabulous Grandparent gifts, too). Since I hate to see photos taking up space, unseen on the hard drive, and since I have a grand total of 22 Facebook fans right now, I’m going to offer a special deal!!

Head on over to the Keye Photography facebook page and click ‘like.’ Super easy, right? Every person who becomes or already is a fan of my page will get one entry. If you’d like to get multiple entries, tell you friends! Have your friend, relative or casual acquaintance like Keye Photography and then tell them to leave a comment stating who sent them. They will get an entry, you will get an extra entry.

Every time I pass a 100 fan mark, I will add another $25 gift certificate to the mix. So, right now, I will give away one gift certificate, but if I get past 100 fans, I will give away two certificates and past 200 fans, I will give away 3. If the stars and planets align and I pass up the 300 fan mark, I will add a $50 gift card. If more… well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.

Entries will be accepted until midnight on July 17th and I will announce the winner within 2 days. So what are you waiting for??? Visit Facebook RIGHT NOW!! and take care of your Christmas presents early.

Contact me: Caren Keyes

702.882.4694

carenkeyes@keyephotography.com

North Las Vegas, NV]]> http://keyephotography.com/friends-facebook-and-photos-win-25-for-shutterfly/feed/ 0 http://keyephotography.com/fix-it-friday-my-basic-workflow/ http://keyephotography.com/fix-it-friday-my-basic-workflow/#comments Sat, 11 Jun 2011 04:41:16 +0000 Keye Photography http://keyephotography.com/?p=835 I’ve done a few I Heart Faces contests, but haven’t gotten very involved in the forums over there. Maybe that will change? At the very least, I’d like to participate in the “Fix-It Friday” challenges that they have. Every Friday a photograph is posted and any member who would like to, gets the opportunity to edit it and then post their results and procedure so that we can all learn from each other. Maybe participating will keep me motivated to blog? That’s my hope anyway.

This particular image doesn’t need a lot of work. The main difficulties are that it’s somewhat unexposed and has a blue cast (It was probably taken in the shade or on a cloudy day). It lends itself very well to my basic post-processing so I’m just going to quickly run you through the process I use for most of my images.

First I downloaded the file in RAW and increased the exposure in Lightroom. I also used the white-balance eye-dropper to get me close to the right color. Really, this is a huge improvement. Once of the reasons I love Lightroom so much is that if I was just taking snapshots of my kids, I would apply this adjustment to all the photos in the set, some sharpening and be done. Quick and easy. But we want more this time, so I exported to Photoshop.

In Photoshop, I almost always run Noiseware first. It’s a plug-in for (shockingly enough!) reducing noise, but I’ve found that running it at a low level can help smooth skin just a touch, without it looking fake. I also immediately add a curves adjustment layer and a color balance adjustment layer. In curves, I bumped up the exposure on the face slightly and down on the low end to add a little richness to the dark end of the photo.

Once I’m happy with the overall look of the photo, I move on to details. In this case, the baby had a little bit of goopiness around one eye (always a possibility with babies) My favorite way to deal with this, after much trial and error, is simply to add a blank layer on top of everything else. I use the eyedropper tool to select color from the area and simply ‘paint’ over the problem area on low transparency. I use a transparent brush because I will go over it several times, from different angles, using slightly different colors to get a more realistic look. I also touched up the eyes a bit using a combination of dodging, sponging and burning. I used to only dodge (aka: lighten) but I like the results I get from using a combination better.

Finally, I added a slight vignetting by loosely selecting the baby’s face, feathering the edges as much as possible and then inverting the selection. I used the selection to make a new layer and then set the blend mode to ‘multiply.’ I usually like to reduce the opacity of this layer to about 40%. I then applied an unsharp mask to sharpen the image and saved it.

Once the saved image was back in Lightroom, I did a final crop to make the head a little less centered. I really like to crop in Lightroom because (1) It’s easy to try different things and (2) It’s not permanent until you export. That way, all the information is saved if you need to go back and crop to a different proportion.

Whew! In a nutshell, that’s the way I post-process almost everything, with slight variations of course, depending on the image. It sounds like a lot but I’ve created my own actions for each step so it goes fairly quickly… or would, if I didn’t have to wait for my computer to catch up so often.

Contact me: Caren Keyes

702.882.4694

carenkeyes@keyephotography.com

North Las Vegas, NV]]> http://keyephotography.com/fix-it-friday-my-basic-workflow/feed/ 0 http://keyephotography.com/my-new-and-more-cooperative-model/ http://keyephotography.com/my-new-and-more-cooperative-model/#comments Fri, 20 May 2011 03:59:52 +0000 Keye Photography http://keyephotography.com/?p=822

For months I’ve been struggling with a question. While I may not have been blogging, it’s been constantly on my mind. With what, you might ask? Well, I want my blog to be full of wonderful photography tutorials. I want to have a newsletter that will teach the basics in a step-by-step fashion. I think [...]]]>

For months I’ve been struggling with a question. While I may not have been blogging, it’s been constantly on my mind. With what, you might ask? Well, I want my blog to be full of wonderful photography tutorials. I want to have a newsletter that will teach the basics in a step-by-step fashion. I think about how I want to do it. I rewrite posts in my head. But then I think of the pictures that I have to take in order to illustrate my point and I wonder: Do I bribe my children? Do I hire the neighbor’s kids? Do I sneak it into a professional shoot? And finally, yesterday, I realized that I don’t need an actual living body in order to take example photos.

This morning, I brought home our new baby from… the toy store. She actually cries, crawls, giggles and says, ‘Mama,’ but only with one sound for each. It’s super annoying. On the plus side, she has an off switch, sleeps through the night and stays just where I put her (unless she is kidnapped by another person in the house). I call her “Jane” and I love her. She even has posable arms, legs and head. And Jane is going to help me teach you about photography.

Well, as long as she’s not held hostage by a toddler who apparently thinks that plastic bags make great blankets.

Contact me: Caren Keyes

702.882.4694

carenkeyes@keyephotography.com

North Las Vegas, NV]]> http://keyephotography.com/my-new-and-more-cooperative-model/feed/ 0 http://keyephotography.com/photo-shoot-at-the-jean-dry-lake-bed/ http://keyephotography.com/photo-shoot-at-the-jean-dry-lake-bed/#comments Tue, 03 May 2011 05:40:54 +0000 Keye Photography http://keyephotography.com/?p=802

It’s all about the light. I’ve heard about the Jean lake bed several times since moving here, but hadn’t had a chance to check it out so when my new friend Erin Hatch arranged a shoot with a few photographers and three models, I was grateful for the opportunity to check it out. I was [...]]]>

It’s all about the light.

I’ve heard about the Jean lake bed several times since moving here, but hadn’t had a chance to check it out so when my new friend Erin Hatch arranged a shoot with a few photographers and three models, I was grateful for the opportunity to check it out.

I was even more grateful after we turned out for the 6th time and were bouncing along a dirt round designed more for ATVs than for cars. Definitely a location I was glad to find before trying to take a client there.

But I have a confession. I wondered if it would be boring. After all, what is out there but a flat surface and some distant mountains? I mean, I’ve seen some awesome shots taken out there, but after you get those, then what? Do the same thing for an hour?

Boy, was I wrong. I’ve decided that the fantastic thing about the dry lake bed is the light. No matter which way you turn, the scenery is amazing and pretty much the same so you have full license to use the light however you wish. I was soooooo glad that I brought a speedlight to play with. I only wish I’d had something even more powerful to compete with the sun. But I played with the flash, before and after the sun set, natural light before and after the sun set and my only regret was that I didn’t have enough time. I could have spent twice as long with one model in one outfit and we had three.

I may have had a little too much fun with some of these, but here’s a sneak peak of what I got that day.

Contact me: Caren Keyes

702.882.4694

carenkeyes@keyephotography.com

North Las Vegas, NV]]> http://keyephotography.com/photo-shoot-at-the-jean-dry-lake-bed/feed/ 0