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

Provo meetup group - October Cemetery Event.

I attended The Provo Area Digital Photography Meetup Group for the first time this week.  It was a lot of fun.  We went to the Provo cemetery.  We had a few models and a bunch of photographers.  It is a great environment to get to know other photographers and learn how to take better photographs.  

After the event you can see photographs from other users posted on their flickr page.  

The Fortress

This past week I went to a old cement factory called the Fortress.  I went with Luke Isley.  We had a great time.  

Here are a couple of shots from the trip.  This first one I have put into the dpchallenge (hope it does well).  It is submitted to the free study challenge which is a lot harder to get a high score.

 

Photo Contests

Taking photos out of your comfort zone or out of your regular photo opportunities to be reviewed by others can really help you grow as a photographer.  There is a website that is perfect to help in this way - http://www.dpchallenge.com.

DPchallenge has new contests every week.  Most challenges are given 1 week to submit your photo.  The photo has to be taken after the challenge has been announced.  Once the due date has passed to submit your photos, the voting begins.  Members now get to see all the entries and get to vote on a scale from 1 to 10, and voting lasts about a week.  During the voting week you can see the current status of your photo and what s

core it is getting, but you are unable to see any other scores.   When voting is over the pictures display in the order they were voted.  1st, 2

nd and 3rd place are awarded a ribbon, and are displayed on the site’s home page.

If you are getting into photography, looking for a challenge, and/or are an experienced photographer, I would highly recommend checking this site out.  It can be a lot of fun.

Here is my entry for the week.  This was submitted for the contest Pajamas:

My second photo did really well, it was exciting to watch the score through the week.  I took 4th place for the contest Risk.

First Post!

This past weekend I went on a 4-wheeler trip with my son, Mom, Dad, and nephew Ethan.  It was mostly spent driving, but we did stop a few times and I was able to get a few pictures.   This time of year shows some truely amazing colors.