Oh my heavens. I told Marcelle that I'd post yesterday, and I completely forgot! I am so sorry, Marcelle, and I hope you don't mind me posting today. {: Anyhoo, as the title said, I'll be posting about photography. But first a little about me:
My name is Jessie, in case you haven't figured that out. I'm blessed enough to be home-educated. I'm an amateur photographer (I plan on majoring in Photography when college comes around). I'm Wasian (a term for white/Asian people in my youth group) and proud of it. I. Love. Cheese. I'm involved in musical theatre, and it's awesome. I have six dolls that I 'play' with, and I'm not ashamed. The most important fact about me though is that I'm a Christian. I live by the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, and no one else! You can see my blogs here and here.
Okay, now that you know more about me, onto the pictures! Here are some of my favourites that I've taken:
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That's my eye! ^ I used a ton of eye colouring on Picmonkey to do the rainbow thingy.
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Now... onto some tips!
First off: make sure your lighting is right. My favourite time of day for taking pictures is the late afternoon/evening--the sun isn't as harsh then, and it often results in much better pictures. You also get better sun-flares and bokeh later in day (see the mountain dew picture for an example--that was taken at around 5 or 6 in the evening.) Below are some examples of bad lighting {courtesy of Chloe for modeling}:
Here we have Chloe's face in full sunlight--not flattering at all, especially to vinyl!
Here Chloe's face isn't facing sunlight, but the back of her head is. Not too flattering, either.
Here we have perfect lighting, but as you can see, the background isn't very nice looking.
Next--as I sort of mentioned in the last photo, houses aren't the best backdrop. I find it best to use nature as my backdrop. Here are some examples of good backdrops:
I wanted to take a picture of her tri-braid ponytail, and I nearly freaked out with excitement when I saw the bokeh in the background... ^.^
Not the most amazing lighting, but a very nice backdrop with no distractions. You can edit lighting, but you can't edit background! A little editing would make this picture-perfect. ^.^
One last thing: sun-flares and bokeh. These two things are very popular effects in the photography world. Sun-flares are simple enough--just wait until the late afternoon when the sun's behind the trees. Then, find a good spot in the leaves where you can see a flare made of the sun (hence the name 'sun-flare'). The longer the shiny lines, the better. Bokeh, though, is a different story. It's similar to a sun-flare, in that you'll get it the best when you have leaves and a setting sun. But it's much more difficult to attain. The best (and easiest) bokeh photos have something in focus in the foreground. So when you take a bokeh photo, try to have something in the foreground--you'll be very pleased with the results! Here's a sun-flare/bokeh photo so you can get the idea of it all:
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my post. Remember, you can find my photo blog here, and my doll/other random stuff blog here. I'm having a giveaway on my photo blog, so be sure to check that out! You could win an 8"x10" print of any of my photos, including the ones you saw in this post. I need one more entry for the giveaway to actually come through, so it would be greatly appreciated if you entered. Have a wonderful day!
much love,
~Jessie~
P.S. Thanks so much to Marcelle for letting me post here! I've never done a guest post before and this one was so much fun. (:
