Time to enrol for this semester!

Its time to choose my course subjects for this semester and I am excited to say that I am going to dive into portraiture since many of my bookings are coming in seeking just that, I am finding its one of my favourite kinds of photography anyway so its a good choice I think.

Its amazing how creative you can be when you don’t have funds to buy all the fancy photography equipment. For example I have made soft box’s out of cardboard, white paper and a glue gun that work wonderfully, an on camera flash diffuser fashioned from a plastic pill bottle and white plastic board reflectors.

Some are photo fails and some work well... The fails give me an opportunity to better understand how the equipment works so its not all bad. Of all the camera hacks I have found though, the one I stumbled on by accident has probably been one of the best. I have white pull down Ikea blinds in my bedroom, when they are closed and the morning sun is on them they cast the most wonderful natural light diffused beautifully for indoor photos and provides such a pretty off camera catch light to bounce off the eyes.

The photo below is of my daughter on my bed facing the blinds on an angle and its just perfect for indoor photography, no reflector needed.

But its not all indoor photography and with the recent addition of a 5 way reflector, I am able to now really light up faces in outdoor photography in a way I couldn't do before and I am amazed by the difference it makes to photos. Being able to bounce that light back up into faces can really make photographing in low light that much better and clearer without having to bump up the ISO and introduce grain.

This photo was taken at #tambourinemountain in their National park, as you can see by the shadows cast all over the ground behind my youngest daughter its pretty dark under the canopy of trees there. She is holding the silver side of the reflector up close and all of a sudden I have catch lights and bright eyes. I think if I had of thought to position it better I could have eliminated the shadows too.

But reflectors appear to be helpful in many situations, even nature photography, getting these flowers to pop on a rather dimly lit area of our garden this morning proved successful.

Anyway, with portraiture in mind I hope to through the course improve both posed and candid, I honestly love candid photography and find that it produces some of the most amazing and beautiful photos. I have also found that telling a story through my photos is much more effective, for instance this series of photos captures my middle daughters personality. She is a child full of whimsy, chasing butterflies and smelling flowers - shes very affectionate and I think by capturing photos of the event you are able to tell a story.