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Pet Expo Explosion!

This last weekend we set up our PhotoBooth at the San Antonio Pet Expo.

OMG!

We saw a lot of fluffy butts...smoochie faces...lil puppies, and (dare I say it)...fluffy butts! (yes, there were so many fluffy butts it is worth repeating twice).

We also saw our friends from the Paul Mitchell school, from 2 Million Dog Walk/Puppy Up, Rowdy Cruger, and Toki Poki!

Of course, my favorite part of the whole event was taking the PhotoBooth pics!  Everyone had fun taking them and all the pups were awesome!

This one is one of my FAVORITES!  I love this little girl's smile =I

If we saw you there, thanks for coming out and visiting with us!  If you didn't make it, maybe we'll see you there next year, OR you can book a session with us and we'll either see you in the studio or at your place!

Happy Monday y'all!

It's a "Cool" Summer!

Summer's in full swing and it's been a HOT one!  I most graciously and humbly thank the inventor of A/C, because without him my studio would not be so cool! (puns in this blog intended)

That is part of the reason I started my summer special "The Dog Days of Summer" so that I could offer "cool" deals inside a studio where it's "cool".

Yesterday was my first Dog Days session and I was able to play it "cool" with a couple of Dachshunds...meet Kolby and Konner!

Oh boy!  Both of them were soooo soft and floofy, but Kolby isn't too keen on anyone touchin' his toes (not that I tried).

Konner on the other hand was a ham and loved being in front of the camera.  Or loved getting treats?  Either way he was "cool" letting me take his pics and jumping up on set as needed!

If this session was an indication on how "cool" this special is gonna turn out...I can't wait to see the rest of the pups and families that come in out of the hot sun and "cool" off in our studio!

If you haven't booked your session yet...you'd better hurry cause they're goin' fast and it's not getting any "cooler" outside.  Plus you most definitely want to make sure you get pics of your pups frequently!

If you want to book your session, contact us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lafmilphoto or email us at lafmilphotography@gmail.com!

P.S. (shameless plug) We are going to be at the San Antonio Pet Expo tomorrow with our PhotoBooth set up!  Come out visit us, have some fun and get you and your pup's pics taken!

Photo Dojo

This is my very first installment of a "techie" segment I like to call Photo Dojo!  I've been meaning to add a shop talk segment to my blog to discuss the technical aspect of photography and taking pictures.  I just never got around to doing so.  Well...now I'm doing so.


Welcome to Photo Dojo (folds hands, bows).  Please, remove shoes, come in and prepare to learn the technical aspect of photography (air punch, air block "he-ya!")


Today, as with any initial onset of learning something new, we will start off with something light and easy.  My best tip for instantly upgrading the way you take pictures!


Let's Get Started!


I get many people ask me about camera gear.  Which is better Canon or Nikon?  Which lens is better a prime (a fixed lens) or a zoom lens?  How many lenses do you have/how many lenses do you need?  And on and on.  Recently, I was asked by an avid amateur photographer what she could do to take better pictures.  She said she was looking to upgrade her camera so that she could take better pictures, but did not know which one and how much to spend.  Presently, she was using a Canon 60D with a kit lens (the lens it comes with).  Not a bad starter camera at all.  However, I suggested she keep the camera she had and not worry about upgrading the camera, she needed to upgrade the lens ("the glass" in photo terms).


The Glass


Why the glass?  Look at it this way, a person can have an outstanding, brilliant mind.  They can be an Astrophysicist!  But if they can't see well/don't have good vision, they're not going to have a clear view of the moon.  Same goes for your camera.  You can have a Canon 1DX with a full frame sensor, but if you have a 18-55mm kit lens on it...you're not going to get the best, clearest image you can get.  As a matter of fact, the better the sensor, the more detail you will capture.  Unfortunately, as such, the better you'll capture the flaws as well.  Besides, would you be able to take a $4 million dollar picture with a Hasselblad camera yet have no lens on the end?  I would venture to assume that your eye, your glass, has a lot to do with what your image ends up looking like.


What to do?


That being noted, I recommended, as I always do to aspiring photographers, to purchase a little power house of a lens...the 50mm.  Also known as a nifty-fifty.  This is a must have in any photographer's repertoire.  There are a few versions of this lens, depending on your camera body, but you can usually get this lens (either new or used) for right around $100 or so.


The Specs


A fairly inexpensive lens (especially compared to $1k + lenses) but:

1. it is a prime lens.  In other words you cannot zoom in or out so this will make you move forward or backward to compose your shot.  Also forcing you to move around and find new/different angles which in turn gives you new perspectives.
2. it is a "fast" lens.  This means that because this lens is at a fixed focal distance, it focuses faster.  It also allows more light in and therefor adds to the speed at which the lens can focus.
3. it is going to provide for more focus on your subject.  Most lenses, especially kit lenses, only open up to f3.5, where as this lens can open from f1.8 to f1.2.  The more open your lens can get, the more light you let in and the more in focus your subject will be in while the background fades out.

All of the images you see here were taken with this 50mm lens (and a Canon 20D!).  Some were taken with a macro lens.  A "macro" lens allows you to get in really close and capture a lot of detail.  I wouldn't worry about the macro lens right now, it's a bit more pricey and it's not a "fast" lens as it is a specialty lens used primarily for still images.


Development (punny)


So, if you want to expand your cache & your skill set, I recommend you start off changing your glass.  Ditch the kit lens, spend a small change, and change the look of your images.  You'll thank yourself for doing so after you sit down to go through what you captured afterwards ;)


www.lafmilphotography.com
San Antonio photography

Photo Booth!

Mid-week last week I began a project.  I had had this idea stuck in my head for a while now...building a portable photo booth!

How freakin fun would that be!  Not just for the people and pets getting them, but for me!  Taking the pics!  It's always fun to get these pics taken, gets you all nostalgic n stuff.  Plus you get to be all goofy and flirty in the booth.  But how fun would it be for me to be able to be on the other side of that fun and capture it for everyone!

So my endeavor began.  Researching.  Measuring.  More Researching.  Brainstorming.  MORE Researching!  MORE Measuring!

Then finally...I got the plans down, went to Lowe's and got everything I needed and got to work on building my idea.

Usually, when I start a project, chore etc., something always comes up.  It can never be easy or simple from start to finish.  No.  The proverbial wrench has to be thrown it.  Luckily, I only had one wrench on this project.  I had to stop mid construction and go back to Lowe's to exchange a few pieces.

That's it.  Whew.  After that, it was smooth sailing and construction got back under way.  After a few hours...whala!  The LAFMIL Photography photo booth was born!

On it's maiden voyage (again, luckily) everything went up fine and I had no snafus!  Woo hoo!  We had it set up at a benefit for Pet Pals of Texas at PetSmart.

My plan was to have this photo booth done by the time this event came up in order to work out any bugs in the design, construction and file printing/sharing.

I wanted to have this done at this event because we have a major event coming up August 4th!  We will be setting the LAFMIL PhotoBooth up at the San Antonio Pet Expo, and I want to be sans snafus ;)

So now that it's done...we are ready for everyone to come out and get your PhotoBooth pics taken Saturday August 4th at the San Antonio Pet Expo!  It's free to attend and you can bring your fur kiddos too!

Hope to "capture" you there!

Coffee with Some Edits Please

I LOVE taking photos!  I'm in the moment.  It's fast paced.  It's high energy.  It's raw.  All of my 8 cylinders are firing away!  Snap...Snap...Click...shish boom bang!


Then I'm done.


I go home.  Unload my gear.  Ahhhhhh...   Or maybe I drop my gear off and go meet up with my friends to unwind, eat, and review the day's events.


Huh? Wha...wait, hold your horses!  At this point, you're probably asking me "Wait, what about your pictures?  Aren't you going to look at what you got or didn't get?!!"  


Simply put...no.


I used to.  Don't get me wrong.  I would come home from a shoot, take out my cards, upload the images to my Mac, bite my nails as one by one they would come up, then start away on "editing".  Rifling through the images I thought were the best.  Setting them aside for later, future, editing and most likely pull up one that I wanted to work on right there and then.  And then maybe do another and so on.


It's taken me a couple of years to "allow" the procrastinator in me (yes I'm gonna admit it) to win.  I realized it after, every now and then, not getting the chance to run home and start working on what I had just shot.  When I finally had the chance to get to the files, sit down and look at them...I actually saw them with a fresh pair of eyes!  It gave me more...hindsight?  I wasn't just fresh off the shoot with that raw emotion I had while shooting.  I was more relaxed AND more focused.  I found that my end result looked and felt better because it was like looking at them again for the first time.


Sometimes, now, I kinda have to force myself to pull up my pics and sit down and start editing away.  But it helps when I'm relaxed and have my cup of coffee with me.  Happy Wednesday!  ;)

www.lafmilphotography.com
San Antonio photography

...And now for something completely different

My photography is embedded into my every action, everyday.  

I say that to say this:

  I was outside with my pup gang and I went to deposit organics into our compost tumbler.  As I approached I noticed a few honey bees buzzin' around.  Now, I don't normally shy away from Honey bees.  Why not?  Because they won't puncture you if you don't upset them.  Now, mess with their hive and you got another thing coming...thousands of things..with stingers, coming!  

That  being said, my confidence in not being harmed was in tact, and I proceeded to open the compost tumbler.   Unbenounced to me, there was an entire colony nestled inside!  Yes, that's right (as you shock and awe at my near death experience) I thrust open the compost hatch and...FWOOOOSH!  A wave of Honey bees nearly enveloped that which is my face!  As I mentioned before, if you do not fuss with them, they will, generally, not accost you and turn you into a human pincushion.  As such, I kept my cool and sloooowly moved back until I was out of harms way.

Then I breathed.

Upon taking inventory of my bodily well being, I began to asses the mass of bees that had engulfed my compost bin.  After standing there dumbstruck for about 5 minutes, I realized two things.  1) Crap!  I gotta get them out of my compost bin  and (here's where the photog in me came out) 2)  Woah!  This would make for some awesome pictures!  Now, in order to do one, I had to accomplish the other.  In other words, I could not get nearly close enough to snap some pics with the hatch open due to there being WAY too many bees in the general vicinity.  And, I wouldn't be able to get the shot I was looking at, or any shot for that matter, if I didn't clear out the bees and close the hatch.  So...

I grabbed the water hose and began my assault on the little stingers.  I was able to knock the honey comb off of the compost hatch and get enough of them out of the area to where I could get to the hatch, close it, AND unlock the latch to be able to rotate the tumbler and keep any more bees from crawling in.

Alright, so with that having been accomplished, I reached for my phone and snapped some pics.  Then I came to the realization that "Hello...I have a long distance zoom lens with a descent camera inside...duh" so I rushed in, set my camera up and was able to snatch a few of these mesmerizing shots.

Educationally, did you know that Honeybees are important pollinators of crops, fruit and wild flowers and are indispensable for a sustainable and profitable agriculture as well as for the maintenance of the non-agricultural ecosystem. And that there has been a steady decline in Honey bees due to a disease that is causing them to decline in population (called colony depopulation).  However, For the first time, scientists have isolated a parasite from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.  If we were to lose honey bees it could have an enormous horticultural and economic impact worldwide. 

Needless to say, I did not eradicate them from my compost.  No.  I doused them with much water to get them out of my area, then sprayed a diluted mixture of water and peppermint on and around my tumbler so as to deter them from building another hive.  I only do this because I gotta keep my pack safe.  Otherwise I would...I don't know.  They say when life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  So I guess I'd buy a bee keeper suit and make sweet, sweet honey!

http://www.lafmilphotography.com/
San Antonio Photography

Disconnection

We are always "plugged into" the Human Network that is our everyday lives.  Have you ever UNPLUGGED yourself?  Stepped out from the network.  Looked at life and others in "the network" around you?


I was at the airport yesterday and I did just that.  I saw business people, flight attendants, security, families etc.  Everybody just plugged into their own little world they call their lives.

With no clue as to anything or anyone else around.  Just zooming by, zooming in, zooming out of airports and people's way and lives.  Then, I had a realization.

The evening prior, I had the opportunity to visit with others in my profession.  I spoke with them.  I listened.  I became part of their world for the moment I was present with them.  I met people I had never, nor would have ever, met had I not made the trip out.  My world expanded.  New people in my field, in my life...in my Facebook group!  Everyone buzzing around with excitement and anticipation.  Enjoying the fun of the evening and the momentous occasion that we were all about to be a part of.

After the event we all left and went back to our own worlds.  Most of us with new aspirations, connections, relationships, and knowledge.  I flew back the next day to my world.


While in the air, right after take off, I could see the cars on the highway.  They looked like little toys from my view point.  But I knew there were lives down there.  Going to work, school, meetings, appointments, groceries.  All of them speeding along in their own world.

The point?


Have you ever had issues with your phone/laptop/desktop/other electronic device?  Did you reset/reboot/restart/unplug it and plug it back in?  And then did it start working ok again?


Every now and then...unplug yourself from your "network".  Take the time to look around.  Appreciate what you have.  Yearn for that which is lost/needed/wanted.  Search for clarity.  Realize what is around you.  Regain your center.  Reset yourself.  Then plug back in and (pun intended) start plugging away at your life again.


Everyone needs a quick reboot every now and then.


It will give you a new perspective and outlook to life.


www.lafmilphotography.com
San Antonio Photography

I Lost My Peanuts Cause I Consider Myself a True Photographer!!!

So...I'm en-flight from San Antone to Dallas to see Jasmine Star for The Fix!

As usual, the flight attendants are handing out peanuts...I say "yes please" but in my head I'm saying "just leave them all in my lap cause I'm starving!"  Any-whoosies (picked that one up from one of the photogs at the workshop!).  I get my pack-o-peanuts and (on my other lap is my camera) out of my window I see an amazing opportunity!  I swiftly snatch up my camera, lift it to my eye and SNAP!

 I get my picture...but in the process of doing so, my pack of peanuts slipped off my lap and into the eternal nothingness that is the crack of the seat between me and another passenger!  I looked down into the crack only to be glared at by the lady sitting next to me. "No ma'am.  I was not just looking at your buttocks."  I thought to myself.  But I shyly smiled as if to say "hello, i'm really shy and innocent...blink, blink, blink." DAMNIT!  I lost my peanuts!  AND I'M STILL STARVING!!!

All because I had/have to be the consummate photographer who ALWAYS has his camera on him...nice.

On the plus side!  I got to meet Jasmine Star and hear her divulge all of the secrets the universe has been holding back from us photogs who want to be a better business person...well...not that intense...but it was sure a heckofalotta fun!

Thanks again Jasmine for all of your insight and for caring enough about all of us "strugglers" to enlighten us and help us through the...dare I say it?  Tribulation  ;)

http://www.lafmilphotography.com/
San Antonio Photography