Changing Your Shutter Speed Will Change Your Life!

Back in the olden days when I knew nothing about photography...like, a few months ago, I used to think that shutter speed was only important when shooting things like sports or at night.  But I'm here to tell ya, I was wrong.


Shutter Speed is just as crucial to great exposure as Aperture and ISO.
My very basic definition of Shutter Speed is how long your shutter is open, which determines how much light is let into your photo.
The longer it's open, the more light that comes in, the lighter your photograph.
The shorter it's open, the less light that comes in, the darker your photograph.


The number values with shutter speed are the amounts per second your shutter is open...250th of a second...800th of a second...and so on.  When I'm trying to decide if I want to let in a little light or a lot of light I get confused sometimes when I'm thinking in numbers.  But I never get confused when I'm thinking of food so I do this little trick...I ask myself
"Do I want a piece of a pie that's cut into 250 pieces or a piece of a pie that's cut into 800 pieces?"  Obviously the pieces of a pie cut into 250 pieces are going to be larger than if it's been cut into 800 pieces...get it?
So if I want a lot of light I choose 250...if I want a little light I choose 800...


That's way too much math for me so here's a few photos to show how changing your shutter speed, and nothing else, can dramatically alter your portraits.


The glamourous shooting location for this little lesson is the shed in my backyard!
The sun was way too bright to shoot in so the shed was providing a great spot of open shade.
I shot with my back to the sun so my model could face the light source, which gives great catchlights
in the eyes, but still be evenly lit without harsh shadows.  


If you look at the pavers you can see very clearly the line of shade and sun.  There wasn't a ton of room but I just needed some close ups so it was perfect.

My model for all of 10 minutes was my Wild Child.  Ain't he pretty??

I set my camera to Manual mode.  My aperture was set at 2.5 and my ISO was 250.  I didn't change those settings for any of these photographs.  All I did was change my shutter speed...I started out at 640 and worked my way down to 200 which is the lowest standard shutter speed my Nikon d300s will go to.  

These photos are SOOC...not been touched at all.

You should be able to see pretty obviously the difference in the amount of light coming in from 640 shutter speed to 400 shutter speed.


Here's a few more...

I could have achieved the same results in coloring by changing my aperture but I wanted to maintain

a 2.5 aperture so I could blur out my background.  So by changing my shutter speed I didn't have to lose any creative aspect.  I love that!

So get out and experiment with your Shutter Speeds...ya never know what you might create!

Makin' It Work ~ Shooting In Tight Spaces

Are you ready for the next fab post in my series about Makin' It Work?
Of course you are!

Head on over to Texas Chicks Blogs and Pics and I'll tell you all about the shooting situation that absolutely gives me nightmares and how I've just had to Make It Work and ended up with some beautiful artwork...like this lovely portrait...

And in case you missed the first posts you can find them here...

Makin' It Work ~ Using 1 Studio Light

Makin' It Work ~ Using Window Light

Enjoy!

Anatomy of....Dreamy Senior Girl

I've had so much fun this summer getting to photograph lots of High School Seniors!
I like to get all the fun poses with my Seniors but it's great to get a little bit Glam too with the girls!

Here's a portrait from a recent session that I just thought was lovely and it was very easy to edit.

First, I opened up my image in my brand new Lightroom 3!!  I've just started working with this program and it's quickly becoming part of my regular workflow.  The white balance adjustment is wonderful but so far my absolute favorite tool is the CROP tool!  It Rocks!  ...you know I love me some good cropping ~


I would never have been able to figure out this program though near as quickly if I hadn't taken Erin's online LR classes...they were incredible!  I learned in 2 nights what I'm sure it would have taken me months to figure out.  Run quickly and sign up for those classes!

I adjusted the white balance in LR on my original photo...

Then I added a Jessica Drossin texture at about 65% to add some dimension to the background.  But I didn't want it on my girl at all so I lassoed around her entire body and chose Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur to keep the coloring but blur the texture on her skin.  The coloring was a little too much still so I erased lightly part of the texture off completely...that's what the gray part is on the layer mask:

Next I wanted to add some contrast so I ran a new *fab* action by Patti Brown...Oil Painting.  It's thebomb for portraits!  I reduced the opacity of the Oil Painting layer to 25% and erased even more off the eyes so they stayed somewhat sharp...

Finally for just that extra pop I ran the Coffeeshop Vivid 2 action and chose the Soft layer for a little extra brightness...

And here's my final ~ lovliness ~

Honestly every image of Kayla was pure perfection with or without any editing I may have done...she's just such an incredible girl and WOW! what a fantastic model!  

You can check out below her cool little video I made that shows more of her lovliness:)  Enjoy!

Warning: the music on this one will stay in your head ALL DAY!