hannah paige photography: Journal

What i'm loving the most about photography right now is how much i am learning.

My first official practice photography session was with our friends, the Wolseys. And what did i learn from that you ask? ... Well first of all... i learned that it super helps to have such a gorgeous family to photograph. When your clients are photogenic it makes things a lot easier... so they were awesome to practice with. The biggest thing i learned from that session was to ...focus. No you can't just point and shoot. No you can't just hold the shutter button down for an hour and snap away. It takes a bit of effort, yo. So i took over 1300 pictures during their session. And.... most of them were blurry, had a yucky blurry spot, or you know, someone wasn't looking where they were supposed to... and that's at me, dang it! haha. It was fun, i learned tonnes... A huge thank you to the Wolsey's for letting me practice on them... and then telling me how awesome i was and how much they love the pictures. HAHA ... i'm good friends with Kayleigh and we now laugh about it. We'll be doing another shoot before they leave the island-stay tuned. Here are a few pics from our practice session. Might i add that these were adjusted in my old editing program.

Here is their beautiful daughter Remy... As you can see the focus is not on her eyes.... that is where it should have been.. the detailing on her shirt looks good how ever. Tip #1 Focus on the eyes.

Here is the gorgeous Kayleigh her self. Just gorgeous...and funny, and awesome, and a great listener, and a great mom, and a great friend. Super amazing person right here. Love her! Gunna miss her when she goes :(

Awwwwwwwww :)

Ok. Can you say steamy! I love this picture. And can i tell you that these guys are really like this? ... Well not in a PDA kind of way... But their relationship totally rocks. They have so much chemistry - and THAT is every photographers dream when shooting couples. These two are so devoted to each other. It's awesome.
Anyhoo...enough with all the mushy stuff ;) You can see that this picture is kind of on the grainy, unfocused side.
We were losing lighting.. and again my lack of detail to focusing.

Adorbs. A-DORBS! Love this family.

OK! The second practise family session was with the Tidmarsh family.

What lessons did i learn from their session you might be asking...? Well i learned that khakis, when wet, change colour.

No, no one had an accident... we were just shooting at the beach so really getting wet is inevitable. As long as your clients know that that will most likely happen before you go, you are A-OK. Another lesson i learned from this session is... man toddlers are tricky to snap photos of sometimes.

They don't usually like to smile at you for long periods of time so, NELLY!... You had better have

a trick up

your sleeve. And thank goodness my sister Emma was visiting so she could play peek-a-boo behind me. (And carry all my stuff around) Love you sis!

Anyways, cute family, again the focus was off in a lot of the photos... what can i say, i'm a work in

progress. As a photographer you really can't be shy. You have to make your clients feel comfortable so they'll loosen up and be comfortable and be themselves around you, because isn't that what we're trying

to photograph? Yes. I submit that it is.

The Tidmarsh family.

OK, let's start with a candid. Notice the change of color and Camille's pants.
Also, The depth of field isn't as short as i would have like.

Ok, again with the long depth of field that i wish was shallower. Focus is ... interesting... lacking...
Can you see the elephant in the room? In retrospect i wish i'd put Liam on mom's shoulders. Fail on my part of composition on this photo. Cute smiles from mom and Caleb though!

I like taking pictures that aren't always "say cheese" shots. I would have like for everything but the start

of the footprints to have been out of focus... a shallower depth of field.

We lost lighting fast in this session. Tip- always know your sunset and sunrise times so you don't run out of light.

I got to have another great practice family session with the Hunter family. This family is so awesome. They are so centred around family and you can tell how much they love each other. They have a lot of fun together. So something i took away from their session was just to really keep an eye out, in this case it was watching the posing. When the number of people that you're photographing increases, you need to watch out that no to people are doing the exact same pose.. like in this photo for example...

Note: Dad and mom are doing the same pose...and they're right beside each other.

Love this couple. The love they have for each other is so tangible!
They are such great examples of the love a husband and wife share.

I like this one. I like the narrow depth of field and focus on the grass. Note: i did do that on purpose ;)

Well, I was lucky enough to snatch up this beautiful family when i was back in Canada for Christmas. Can you say gorgeous!? This session taught me a few things: One, It's awesome to find a location that has lots of diversity within a short walking distance... also getting to your location early to scope out the place is really helpful; Two, when it's FREEZING outside...bring hot chocolate for everybody; Three, bring an extra memory card, duh...that's a basic tip there folks.

Cute family right!?

Fun to add props to catch the family in action.

Take advantage of what the location has to offer. In this case...horses!

Ok... So, i had really high hopes for this idea of mine. Tip: Don't give up too quickly... If i would have stuck with this idea and just moved around a bit, i think i would've gotten a really cool shot!

Oh Julie. So gorgeous!

I love me some extreme closeups! Just look at those smiles!

Here is another couple with all the chemistry in the world. I really can't tell you enough about how much that helps! i LOVE taking couples pictures. I think they're my favourite pictures to take, YO!

Alrighty, So a new family moved to the island. They had seen some of the photos i had taken for these families and asked if i would do their pictures... So alas here we have practise family session number 5. And DANG they are cute! Seriously. I was super excited about this session because my hubby got me a new editing program! This session taught me something pretty big. And that is to check your sunlight. Just because we live on an island where the weather always rocks, doesn't mean that we don't have seasons. The earth still revolves around the sun people. Meaning, just because the lighting was perfect at 3:30 pm in November, does NOT mean that it will be perfect at 3:30pm in February. Geesh. So here are the Sala's.

Hello Sala Family

Kisses!

Ok here's a little glimpse at what we were dealing with until i found us some shade... the sun was a lot harsher at this time of day than i had anticipated.

Capturing some cuteness.

Ok... So here we have a RAW unedited image... Can you see the cloudiness? I hope so because it's pretty hard to miss. ;) It might look like i tried to add a light filter or something but nope... that is just one dirty lens.