Professional Tips for Photographing a Low Light Situation

These are some examples of images that I captured in Low Light situations without using a flash.  I was able to create more light my adjusting the settings on my camera.

Organization is Key!!

Do you find that organizing and storing your images on CD's and DVD's to be bulky and take up too much room?

Not a problem!!

Here's an inside look as to how I personally store my backups on DVD's. (I of course have them backed up on external hard drives as well and you should absolutely have everything backed up in two locations/ways!)



Here's a really quick and easy step-by-step process to follow:

1- Download cards right away!
Do this so that you can keep them organized into folders by date and event. That way you don't have to sort through the images to separate them out after a month's worth of shooting.

2- Create folders for the 'Originals'.
This is a great way to start especially if you just don't have time to go through the images right away and edit into a 'Favorites' folder and you'll know for sure that if anything happens to your camera, memory cards, or computer, that you already have everything downloaded and backed up!

Create a folder on your desktop and name it by the event and date, then inside that folder create another folder and call it 'Camera Originals'. Download all of your images into that folder at that point.

(If you have time! Edit the images and remove any blurry ones, mis-fires or images with closed eyes and save only your absolute favorites into a 'Favorites' folder within that event folder)

3- Create your Backups!
Copy that main folder into your external hard drive as well as onto a CD or DVD and there you have your two backups and everything is safe!




That's it!! 3 easy and quick steps to assure that all of your documented memories are safe. Now here are a few of my secret tips to add to this! They're not glamorous, but I think you'll be impressed because it's just so easy and compact.

**Storing CD's & DVD's:
I use a media drawer that I purchased from West Elm online and it's nicely covered in canvas and the drawers are the perfect size for disks (there are two drawers so a LOT of memories can be held in this one spot!). Since this is a drawer system, you can keep it on a shelf anywhere (even in a closet if you need) and place other things on top of it to not take away from storage space. Plus, I'm just not a person that likes containers with tops. Call it lazy, but the idea of taking something out so that you have to lift the lid off to get to what's inside just adds a step that I don't feel like dealing with!

To increase the amount of storage space I have for my disks, I use disk sleeves instead of jewel cases. When I need to use a jewel case is when I send a disk to a client and I then use the slim cases as to not take up a lot of their space as well. I prefer white sleeves but you could go even further and color organize your drawer. I take a black sharpie and write on the disk face what it's contents are and also at the top edge of the sleeve so that I can quickly flip through them to find what I need. (As a side note here, make sure that the flap of the sleeve is off to the side for ease of taking them out and placing them back in the drawer).

**I organize the sleeves by date and keep the most current in the front. If you don't have time to edit your images you might have two disks per event - one named 'Camera Originals' and another named 'Favorites' or 'Finals' with that event name and date on each. This is completely ok because you'll know that you're setting up your system to not lose your valuable images.

Also, to keep organized in knowing if you've had time to edit an event - you can look at your backup in your external hard drive and see if there are two folders in that event and if you just have the 'Originals' then you know that you never had time to edit them and can do it when you have extra time!

**Here's a link to the West Elm Canvas Storage unit that I use, They're super cheap and on sale right now and it looks as though they might be phasing this piece out, so I wouldn't wait to purchase it if you're interested!**

Does a picture REALLY say a thousand words?

Well, these are the 'BEFORE' part of her story so you tell me. :o)

Recently a dear friend of mine hired me to photograph her for her business and I was SO happy! Here's why, I know her and know how wonderful she is, how beautiful she is, and how much she has to offer her clients and the images she was using for her business didn't at all relay who SHE really is. They were just images that she had so she was using the best of what she had available.

It took her a while to decide and she was struggling with the investment of hiring me for a few reasons. One being that she'd had her picture professionally taken before and was not at all happy with the results and the other that she really didn't think it was worth it because she wasn't photogenic. Believe it or not, I hear these both a lot! Most of my clients think that they're not photogenic and then love the results after our shoot together. They're usually shocked like I waved my magic wand and all of a sudden they're photogenic. Which is completely true! ;o)

Ok, so not really true about the magic wand, BUT it is because this is what I do well and am an expert in. Please don't even think of hiring me to do your book keeping or cooking (and that's all I'm willing to share about what I'm NOT good at!).

The point is that when you find the right photographer (and there are plenty of amazing ones out there, you really need to focus on hiring the one for YOU) it IS completely worth the investment to have a few really unbelievable images of yourself. With this social media revolution, there's no hiding anymore! It is all about the photo and you want to make sure that you're sending the message YOU want to send and not leaving it up to interpretation. You really want to convey your true personality and expression in your images so that you're attracting more clients/customers.

Are you like sooooooo curious to see what a few of her images looked like in the 'AFTER' part of this story?? Quickly go to my blog to see a few! :o)

Thank you Lilia for allowing me to show your 'before' and 'after' story!!

Would you like to know my advice on hiring the right photographer?? You can read an article HERE that I wrote for a great website called Hip Slope Mama.

It's Okay If They're Not Looking!

A lot of my friends are frustrated by their children being too fast to capture (and that's a whole other photo tip), but that's ok! Your kids don't always have to be looking into the camera to capture an amazing picture of them. It's nice to have a good variety!

Distract them to take the emphasis off of what you're really trying to do......just capture them naturally. When you distract them from feeling like they're being photographed and the focus of the picture, you can capture some timeless moments. Like this one! She was getting changed for the next outfit during a photo shoot and all I said was "Zoe, where's your belly button?". Voila!!

Let me know how it goes and what tricks you found worked for you with your kids! :o)

Lilia's Business Images

Here are just a few of the images from our shoot together.

Nikki Incandela Photography's Video!

Bien Family Images from Video Shoot

These images are from the photo shoot I did for the Video.  Got some great sunset shots in here and just love how the water is so light and contrasts with the dark sand in some of these!

Thank you again Israel, Geri & Zoe!!!!  I appreciate you spotlighting yourselves for my video!!  You're the best!!! :o)

May's Image of the Month

I have a question for you.....

What is YOUR biggest photography challenge??

I absolutely love answering your photo questions and am creating a guide to consolidate all of my photo tips as a free giveaway for those who sign up for my newsletter from my website and I need your feedback.

Please just hit 'reply' to this email (and don't feel that you need to include niceties asking how I'm doing if we haven't spoken in a while, no worries there), and let me know questions that you have or problems that you have concerning photography in any capacity (shooting, lighting, storage, notecards & products, etc).

No matter how simple or silly you think the question is, please add it in your response! :o)

Thank you so much for helping me with this!!! Those who reply to help me out will also receive a copy of the guide when it's completed. Don't miss out, it's going to be jam packed with information!!

Check out my very first video!!

I'm so excited to share this with you!

Click HERE or on the logo to the right to view my very first professional video for my business!! Since hiring a photographer is such an intimate experience, I created this video of me doing a photo shoot with clients of mine (and they were amazingly nice enough to agree!!).

It's really important to not only love your photographer's images, but to have a connection and comfort level with them so that they're able to capture you and your family naturally. It will show on the faces of the subjects when that connection is missing for sure!

Since I'm lucky enough to have clients around the country and referrals from them are given to their friends, I wanted a way to virtually connect with those interested in getting to know me and what it's truly like to have a shoot with me before even hiring me. That is exactly what this new video is going to accomplish for me.

Let me know what you think of the video because I always love getting your feedback!!

The amazing people at Marathon Video shot most of this for me and pulled it all together in a beautiful edit and I wanted to share them with you as well. They're located in Long Island and Paul, the son of the owner Alex, shot the actual shoot at the beach with me. They were great to work with and I'm happy to pass on their information. Please click HERE to visit their website and definitely tell them I sent you.