Hello buds and sprouts! Today I want to talk about what not to do while in the middle of doing a photoshoot yourself. 
(also scroll past this blurb if you just came for photos)

1. Don't leave all the setup and lighting to the last minute. You'll be ready, vibing, looking great in makeup or whatever, then suddenly.. BAM... you're running around like a crazy chicken with your head cut off in high heels. Which isn't fun. Also you could have lighting issues where you just cant get it where you want to and then you have to spend hours, literal hours, trying to get it right(and still not getting it quite right)

2. If you're having trouble with the lighting, do not reset your camera settings... it is a trap.... you want to know why? Well ill tell you why! You'll be loving the shots, they look super cool, and blamo! You realize while editing that oh no! You forgot to change the photo size back to your standard and now you have to work with smaller photos, which is okay i guess but it makes it a lot harder, especially if you're shooting in camera raw normally and then have to use adobe bridge to find all the photos and open them to batch edit colour. Bleh. 

Here are now some things i recommend:

1 . Preset your lighting and test the photos and settings before getting ready. It'll save you soooo much time and effort, especially since if you're like me getting ready gets you pumped up to do things!

2. Check your camera settings, is it on the right size?

3. Use canon connect, a mirror or a tv hooked to your camera to watch how you look in the camera, especially shooting yourself with a timer remote, you'll end up with far less out of frame shots that you look great in, but impossible to use.

Anyways... here are the non spicy versions of my Pumpkin Fox shoot! I had a ton of left over pumpkins from the fall harvest and figured I should do something with them before they rot.

Photos taken on Canon 6D

​

Hey guys! How are you! Today I'm starting my first ever photography blog post!!! WHEEEE

So I'm still completely a noob with this stuff but I feel like it may be helpful to talk about stuff too? Learn new ways from others while posting about what I have learned that will maybe help others? So lets get started. ( And feel free to comment with any suggestions, or if something i say doesn't make sense)

So recently a couple friends and I decided we were going to take some sunset photos. Pick a place, get ready, and then we go to another place cause bf said it would be better to see the sunset. (I mean it was) Fun fact, it was a hike up a steep hill... and I was wearing my Yennefer heels... cool cool cool. That sucked so bad .. I have to get into shape for the summer haha.

If you're going to shoot outside always setup a mini base camp. Having to haul a bunch of gear everywhere is terrible. Have a place where people can sit in between shots, have snacks, and leave unnecessary stuff.hen take out your gear. I brought with me: 2 speedlights, one gel pack(for different colours), one tripod, one lightstand, and a soft box(I guess Octoboxes are better, but the strobe and octobox i have at home aren't very portable). If you're shooting in the forest the light with the softbox is amazing to fill out any of the dark spots on the subject, without having to blow out the background to light up the subject. It also give some really cool effects.

So we started in a shaded forest clearing and I took some photos of Princess JoJo's Jedi ( I lent mine to her). As you can see below its got a nice moody effect. Fun fact... apparently my two BRAND NEW packs of batteries were completely dead... so even though i brought more than one speedlight... I could only use the one... suuuuper fun. As you can see to the right side of the photo shes lit up by the soft box to be able to have the dark looking background and still have some life and brightness to the model(Also really helps with the ability to keep the ISO low and not lose out on detail) . I love this photo because the cape flip and the light/shadows on her face just worked out so well!
Photo was taken with 
-Canon 5D Mark I
-50mm lens
-1/400 sec at f/5.0
-ISO 100

We did a few of these, I got a few shots of Yennefer, then we migrated to the cliff side while the sun was setting. Same trick to get the sunset and model lit up together, set the camera darker and have a light on the model! Worked really well. In the below pic of HopStep Cosplay you can see shes lit up and so is the sunset(well as much as i could get of it, cause of the fog). LOOK AT THE AMAZING COLOURS! I used the Infinite Color Panel to fit through settings to bring out the colours of the sunset a bit more... but it was just this pretty in real life. 
​Photo was taken with 
-Canon 5D Mark I
-50mm lens
-1/200 sec at f/6.3
-ISO 100

Unfortunately the batteries in my working speedlight also died during the sunset.. so we had to wrap up quickly. Without the light all I was able to shoot would either be the model and white background, or sunset and silhouette.. which the latter isnt too bad... but not really what i wanted.

And there you have it! Any questions or advice let me know! If you would like to stay informed of when I post please sign up and you'll get emails when I do! All the photos of these two lovely ladies can be found in my Photography of Others section!! 

XoXo

Roze