Exploring New Zealand Tip-to-Tip

Posted on October 29, 2018 by ShutterBug

New Zealand has long been a ‘bucket list’ destination for photographers around the world. It has often been described as one of the most beautiful countries on the planet, scoring in the ‘Top 10’ on many travel and photography websites. My wife and I have been very fortunate to be able to visit New Zealand a number of times. Our most recent three trips (2013 to 2018) were focused on doing field work for a photography eBook (New Zealand Tip-to-Tip) which we just published at the end of October 2018. Since our photographs were taken over a number of years, they were captured using both Nikon full frame gear, as well as Nikon 1 equipment.

Photography Life

Posted in Photograpy How To | Tagged Exploring, TiptoTip, Zealand. | Leave a comment

How to crush a creative rut: Simple ideas to stay inspired

Posted on October 29, 2018 by ShutterBug

Do you ever feel like all of your pictures look the same? Are you discouraged feeling like your images lack creativity? Have you ever felt unmotivated to even pick up your camera? Do your unsuccessful attempts at creating the images in your imagination leave you feeling defeated?

I do. And frequently! The more photographers I talk to, the more I realize that all of us feel this way from time to time.

As an introvert, I think deep and I feel deep. I can be easily discouraged when working on my art. I take things personally and to heart (sometimes to a fault).

To combat these feelings, I knew I had to create a proactive solution. These are some quick and simple ideas I have successfully uses to find inspiration when I need to pull myself out of a creative rut.

Take care of yourself

What are you doing to take care of yourself on a regular basis?

This is number one on my list for a reason! Getting enough sleep, excercising, eating well, and taking time for just you are essential to staying creatively driven.

It can be hard to enjoy creating or feel inspired when you’re not physically and mentally healthy. A sluggish body and brain will not serve you as you try to create art. Caring for yourself will ensure that you are energized and can keep up with all of your own ideas!

When I am stressed about work, family, or life in general, I get frustrated. And frustration often makes we want to give-up. It is much harder to thinking outside the box when my brain is consumed with anxiety and stress.

As we all play many roles in our daily lives, it can be easy to put others first and forget about ourselves. However, I promise that by carving out time and space to meet your own needs, you will be better in every role you play…especially your role as a creative.

Unplug from technology

Our culture is consumed by technology. With computers in our pockets, it can be difficult to resist the urge to check email, hop on social media, or answer that last text.

But all those things vying for our attention can take us away from the things that inspire us creatively! I have found that unplugging for a day or two helps me tremendously when I am in a rut.

Turn off the television. Wait to answer texts. Close Facebook and Instagram. Put an “out of office” auto reply on your emails. Take the time away from these distracting conveniences. Instead, use that time to pick-up your camera and practice your craft.

Technology is great, but sometimes we need to take a break from it all. You will be amazed at how even a day or two away from all the devices will clear creative space in your mind.

Reconnect with nature

Something about being in nature always revitalizes my soul. The scenery, the sounds, and the smells ignite my creativity.

You don’t have to go far to reconnect with nature! A simple nature walk in a local park or stroll through your own neighborhood can do wonders for you.

Even better, bring your camera out into nature with you! Whether it’s a little leaf, a pretty sunrise, or a sweeping landscape, you will most definitely find something beautiful to photograph.

Being connected with nature has been proven to be beneficial in awakening creativity. In a world so often driven by screens and technology, a little fresh air can be the best therapy we artists need!

Listen to nostalgic music

It seems so strange for me to call music from my childhood “old” or “classic”…that’s what my parents listened to, right?!

Call it what you want, but listening to hits from the 70’s and 80’s is very inspirational for me. Flashbacks of my childhood always come flooding in. It was when I was listening to music from this era that the idea of shooting through a slinky came from!

I was listening to a song that triggered a childhood memory. Probably something by Bruce Springsteen or Dire Straits, Did I just date myself? Ha!

The song triggered a memory of me being in grade three, playing with my slinky by myself at recess. I could even picture the jacket I was wearing, and where I was on the playground. That simple memory sparked a whole landslide of creativity that led to me creating images I adore.

Chat with the kids

Children have the best and most wild imaginations! You can get some pretty creative and incredible ideas from them.

Even if you have no kids of your own, they are everywhere! Listen to the little conversations going on around you when you’re at the park, out for coffee, etc. I’m sure you will not only get a few ideas, you will also have a few laughs. Kids really do say the darnedest things!

I teach grade one and have two young children myself. I am lucky I get to have lots of wild and hilarious conversations on a daily basis. It was in one of these conversations that I got the idea for a new series.

I wanted to create images that incorporated paper airplanes. Through this idea I realized that I actually totally forgot how to even make a paper airplane! A student in my class had to reteach me which was a fun and inspiring interaction in itself.

We then made paper airplanes and flew them in the classroom to see whose went the furthest (Don’t worry! We made it part of our math curriculum – measurement! And I was the only one who got hit with one…ha!).

The images I created did not turn out how I envisioned and I am still working on executing this idea. Which leads me to…

Try and then try again

Don’t let yourself feel defeated if you don’t succeed on the first try! Let that first attempt be an opportunity to learn and then try again!

Failure can awaken creativity when you allow it to do so. Take the opporunity to shoot in a different space, use a different lens, different lighting, or different composition.

Even when I create an image I like, I also like to try it again later on. Sometimes the littlest of tweaks can create a whole new feel to the image.

Be inspired by other artists

Sometimes going through the work of artists will create a spark in your creativity. A simple scroll through my Instagram feed will let me see the work of countless artists I admire!

The key thing to remember when doing this is to NOT compare your work to theirs. I understand that this can be very difficult at times, but it is of the utmost importance.

We are all in different stages of our photography journey and it is so much healthier to establish other artists as your community, not your competition. Appreciating the work of others and sharing my work with them has been a huge inspiration to me!

The Clickin Moms community really does value lifting each other up in this photography journey and I love that! We are all different and unique and the world is big enough for all of us!

Make your weaknesses your strengths

What is it that you are struggling with creatively? What do you find hard and what scares you? Yeah, shoot that.

I used to be petrified of low light. I was not even going to attempt it. Metering in a challenging situation like that was not something I felt confident doing.

When I signed-up for a 52 week project this year, I knew I would be challenged but never could have guessed that January’s technique would be my biggest photography fear!

It was very hard at first and I struggled through those first frames. However, facing my fear I forced myself to be comfortable with discomfort. I have actually grown to love low light and even seek it out now!

Help others

I find that when I am helping others learn, I feel inspired. Whether it be showing someone how to shoot with their own cameras or making them feel beautiful in front of my camera, helping others helps me, too!

Bottom line, keep doing what you’re doing even when you feel like you are stuck. Shoot what you love and let your personality shine through your work.

Know that everyone feels like inspiration is in short supply from time to time (even your favorite artist who always seems to be posting beautiful images!). It’s when we push through those creatively dry periods that we become stronger photographers and go on to make the best work of our lives.

Are you ready to be inspired in your photography?

JOIN CLICKIN MOMS TODAY!

With thousands of exclusive educational articles and a community of experienced photographers to answer all of your questions, Clickin Moms is the BEST place to learn and grow in your photography journey.

The post How to crush a creative rut: Simple ideas to stay inspired appeared first on Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time.

Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time

Posted in Photograpy How To | Tagged creative, crush, ideas, inspired, Simple, stay | Leave a comment

5 Tips to infuse your photography with joy

Posted on October 26, 2018 by ShutterBug

Happiness is the backbone of my work. I’ve always been obsessed with capturing wild, joyful moments and I don’t think it’s going to stop anytime soon.

Over the years I have been asked hundreds of times how I capture so much joy in my images. We always hear stories of uncooperative kids and stressed parents, but my subjects are always smiling and bursting with happiness.

Of course, there are many ways to elicit joy but I do think that the simple, honest answer is: you really need to WORK for it.

You could wait for joy to happen naturally. After all, kids are usually joyful, right? However if you are a family photographer and spend only an hour or two with your clients, it’s likely not a good plan to just hope that joy will show up on its own. Take matters into your own hands and do something to jumpstart the fun.

If I am going to be honest with you, shooting for joy is not an easy task! It requires a lot of effort and energy from the photographer…you! There will be sessions where you end-up sweaty, exhausted, and drained. But it’s also incredibly rewarding and that is why I love it so much.

Fortunately, there are several things you can do to make your job easier. Let’s see how!

1. Joy starts with YOU

The first thing to keep in mind is the mirror effect. It might seem obvious, but don’t underestimate it because it’s a very powerful tool. The best way to capture joyful expressions from your subjects is to ooze joy yourself.

In my Click Photo School workshop Capturing Joy, this is the advice I give on day one. People are more likely to express their authentic emotions in front of you if you authentically express yours.

Think about it for a minute. Would you feel relaxed and happy in front of a tense, emotionless photographer? I wouldn’t! You need to give before receiving. By doing so, you are showing that your photo session is a space and time where it is perfectly fine to express your feelings freely. It’s a time to be silly, carefree, and wildly happy. Make your subjects truly feel that they can let go!

Before grabbing your camera, make a conscious effort to relax yourself and reconnect to your inner joy. Be ready to smile, laugh, joke with your subjects. It might seem a bit forced at first if you aren’t truly in the mood that day, but I promise it’s worth the effort. Your joyful mood will quickly spread out and your subjects will smile back at you. Together you will fuel the happy mood of the moment!

2. Movement is your best friend

Movement is by far my favorite trick to get joyful expressions in a photo session. It works like magic every time.

Take a shy kid and ask him to smile for you and you will either get a forced-smile-for-the-camera or a weird smirk. Ask him to show you how fast he can run or how high he can jump, and suddenly you will get sparkling eyes and beaming smiles.

Great news: it works with adults, too! Take a grumpy dad. He is typically annoyed to be stuck in a family photo session he didn’t want to be part of in the first place. Ask him to help you make his kids laugh by tickling them, propping them in the air, or making them twirl. That tense dad will instantly relax and start to smile too without even knowing it. It’s the magical power of MOVEMENT!

Making your subjects move will help them relax and forget about the camera. Because you are giving them something specific to do, they can stop thinking about the fact that they are being photographed. This is when they will start being natural and letting their emotions shine.

Beware, photographing your subjects in movement might be a little more challenging than if they were quietly posing on a park bench. You need to watch your settings (see tip #4) as well as be focused and quick to catch the perfect moment. But again, I promise it’s worth the extra effort. The expressions you get when you let your subjects move freely and have fun are so much more impactful and real!

3. The power of body language

When we think about joy, the first thing that comes to our mind is a smiling face. I won’t deny it, capturing a wide happy smile always makes me happy. I don’t think I will EVER tire of it!

However, focusing only on facial expressions would be a mistake. Capturing your subject’s body language is a very powerful way to infuse your images with impactful happiness.

Body language covers the messages expressed by our whole body without even saying a word. It’s an extremely important concept in portraiture in general. However, it becomes especially relevant when you want to convey a joyful feeling. Joy (and positive emotions in general) are usually easy to read on the human body without needing a single sound or word.

The most common manifestations of joy on our body are obviously a smile or laughter. However, other signals like arms raising, head bending backwards, or hands covering the face (when joy comes by surprise, for example) can communicate joy just as clearly.

Paying attention to body language and including it in your work will make the joy perceived even stronger!

4. Watch your settings

Is there anything more frustrating than capturing a strong, authentic moment of joy and realizing after the fact that your image is annoyingly blurry?

Joy often involves fast motion, either because your subjects were actually in movement as suggested in tip #2, or just because the sudden burst of emotion made their body shake.

There are three very simple things you can do to get sharper images when photographing happy moments:

Bump your shutter speed at 1/500s or higher. It will naturally increase the number of keepers by preventing motion blur.
Use a dynamic AF mode. This is the autofocus mode that will best follow the movement of your subjects. If your subject is in movement, you want to make sure that your autofocus is constantly refocusing while the distance between your subject and yourself changes, in order to make sure that your image will be crystal clear when you press the shutter. This mode is what Canon users call Ai-Servo or Nikon users call AF-C.
Use back button focusing when photographing fast action.

These three very simple tips will eliminate most sources of unwanted blurriness. I’m not saying that ALL your images will suddenly become tack sharp, because photographing joy is a challenging, technical work. But I do promise it will increase the number of keepers drastically!

5. Choose your lens well

Not all lenses are created equal when it comes to photographing joyful moments. It’s actually impossible to tell you which lens would be THE best one because your personal photography style and preferences will greatly influence your choices. However, there are a few things you should consider when picking a lens for a joyful photo session.

When in doubt, choose wider over tighter. Manifestations of joy can be rather unpredictable. Therefore, I will always make sure to frame the scene wider than necessary to make room for unplanned movement or gesture. It’s always better to recrop after the fact to get a more desirable composition (this is what all those megapixels are for, right?) than to end up with an annoyingly tight crop with chopped limbs (a big pet peeve of mine!).

Pick a lens with very FAST autofocus. The sharpest of lenses won’t be of any use if it doesn’t follow movement fast enough to nail focus. This is the biggest downside of my beloved 135mm. The bokeh is out of this world and it’s a fabulous portrait lens, but it generally works better with still subjects. With a fast-moving kid it will miss focus most of the time which is something I can’t afford during a client photo session.

The fastest lenses in my camera bag are the Canon 35mm 1.4L, the Canon 16-35mm 2.8L, and the Canon 24-70mm 2.8L II. They always are my lenses of choice when capturing joyful moments!

Zooms are your friends! I love a good sharp prime lens too, but you can’t beat the flexibility and ease of a good zoom. My beloved Canon 24-70mm 2.8L II stays on my camera 90% of the time when I shoot kids and families. In fact, 100% of the images included in this article were shot with that lens!

I don’t know how many times I have tried to use a prime lens to capture fun family moments only to end up with frustrating results because my feet weren’t fast enough to zoom in or out to capture an unexpected fabulous moment. A zoom lens is versatile and unbeatable to follow wild movement in a heartbeat.

Want to dive in deeper learning how to infuse your photography with happy moments? Then you must join me on November 19th for the very last run of the Capturing Joy workshop. Over four weeks you will learn everything you need to know to capture joyful expressions and interactions during your kids and family photo session. Whether you shoot clients or photograph your own children, this workshop is what you need to capture joy. The workshop will retire after this run so it’s now or never… Dont miss out!

Now get out there and have some wild fun!

Are you ready to learn how to take your photography to the next level?

JOIN CLICKIN MOMS TODAY!

With thousands of exclusive educational articles and a community of experienced photographers to answer all of your questions, Clickin Moms is the BEST place to learn and grow in your photography journey.

The post 5 Tips to infuse your photography with joy appeared first on Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time.

Clickin Moms blog: Helping you take better pictures one day at a time

Posted in Photograpy How To | Tagged infuse, Photography, Tips | Leave a comment

Colorado Mountains with the Nikon 58mm f/1.2 Noct

Posted on October 25, 2018 by ShutterBug

Now that Nikon is releasing a 58mm f/0.95 Noct for their Z system, it’s worth taking a look back at their older Noct lens – the 58mm f/1.2 – if only for curiosity’s sake. This is one of Nikon’s most famous lenses, especially for portraiture and nighttime photography, where its output is difficult to match. Recently, for a memorable week of photography, I had a chance to bring the 58mm f/1.2 Noct into the mountains and aspen groves of Colorado.

Photography Life

Posted in Photograpy How To | Tagged 58mm, Colorado, f/1.2, Mountains, Nikon, Noct | Leave a comment

And the 2018 Clickin Walk photo contest winners are…

Posted on October 24, 2018 by ShutterBug

Clickin Walk 2018 brought photographers from around the globe together with a singular mission: to capture the world around us. Armed with our cameras, we set out into 48 locations on four different continents to do just that.

Of course, when you get the Clickin Moms community together, you aren’t simply going to get gorgeous photos. You are going to get laughter, inspiration, and fun! We have loved hearing the stories of friendship from all of this year’s participants and know that this is just the beginning of some amazing connections.

Looking through the contest entries, we felt like we were right there with our online friends. It was almost as if we were strolling the streets in Dubai, UAE and able to see the light dance in Newport Beach, CA and could smell the air in Montreal, Quebec.

And that is the joy of photography and the Clickin Moms community. We are made up of some of the most talented photographers around the globe and when we all work together, we create work that makes us all that much more a part of each others lives.

This year’s categories were PEOPLE, PLACES, and THINGS. The 2018 winning images did so much more than capture nouns. They captured the feeling and emotion of a moment and we couldn’t love them more. Of course, it was the most difficult of tasks to choose from the nearly one thousand images submitted. Be sure to go see the full gallery of featured photographs here!