Saturday was a beautiful day for a session! The weather was just wonderful, maybe a little too breezy, but beautiful.
I traveled down south of the Twin Cities and met up with the L. family. It was so cute to see little miss N waiting for me at the door! We did a few shots around in their yard and at the park across the road then later went over to Lebanon Hills Regional Park. I love using Regional Parks for sessions because of their variety of landscape and grassy hills.
Here's a little sneak peek for the L. family, it was a pleasure to meet you and I hope you enjoy your sneak peek!

Olivia

Saturday I was so happy to see the sun shine because I had Olivia's session that afternoon and we'd already had to reschedule once due to weather. This session was to celebrate her 3rd birthday. Isn't she so adoreable?! I just love those dimples and blue eyes.
Pretty soon she is going to be a big sister and I can tell by how sweet she is with her baby doll that she is going to be great!
Hope you enjoy your sneak peek!

Amanda

I was so happy when I got an email from Amanda's mom asking me about doing her senior portraits! We scheduled them for Friday afternoon, and through a turn of events ended up shooting earlier in the day than first planned. It was a good thing too, because by the time we finished up at Minnehaha Falls the rain moved in. It was about a half hour before her session was first scheduled to begin.
I hope you like your sneak peek Amanda, and have a great senior year!

Happy Birthday!

Today I was so super lucky to get to photography JJ for his first birthday! JJ has overcome so many obstacles in his short little life and it's a miraculous thing that he was home in time to celebrate his first birthday with his family. His family and their experiences in the last two years of having two babies with HLH have touched so many lives, including mine. I'm thrilled to be showing this sneak peek! I hope you like these Laura.
Happy Birthday little guy!

Before the snow came

On Friday I had scheduled a session with my friend Amy and her family. We were getting a little nervous because of weather reports. It was cold and snow was on the way! After going back and forth on whether to go through with it or not we finally decided to try it and if it didn't work out to try it again another day. I don't think we'll have to do any retakes, I'm loving these shots and I hope you do to Amy!

Abby

Saturday evening I had the pleasure of meeting up with Abby, her mom and sister at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton for her senior session. Abby is an accomplished cellist and brought along her cello for some images. This was super fun for me as I love doing new things and making each person's image unique! I just love her green eyes and freckled cheeks!
It was delightful to meet you Abby and family. I hope you enjoy your sneak peek and your senior year!

Kendall turns 1!

This is Kendall, you might remember her from January's baby contest. She was the winner of that contest which gave her a free session and 10x20 storyboard.
We met up for her session at Central Park in Roseville. It was a beautiful day and Kendall was much more happy about this session than she was her last session.
I just LOVE those dimples!
Happy birthday Kendall, I hope you like your sneak peek!









Kendall's winning image:

Senior Sneak Peek!

I was really excited when "B" called me for her senior session. I've know her and her awesome family for about four or five years. I can't believe she's a senior already!
We met at a local school that had a great walking path and nature all around. "B" plays the most beautiful blue guitar I've ever seen. She's developed that talent very well! And it doesn't hurt that her guitar matches her pretty blue eyes.







Every once in a while I like to play around with colorizing, textures and brushes. I thought this was a good image to play around with a texture called "Cracks" by Johnny Magnoski. It's of a cement walkway, but I erased out the cracks in it and added some love letter brushes, which are the words you see in the background. I also added yellow toning to give a sunshine effect. I think I like how it turned out.



I also loved the fields we used, the colors of the grasses and wild flowers.


These are just a few images I played with while uploading her session to my computer. I hope you enjoyed your sneak peek "B" and can't wait to show you the rest of your gallery!

Hill Family Reunion

Last weekend I spent some time at the Hill Family Reunion held in New Brighton Minnesota and what fun it was to meet the extended family of one of my favorite families. Thank you Erin and Matt for having me out to photograph your family!

Matt organized Erin's family to spell Hill on their back lawn, which incidentally was a hill as well!
I had to somewhat manipulate this image to fit for a 10x20 storyboard frame, and I think it kind of looks funny how the porportions ended up, but it's grown on me.



Some of Erin's neices and nephew.





Beautiful Erin and her dad... I LOVE this picture.

Love is in the air...

Meet Heidi and Dave. I feel so lucky to be able to photograph their wedding in May. In the meantime it was really fun meeting up with them at the Historic Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis for an engagement session. Aren't they gorgeous?

I'm so happy that it's warm enough to do outdoor sessions now!

The weathermen were so wrong about how Saturday was going to turn out. We were a little worried that we'd be toting around some umbrellas, but as you can see the day was clear and bright and beautiful, what luck! I've never shot down here before, and it was fun trying out a new spot. I'll for sure be back to shoot again.













I hope they remember me when they start having babies, their kids are going to be adoreable!

Wedding Formals

Today I'd like to address the topic of wedding formals.

You've taken a lot of time and spent a lot of hours scouring over photographer's galleries and portfolios when hiring a wedding photographer. You've chosen your photographer for a reason. Perhaps it's their artistic images that captured you. Maybe it was their personality. Perhaps you really loved the albums they offered.

Now that you've signed your contract and sent in your deposit your photographer may ask you for a list of family members you'd like to have included in your wedding formal pictures.

I've had a lot of brides give me a variety of lists, some very minimal, because they want me to focus more on artistic pictures for the day. And some brides have given me a more extensive list, wanting to make sure they are photographed with each member of their day, which is fine with me, but takes a lot of time and also cuts down on the time I can spend doing more creative work for them. It all depends on what the bride and groom really want, when placing images in their wedding album.

There is one issue I'd like to address with future brides in particular, when considering on who to have photographed in your wedding formals. You and your groom are coming together to create a union.

Mark 10: 7-8 (KJV)

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

This is a union between two families. Two families becoming one. You will now belong to his family, and your groom will belong to your family. There is no reason to have individual pictures of yourselves with your family members. There are several reasons why it is not necessary. First, it quite often ends up with redundant images and burned up time, which will make less time for more artistically inspired photography. It can also wear out the whole family having to wait around for their turn in the pictures. In the end it can end up being one long portrait session instead of a wedding session. Please consider having only one image with you and your family together without your bride and groom, and then one image with both of you with the entire family instead of individual pictures of you with each of your family members.

When deciding what images you really want in your album to look back on in the next 50 years, think about what is most important to you. When choosing your photographer, what images were you drawn to most? Are pictures of your family what you will hold most dear, or will you want more artistic images?

You make the call.

© 2009 Jennifer Klingensmith

Getting started

I've run into a few people lately that have wanted to get into photography professionally. I think that's great. I love to see new views and new ways to do things, and I love new ideas! Fresh blood is great, in my opinion. I don't think you need to go to college to become a great photographer. Most all of the greatest photographers in history were self taught, or had very little formal education in the field of photography. It is a trade, an art, where the technical parts can be learned, but only the greatest artists have it in them to make the greatest images. You can give someone a pencil and teach them to draw a horse, but it doesn't mean that person's horse is going to look realistic or even relatively like a horse!

I do want to share some thoughts I have on the matter of people getting started into photography. I think, that a lot of people are misguided by mainstream media and advertising to think that mega pixels are the end-all, be-all of cameras. The more pixels the better. This is not so. Unless you are planning to shoot the next billboard going up on I-80, you don't need a whole lot of pixels. A fair amount is good. I'd say 8 is a fair number.

We have a family picture above our fireplace that is a 24x36. It's huge. I can read my husband's atomic watch on it and tell you the exact second that picture was taken. It was taken on a 30D, which has 8 mega pixels. I doubt many people need a picture that is much bigger than that.
I think that some people think that more pixels will make their pictures better. This is not so.

If you'd like to get started, first you need to invest in a good SLR body. Sorry guys, no point and shoot will be able to cut it for very long. Nor, as you improve, will you be happy being stuck with that one lens that is stuck to your camera. You need a good SLR that you can change lenses on, that allows you to shoot full manual (that means you can choose your shutter speed, aperture, ISO and focus).

I'd recommend, if you'd like to keep your costs down to start, finding a good reputable dealer in your area or try Adorama or B&H for used equipment that they rate on a scale of wear. Both are very reputable companies. Beware of the businesses giving a "great deal!". When I first started out I got scammed into buying a camera I thought I was getting a great price on, but then the next day they called me and they told me that the camera wasn't "formatted", whatever that meant and that I'd have to pay major bucks to "standardize it". I still have no idea what that all meant, but I quickly cancelled my order and cancelled my credit card so they couldn't charge me a "restocking fee".

Don't ignore the fact that there are also many great local businesses that have great reputations and can be very helpful in helping you find the best first SLR for you and your needs.

Look for a body that is in good shape. I'm more familiar with Canons, so if you are looking for a used SLR I'd recommend a Canon 20D, 30D or 40D body to start, if you can get it with a kit lens even better. You can talk to a Nikon enthusiast to find out what's comparable for Nikons.

You can get a couple of excellent lenses to start with for little money. Lenses DO MATTER. You can have an excellent camera, and a crappy lens will ruin the picture. One I would recommend to start would be a 50mm 1.8. Don't let it's small price ($80-90) or plastic body fool you, this lens is a sweetheart! It's what's called a "prime lens". It won't zoom, you'll have to do that with your feet, but you can get some amazing depth of field (where some thing's in focus and everything behind/in front of it is blurred), and also can shoot in lower lighted settings.

Learn your camera. Get out and shoot a LOT! And READ a lot! Canon has a great website to help you learn to use your new camera, link here. Check out Erin Manning's tutorials with the Rebel Xsi (it can apply to any Canon SLR) in the Canon Digital Learning Center.

Many people make the mistake of thinking they need the latest and the greatest in the world of cameras, but really with a good body and a good lens you can do a lot of great stuff! Learn to work with and master what you have before investing in the next "big idea". This is really important. If you don't do this, you will find that you aren't getting the results that you want and throwing money after stuff that you think will help you. You will never really get what you want.

Editing programs are also nice if you plan to make your pictures better. You don't need to start with a $1500 program. Finding a program that will let you do simple editing is all you really need when starting out. Some things to look for are "does it let me lighten, increase contrast, clone or crop?" The trick is to get it mostly right in the camera, so that you don't have to edit much, if at all. That takes lots of practice, studying and knowing your camera and subject.

© 2009 Jennifer Klingensmith