Tuesday Tips Tricks and Techniques - Finding better light

Light, the crux of all photography. After all photography is simply capturing light but not all light is equal. Summer light is different then Winter light. Morning and evening light is different then afternoon light. And even at the same time of day, light reacts differently depending on how and where it falls. Light is also constantly changing. Clouds move across the sun, overcast days mute the light while trees and buildings block and shape the light. Capturing better photos of anything depends largely on the quality of light.

You will not likely see any spectacular landscapes captured during high noon. There is actually a term for professional and hardcore landscape photographers; wet bellies. This is because to get the best light for a landscape, they are out in the very early morning hours crawling around while the ground is yet saturated with dew.

The above shot was taken just before noon in late november. I was playing with my settings and getting shots of the kids feeding the birds. So while it is not a traditional landscape, it does give an idea of the light on the landscape. Being late Fall you can see the shadows are longer for that time of day since the sun is much lower in the sky. If you were to shoot this same shot in the Summer, the light would be almost directly overhead and much harsher. But lets see how the landscape looks at a better time of day.

This shot was taken at 6:22AM. It was cold and dark when I setup the shot. Very cold for being at the beach but it was well worth it. The light is soft and golden and it shapes the landscape beautifully. Composition and editing aside, if you want to take better landscape photos you have to be up early. Evening light is very beautiful as well, but in my opinion the morning light is just better and you have very few people out at that time of day. Most of them start arriving as soon as the sun peeks above the horizon but you want to shoot before that happens. Of course many of the truly great landscapes happen when a photographer finds a location and visits it often as they wait for the perfect light.

Photographing people is no different, you need to find or make the best light to capture them. Let's have a look back at one of the first "portraits" I took of my daughter.

This shot was taken with a Canon 7D dslr with a canon 70-200mm f 2.8 lens. For some of you that may not mean much, but lets just say that that is a $3,000+ gear setup capable of capturing incredible photos. The photo above is not an incredible photo by any means. It is a photo of my daughter and if that is all I had I am sure I would think it was adorable; I likely thought it was a pretty good photo when I took it. This was captured in direct sunlight in the middle of the day. Her eyes are dark with no light falling on them and the photo lacks contrast. With the gear I was using I should have been able to capture a stunning portrait, but I did not understand lighting at all at that time. I figured you put a subject in light and you could get a good shot with expensive gear. Luckily I was, and still am, part of an online photo community that was not afraid to point out my short comings and what all was wrong with this photo. I am glad they did because of that I have improved and now have some beautiful photos of my children.

The gear is essentially the same in these shots and had little to do with how they came out. True, the gear helps blur the background and will help with lower light photography but the light is the real hero. In the photo of my daughter the light is directly behind her and I exposed for her face. That makes the background lighter than her but with a vignette and some editing it all comes together. The important thing is that the light on her face is softer and there is contrast separating her from the background. And notice her eyes, they have a sparkle and life to them that the first photo I shared did not have. For my son, the light is off to his right side (camera left) and bring a little bit of shadow to his left side. If you don't like the light that is there, you can always bring your own.

So some tips to capture better photos of your kids, or spouse, or boyfriend/girlfriend etc...

Get out of the direct light.

Put the light behind them, or to the side and expose for the skin.

Make sure there is a light showing in their eyes.

Use a reflector to bounce some light back onto them. In the first photo I used a gold reflector for that, in the last photo it is just all natural.

If at all possible, shoot earlier in the morning or latter in the evening when the sun is not so high in the sky.

Find open shade.

Follow this blog :)

Seriously though, there is so much to learn about how light works and reacts with the surroundings that I couldn't cover everything in one blog post. So check back next Tuesday where we will continue our exploration of light. We will talk more about open shade, light modifiers, natural light modifiers and artificial lighting. Join me and I will help you to capture better photos that will last you a lifetime.  And soon you will learn how much you can do with light.

Come back next week where we will discuss using a reflector, both artificial and natural. See you soon. And if you have any specific questions leave them below in the comments. I love to hear from you.

Weddings and Broadway and Zombies, Oh My!

This was an absolute thrill of a weekend as far as work goes. Friday night I got to cover the Ugly Bug Ball for Amazement Square. The tables and costumes were amazing and it was just so much fun meeting so many good people. I may be biased, but the Sweeney Todd table was spectacular, plus meeting the people from Fusion Salon was so much fun. I mean, how awesome does this Sweeney Todd look? (more after the jump)

 It wasn't all gore and creepy though. We had the well known Jennifer Prince of Bliss and the Mike McKendree of the 93.7 KHF Morning show representing Annie.

The lion King, Tarzan, Cats and more were all represented in all their glory.

Fast forward to Saturday and I was second shooting for LuAnn Hunt of LuAnn Hunt Photography  at Amanda and Matt's wedding. It was a little cool out but the Fall colors and the wedding day fun was warming. 

On to Sunday and it was hordes of zombies at the United Way Run For Your Life fundraiser. I worked with Tabitha and the united way as well as a couple of other photographers to help them create the marketing materials for the event. During the event Katie and I ran a photo booth for any of the zombies looking to get an awesome photo done. It was a beautiful evening and there was a great turn out. 

I absolutely love my job, I love the people I get to meet all of the time and I love where things are going. I strive to be sure I glorify God in all that I do, so even when shooting zombies I pray that my actions will show my love for Him always. So that was last weekend, now we are on to blogging, shooting a couple of family sessions, trick or treating and more. Mini sessions are scheduled for November 9th and the Bliss Venue tour is the 10th. So what did you do this weekend?

Wedding Planning Wednesdays - Engagement Photos and the wedding photographer - Virginia Wedding Photographer

It's that time of week again, hard to believe another week has slipped by so quickly. We are just under 8 months left in planning our wedding and at times it feels like we have so much left to do but I think it is important to realize what all has been done so far.

We have our location for the ceremony and reception picked out and reserved. We, well Katie has, bought the wedding dress; she is doing an excellent job hiding that from me as well. We have also picked out two possible cake vendors which we will be meeting with soon. The colors have been chosen, although there is still the question of the hue. I (Josh) never put much thought into how many hues one color, purple, could have. The date has been chosen as well as where we plan on honeymooning. We took a quick getaway to Williamsburg over the weekend where we took our own engagement photos.

This brings up a good question, should you shoot your own engagement photos? Being as we are wedding photographers and I (Josh) learned a lot about about photography by doing self portraits, we figured we would save some money and do our own. There were definitely some pros and cons to going this route. For Pros, we didn't have to pay anyone. We got to do them in one of our favorite places, Williamsburg, Va. We setup the shots that we wanted and I think we got some beautiful shots together. For the cons, that is a little more difficult. When you have a photographer doing them you get to give your full attention to your fiancé, I think I did pretty well dividing my attention and I was still able to get some pretty candid shots since I just held the remote shutter and turned my attention to Katie. 

There were many missed focus shots because, well, there wasn't anyone behind the camera. The biggest thing for me (Josh) though was I took the shots, edited them and did the slideshow so I didn't get the full impact of seeing them for the first time; Katie did get that though so I was very happy with that. So would I do it that way again? Absolutely, but I caution you to not do it unless you have a familiarity of doing self portraits. I think I will still be surprising Katie in the next week but I can't divulge anymore on that since she will see this :) Love you Katie :)

Our wedding photos will not be done by us, it was actually a pretty big process deciding who would do our photos. A few local first choices were booked for our date, one had gotten out of doing weddings and some were out of our price range. In the end I am very happy and thrilled to have Emily Russell of Emily Russell Photography capture our day. Check out her facebook page by clicking on the link

over her name. 

I knew Emily from when I lived in Michigan and through the power of social media reconnected. And being a

photographer we messaged often talking about the business and I even was privileged to assist her on a wedding.

So things are progressing well even though we still have much to do. One thing we have both found that is very important

is that we continue to take time to continue to grow closer together. The weekend getaway helped a lot, especially as work 

is devouring much of our time and everything else. We have also started going to a bible study to grow closer to God as we 

grow closer together. Premarital counseling is also in the works as we both realize that relationships and marriage takes a lot

of work and effort. We know there will be good times as well as bad times and we have both seen and continue to see very 

unhealthy relationships around us. We will be different and we hope to be an inspiration and help to others. 

Marriage is work, there is no easy way. Some people choose to jump from relationship to relationship and quickly run when things

get hard. We have been blessed to not have had any big trials but we know that they will come. Because of that knowledge we know

we must work hard at the foundation so that when the storms come we will make it through. Neither of us take the commitment of 

marriage lightly and we hope to be a light to those around us. Engagement to Katie is my promise to marry her and this is our foundation 

building time. It isn't that we don't want to build the house immediately but we know we want our house built on the rock. So come and walk 

with us. 

Josh & Katie Engaged - Virginia Wedding Photographer

Yes we are Engaged :) I know the ring made it official but for me (Josh) I find having the engagement photos done helps to cement the fact in my mind. Perhaps this is because I don't have a ring to wear, so having official photos done is kind of like my ring. So who took them? We did of course :) I heard it said that you can't do your own engagement photos but being that photography is our life and business it only made sense to shoot them ourselves. Plus Katie won't let me do our wedding photos so I had to do something.

Normally I would like to write up a little something on the engaged couple but we put ourselves out there all over the blog and our website that it would seem to just be repeating ourselves. If you haven't read it already though, I did write a post about  Why Am I Getting Married which you should totally check out.  The weather was very uncooperative for the Family session we had booked for Saturday so when that ended up being rescheduled we decided to head to one of our favorite places, Williamsburg, and do our own engagement photos. The weather ended up being cool but very beautiful for our session and we both had so much fun being in a place we love, with each other doing what we love. So here is what we captured, we are both so happy to share this time of our lives with you.

Tuesday Tips Tricks and Techniques - Lynchburg Virginia Wedding Photographer

Welcome to the first weekly installment of tips tricks and techniques by Josh & Katie MinsoPhoto. I (Josh) hope to provide you with some tools that will help you better capture all of those memories happening around you. As you are most likely aware, cameras are everywhere. You would be hard pressed to go anyplace and not see a cell phone camera, compact or even someone carrying a big old honking DSLR around taking pictures of everyone and everything.

If you are on facebook or twitter (or any number of other popular social sites) you are likely bombarded with many pictures everyday. Your friends dog, your brothers dinner, or your grandchildren. Photography is great and while many professionals may be worried about the influx of cameras everywhere, I am happy to have these tools at my disposal to capture life as it happens around me.

So where does this blog come in? Every Tuesday I (Josh) will be posting a tip trick or technique to help you better capture those memories happening around you everyday. This blog is for everyone as I will offer help to those just wanting a better cell phone picture to professionals looking to do more advanced lighting techniques.

Why am I helping you? Isn't this going to take business away from me? Personally I just absolutely love photography and I want you to all be able to capture life's moments easier and better. As wedding photographers we notice so many cell phones and ipads and other digital cameras at weddings that it can sometimes get in the way.

We hope you will be considerate and be aware of the paid photographer so that they can get the shot they need and the bride wants without your head in it, or even your cell phone. But I also can see the value in the moments you are capturing. We cannot be everywhere at once so we like that you are helping to capture the memories. Don't forget to not get too wrapped up in shooting that you forget to make your own memories while you are there though.

So please be aware of the professionals as you shoot but don't worry, we can work around it as well.

Ok, well now that we have the introductions out of the way lets get on to the tips tricks and techniques. Since we are on weddings lets continue with that theme. There is always the go to shots such as the first kiss, the cake cutting, the first dance and so on but if there is a professional or two at the wedding, they will be sure to get those shots. 

Instead look around to see what is happening around you, grab candid shots we may not catch since we are making sure we get the must have shots. Many brides choose to have a photographer team or a second shooter that is able to get those shots as well but many times it is just the one photographer. Look for the emotion, the laughter and the tears. These are the images that carry the most impact and ones that will have people flooding your picture post with comments. Emotion is huge, after all that is what makes weddings so special. 

My partner (and soon to be wife :)) Grabbed this shot while I was busy shooting the cake cutting. The girl with the huge smile on her face was a very close friend of the brides who hadn't seen each other in awhile. This shot meant a great deal to the bride and if I was shooting just by myself I wouldn't have been able to capture this, but someone with their own camera could have. So look around and capture the memories happening right next to you, that is your Tuesday Tip :) Come back next Tuesday for more. 

Announcing Amy and Daniel

I met Amy at Sheetz several years ago. Weird place to meet someone huh? But when you run into someone who genuinely cares about other people and takes an interest in them and their likes it doesn't matter the location. We talked for under a minute most days as I went through her line on my way to work and through it we became friends. I would often show her what I had been working on and she showed real interest in my photography.

Soon I would take my passion and turn it into a full time career and that meant I didn't get to see her on our morning visits but one day when I went to get lunch I ran into her and heard she was getting married and insisted on me photographing her wedding. And what a beautiful day it was. It was unseasonably warm for an October wedding but the smiles and laughter were full of life and it was truly beautiful.

Enjoy a brief look at Amy and Daniels story and share in their laughter and joy. And don't miss the links below about the amazing cake they had.

This cake not only looked amazing but it was so good. I could seriously have just kept eating it and I am not so certain the top of the cake would have ever made it home. The cake was done by Geri's Confections. I seriously recommend checking it out for any of your sweet tooth needs. Find her on facebook HERE or check out the website over HERE.

Announcing Alyssa and Kenneth

Sometimes words are not necessary and I believe this beautiful wedding is one of those cases. The speeches were touching, the decor unique and gorgeous, the people were beautiful and the smiles genuine. Please enjoy in the story through photos of Alyssa and Kenneth's big day.