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MOVED!!

I have moved my blog off of blogspot.
You can get to my blog by going to this URL: http://blog.stowellphotography.com

Christmas photo shoot.

We had a fun and challenging photo shoot with our children the other night.  Our goal was to get some good shots that we could use for our Christmas card this year.  We were really excited how these turned out.

It was very challenging taking these pictures with a newborn and a 2-year old.  Getting them to both cooporate at the same time and to keep our Maltese dog out of the shot too (he was so curious to what was going on).  

These shots were taken in our living room.  The children were sitting about 4 feet away from our Christmas tree, and I used my 70-200 telephoto lense and was in the kitchen about 8 feet away from the kids.  The shots had a very small depth of field which gave the subject a sharp look while putting the tree and bacgkround out of focus as to not take away from the subject.  

To throw the background out of focus you want to use a large aperature setting.  I used a f/4.0 aperature and zoomed in on the subject which gave these nice effects.

Smugmug.com

If you are looking for a great place to store your photos, I would highly recommend using Smugmug. They will store your photos and give you unlimited storage space and unlimited bandwidth. It is also a great place to let friends and families view and purchase your photos. The prints from Smugmug are great quality and 100% guaranteed. How can you beat this. If you are interested, use the following coupon code: 8UmFxrgQNALCc It will save you some money and give me a referral bonus(win-win). It is easy just put in the coupon code in the 'Referred by' field on the signup form. It will save you $5.00.

http://www.smugmug.com/price/

Today I went with my buddy Luke on a photo outing.  We didn't have any plans, but met in Orem.  After talking for a few we decided to go up Rock Canyon (the canyon above the Provo temple).  As we were going up there we saw some rock climbers and decided to ask them if it would be alight if we took some photos of them.  Well 200 photos later (just my share of photos, Luke had a bunch as well) we decided to say goodbye and walk up the canyon for a bit and see what was up there.

Here are a few photos from the trip.  (Hey "Rock climbers" -- If you get on my blog, leave a post with your names, I am horrible with remembering names and have already forgot them :(-- , Also I am posting all your pictures on my smugmug album, you are welcome to get them there.  Click Here to go to that album.  If you have any questions let me know.  --> jeremy.stowell@gmail.com)

I have been extremely busy getting everything ready for the new baby coming in a few weeks, so I haven't had much time for photography.
The other night I took a couple shots of Mason with my new flash and umbrella. This setup was using a 580 exII flash on camera and a 430 flash pointed into an umbrella off to the left on a stand. I post processed this image in Lightroom 2, and had to do some minor spot editing in Photoshop to remove a couple cracker crumbs he had on his lips. I was really pleased with the results.

Great photography book

A book I would highly recommend to anyone that is learning about photography is "Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera". It teaches how to properly use exposure (i.e. aperture, shutter speed, and ISO). Each page is filled with pictures and information on each setting to how the photograph was taken.




Understanding Exposure