I have to say, this is quite exciting!  I am not a big fan of snow, but thankfully, there is sun in the forecast for next week.  The mountains REALLY need the snow, so I am hoping they are getting dumped on, too!  Here is a pic out my front door…doesn’t look like much (yet)…I will keep taking pics throughout the day so you can see the progress.

These are some images we took a few weeks back, when the weather was nearly 70 degrees in Denver.  Hope you enjoy seeing pics of this little firecracker!

Calling all golfers!  This summer Denver, CO will be hosting a FABULOUS golf tournament to benefit The Gleason Initiative Foundation!  This isn’t your ordinary golf tournament…it will be FULL of contests, music, awesome food and some amazing silent auction items.  Please visit the WEBSITE to find out how you can become involved in Golf Fest 2012.

Even if you don’t want to golf, feel free to come on out and enjoy a Cajun buffet from the chefs at Blackstone Country Club.  To register for lunch, just visit the Sponsorship link on the website.  Limited quantities available.

We need your help to spread the word.  Here is all the social media links:

Facebook:  Golf Fest 2012 on Facebook

Twitter:  Golf Fest 2012 on Twitter

Website (REGISTER TO PLAY HERE):  Golf Fest 2012

Thank you for making this event a success for The Gleason Initiative Foundation!!

First stop was the Ryman Auditorium, home of the original Grand Ole Opry.  It was quite empty when I arrived, which was probably due to the Tennessee Titan football game happening across the street.  The short movie at the beginning of my tour was quite interesting and, as it turns out, this place has quite the history!

Next up was the Country Music Hall of Fame.  On my way to the museum, there was a crowd gathered outside, right along the Country Music Walk of Fame.  As it turns out, some famous country singers were receiving their star on the walk of fame.  Do you recognize any of them?  I actually didn’t have time to walk through the museum since I purchased a studio tour of historic Studio B.  This was an AWESOME tour!!  The image of me sitting at the piano, was the piano actually used by Elvis himself.  Pretty cool that they let anyone come sit on it and take a pic!!

The last part of my trip was visiting Opryland.  It was pretty amazing…HUGE hotel with a cool atrium in the center with lots of restaurants and shops.  This is now where the Grand Ole Opry is located.  Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my camera into the hotel with me, so you’ll just have to look on their website for some pictures.  :-)  It was a great trip!!  Both Nashville and Tuscaloosa are BEAUTIFUL cities!!

Lighting Questions:

Karen: I usually don’t have anyone helping me but if I did you suggested a second flash.  Would that person just stand behind me?  Would I still have my flash on my camera.  A few pictures from a wedding I just did.  I am getting shadows on the wall even when I am not close to a wall.  I can get the subject lit up but then the background is very dark.  I was on maunal 2.8 200 19mm Pattern with the couple and same with girls but 55mm.  I was using my 17-55 2.8 wide angel lens.

Me: Yes, a second flash would help a ton!  I usually will either put a second flash on the DJ speakers or bring a light stand (also a pocket wizard to trigger it).  I like to have the flash directly across the room from me OR to my left or right.  I will also have a second flash on my camera.  I really just play around when it comes to using flash, I move around quite a bit until I get the desired effects.  Reception lighting is very tricky and the best thing you can do is just trial and error

Karen: I was doing senior pictures and the session was over since it was dark so I attempted to use the flash on a stand with umbrella like we did in mentor session in phoenix.  I wasn’t sure of the settings.  I didn’t like the shadowing and if you blow up the one with the sunset it gets grainy.

Me:  LOVE that you tried off-camera flash!!  I think seniors are a PERFECT client to use these on.  Regarding the grain…when using off-camera flash, grain is something that just comes along with the flash…I usually need to run a noiseware program in order to make the sky nice and clear.  Just remember that your shutter speed is controlling the ambient light, so if you wanted your sky to look lighter/brighter, shoot at 1/60 – 1/80^th.  If you want your sky to look completely dark, shoot at 1/200 – 1/250^th to shut down all the light that the sky is producing.  

General Questions

Karen: I am holding out for another camera.  I have the nikon d300 which is a dx and not full frame.  I have a 17-55 2.8, 50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8 and two speed flashes.  I saw your pictures using alien bee and beauty dish.  The colors are amazing!?  I have taken lighting classes but probably need some refreshers.  I wouldnt know what setting to use.  I am just not happy with the way my pictures look.  It’s frustrating, is it me, is it the camera??  I just want a clear crisp picture.

Me: I think it is a mix of lens choice and what aperture you are shooting at…your lenses make a TON of difference.  They should be your biggest investment.  I spend between $1000.00 – $1500.00 on each of my lenses, making sure they are the top-of-the-line.  The 85mm 1.4 is my fave and what I shoot about 80% of my work with.  I rarely shoot anything with my wide angle (16 – 70mm) because the aperture only goes to 3.5.   The alien bee is great just because it gives you a TON more output on light than your speedlights.  This is good to have if you are going to be in a lot of harsh-lighting situations.

I thought these were okay (regarding images of a senior male).  But his white shirt is glowing?  2.8 250 shutter iso 200 +.3 step Pattern A mode

Me:  Ah, the lovely white shirt. It is just the nature of the beast.  I tell all my portrait clients NOT to wear white, just because of what happens above.  It is just such a reflective color, that you get blow-outs very easily.  Part of this can be adjusted in LR, with the “RECOVERY” tool.  I use that tool A LOT to get my skies back to normal and any other hot-spot that I see in the image.  Unfortunately, it is just something that happens when a client wears white. 

If you are interested in a mentoring session, please shoot me an email or visit my Photography Mentoring Website.  Thank you Karen for allowing me to share!!  Hopefully, someone else will learn a little while reading this post.  :-)

Crud!  I just had to run into the other room and rescue Ryland since he just got peed on.  Ahhhhh!!

Sooooooo, here he is!!  The kids named him last night…HOOTIE!  Love it!  He is only a few days old, so still have to get shots and all, but he should grow up to be about 35 pounds.  Very exciting for the kiddos (and for my business!).

I will be updating the blog with how the kiddos are doing with Hootie and pictures of his growth from time to time.

Nowadays, a big part of our business is social media (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Linkedin, Yelp, Meetup, etc).  It sometimes feel as if it is a full-time job in itself and, in my opinion, necessary in the success of your business.  Some companies and photographers can get along just fine without it, but some rely on it quite a bit to bring in new business.  Before I moved to Denver, I knew I had to get connected and find some sort of community.  I did that via social network from Phoenix, AZ.  It helped to give me a smooth transition, which is exactly what I needed.  There is a GREAT community of photographers here in Denver and I am forever greatful for everyone being so open.

So, if you are new to Denver or just haven’t had enough time to network, I wanted to list several photography groups that you can find on the web:

Mile High Photographers and their Facebook Group

Professional Photographers of Colorado and their Facebook Group

Denver SMUG Group

Collages.net Group

Denver PUG Group

ISES Denver and their Facebook Group

NACE Denver and their Facebook Group

There are also a couple other groups on FB, for example, Colorado Photographers, Denver Photographers, Pursuit 31 Denver, Showiteers Denver and a slew of MeetUp groups…

I am sure there are plenty that are listed above, so if you have a group that I missed, please add it to the comments below.  Thanks!!

Whenever I am shooting with my off-camera flash set up, I kind of get a feel for where my settings should be by taking a few images of the sky.  I want to obtain that really dark blue sky that will set the background for my image.  I took a series of three pictures, in manual, and here is what I came up with:

Now, I know I wanted to be at 1/200th, because I wanted to cut out a lot of my ambient light, since it was SO bright outside.  When using your flash, remember these two things:  Aperture controls your flash and shutter controls your ambient.  So, once I had a general idea of where I liked my settings, I set up my flash unit, as pictured below:

I am actually bouncing my flash BACK INTO my umbrella and then onto the subject.  Next, I had Ryland stand in that general area that is circled above and these are my results:

As you can see, the flash eliminates a lot of harsh shadows that are caused by the sun and also lets a lot more light into your subjects eyes.  If I were to add or do anything different to this shoot, I would have added a reflector, camera-left, and reflected a little more light onto the subject.  But, with no one around to hold my reflector except for a few 3 year olds playing on the swings, I made do with what I had.  :-)  Would love to hear any feedback below!

So, I have hunted down some absolutely ADORABLE V-days cards that you can use on almost any occasion.  Charlene, who is based out of Canada, has a super-cute store on Etsy called Kraze4Paper.  This is for a mix and match set of (12) Valentines cards, with envelopes. These can not only be used for Valentine’s Day, but also little “go get ‘em” notes inside your kiddos lunches, a quick love-note to the hubby or even to a secret admirer.  HERE IS A BONUS!!!  Not only do you get these beautiful cards, but you also get a MYSTERY GIFT CARD…what could is be? Starbucks? Toms Shoes? Nordstrom? Groupon?  You won’t find out until you open your gift in the mail.  

OK, here is the hard part.  PINTEREST!!  Many of you spend countless hours (well, maybe not hours) pinning your favorite food, clothes, inspirations, etc on Pinterest.  If you are anything like me, I usually pin a picture of a girl with totally awesome abs that links you to a site for “Best 10 Best Ab Exercises”.  Not 2 seconds later, I am pinning “How to make the best pistachio cupcakes”.  Something is wrong with this picture.  Anyhow, this is what you have to do…READ CAREFULLY

1.  Go to your Pinterest account and make either a Keri Doolittle Photography board OR something similar, like “Photography”, “Photography ideas”, “KDP Images”.

2.  Go to my BLOGSITE and pin 5 SPECIFIC images (HINT:  It will help to use the Categories drop-down menu for this):

1. Pin an image that is inspirational
2. Pin an image that showcases you favorite photography product
3. Pin your favorite ENGAGEMENT image
4. Pin an image from your favorite FAQ post
5. Pin your favorite DESTINATION WEDDING image

3.  Once you have your 5 images on your new board, you will need to tweet this:  @keridoolittle, I started pinning some of my favorite KDP images to my board here: (insert the link to your pinterest board that you created for this giveaway)

4.  If you do not have a Twitter account, you can do the same thing on Facebook, just make sure my name (Keri Fuller Doolittle on Facebook) gets highlighted so it will show up on my wall.

5.  The WINNER’s name will be drawn/tweeted on Tuesday at 5:00 PM MST.  GOOD LUCK!!!

I am so excited to share this news!!  I recently found out that I am a finalist in the Stiletto Woman in Business Awards.  Out of nearly 300 submissions I am honored to be recognized in three categories…Artistic Entrepreneur of the Year, Blogger of the Year and Photography Business of the Year.  Here is a link to all the finalists (congrats to all!):  SWIBA Finalists.  The winners in each category will be announced at the SWIBA conference on March 17th in Atlanta, GA.  The conference is open for all to attend and it has some amazing guest speakers, so take a look.

To give you a brief background, Stiletto Woman Magazine was founded by Karlena Wallace in 2009 as a new media portal to empower everyday women.  StilletoWoman.com launched a series of affiliate blogs designed to support our mission and the diverse lives of these women in business (Stiletto Business, Stiletto Money, Stiletto Health are just to name a few).

I am extremely honored to have been nominated and will keep you all posted with the outcome on March 17th!!!

The reflector that I use is called a “5 in 1 collapsible reflector“, which takes a little practice collapsing.  :-)

So, I decided to take out my best 5-year old model and show you the difference between reflected and non-reflected images.  All of the images below are SOOC (straight-out-of-camera, no editing done) and were taken at 12:30 PM on a bright and sunny day here in beautiful Denver, CO.

When looking at the images below, make sure to look at the eyes and shadows.  Using the reflector simply eliminates big shadows under the eyes and helps the whites of the eyes “pop” a little more, saving me a TON of time in post-editing.  Colors seem to be a bit more vibrant, too.  The two comparisons below are using the SILVER side of the reflector.

The next two examples are using the GOLD side of the reflector, which helps warm up the image a bit.  One thing I wanted to point out in these images was Ryland in the very last photo…when you are using your reflector, you can TOTALLY blind your subject by reflecting light back into their faces, so make sure you feather the light…either step back further (which I couldn’t do, since I was both shooting and holding) or don’t shine it directly at their faces, maybe shine it a little lower.  This will eliminate them from squinting so much.  In the last comparison, I really eliminated some hot-spots (look at the snow and his jacket), which also will help in post-processing.

The next step in shooting during harsh hours of the day is using your OFF CAMERA FLASH!!!  You will LOVE the before and after shots of this test, which will be posted SOON!!!  :-)

To add to the weekend, Happy Cakes Bakeshop supplied the yummy cupcakes and Garter Glitz was on-hand to display their lovely hand-made garters.

Thanks to Cate and all the staff at Little White Dress for inviting me to come photograph this weekend, I had a GREAT time!!

I am going to briefly talk about the ones I use (or don’t use):

1.  Imagenomic – Noiseware.  The first, and most-often used, the noiseware I run quite often.  If you shoot with a camera that is good at handling noise (or if you are going for a grainy-look), then you might not use this as often as myself.  Shooting with a Sony, I tend to see noise (grain) at a pretty low ISO.  Once I run my noiseware on the image, it looks crystal clear again.  NOTE:  I ALWAYS run this on a duplicate layer and erase back some of the details that I might have lost in running the program (hair, textures like brick, etc).

2.  NIK Software – HDR Efex Pro.  Now, I haven’t purchased this software yet, since I am still playing with the trial version.  However, from what I have worked with, everything seems to be pretty easy.  An “HDR” image means “High Dynamic Range”, basically merging several images to showcase a range between the lightest and darkest points of an image.  So, in the past, there are some scenes where I expose for my sky and then expose for the subject…when I merge the two together it is creating an HDR image.  There are some photographers who have MASTERED the HDR effect and they can get some pretty spectacular images.  I think this is very powerful software, IF this is your type of thang.

3.  Perfect Photo Suite 6 – On One Software (Perfect Mask, Perfect Effect, Perfect Resize, Focal Point 2, etc).  This is my newest purchase and I am excited to delve right in.  This is several plugins in one.  If you want to read about what each plugin does, just click on their website.  The reason for buying this was mainly for the “Perfect Portrait”, which will automatically color correct and fix skin tones and for the Perfect Mask, which helps replace backgrounds.  I am sure there is MUCH, MUCH more to all of these plugins (which work in both LR and PS), but I just haven’t had enough time to play.

Hopefully, this will give you something to think about when researching plugins.  And, because a post is boring without pictures, here is a quick preview of Easton’s 3 year old pictures, which will be posted a little closer to his birthday.

So, it is that time of year again to nail down my spring mentoring sessions.  Last year I traveled to New York, Philly, Phoenix, Spokane and West Virginia.  I had a BLAST meeting new photographers throughout the country!  NEW FOR 2012, I am opening up my mentoring to Denver photographers.  My first session in Denver is Sunday, February 19th.  I only have one more spot open for this session, so email me as soon as possible if you are interested.

In order for me to come to you, I need to have at least 3 photographers interested in having a session.  OR, if you are out-of-state, Skype or iChat is also another way to do mentoring without adding on additional travel fees.  To find out more about my mentoring sessions, please visit my mentoring website.

If you have further questions, feel free to shoot me an email at keridoolittlephotography@gmail.com

Looking forward to meeting you!!

Sooooo, what I normally do with all my Christmas Cards is put them in a rubber band and pack them away into our christmas boxes.  When the next Christmas is upon us, I have a blast going through all the year-old cards and seeing how people have changed within the last year.  Well, here is a BETTER idea!  Why don’t you use all those beautiful cards and turn them into your iPhone (or smartphone) contact pictures!!

Tada!!!  So, now everytime Tami gets ahold of me, her beautiful family will pop up on my phone!!  :-)  (Thanks Tami for letting me use your family for my post).  :-)

NOTE:  If the blog looks slightly different, I moved my blog over to a WordPress blog rather than my old Moveable Type Blog.  I used my tech-savvy skills and completed the transfer all by myself, so proud!  :-)  For those of you who subscribe to my RSS feed, you may have to update the URL to get the new feed, so just click on the SUBSCRIBE link on the menu above to get the new feed on your Google Reader.

I thought I would I start my blogging off by offering some tips for wedding-day photography that will help your day go as smoothly as possible.

1.  The Golden Hour…the Golden Hour is defined as the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset.  This is when we get some BEAUTIFUL light for portraits.  To find out when sunset is on your wedding day, I like to use this SUNSET LINK.  This will allow your photographer to work with the best possible lighting conditions…here is an example of an image taken during The Golden Hour:

2.  Professional Hair and Make-up.  I think it is very important to hire a make-up artist (MUA) on the day of your wedding.  They are very professional and knowledgeable about what looks good on camera.  They know how much is too much!  It is also very important for your MUA to apply your make-up in the best natural light possible because your make-up can look completely different under the florescent lighting of a bathroom compared to outside.  I always like to position my bride close to a large window or sliding glass door when they are applying make-up to get the best possible “getting-ready” shots.

3.  Organized Timeline and The First Look.  I stress to all my brides and grooms how important it is to have a solid wedding day timeline confirmed with all vendors involved.  If you have a wedding planner (also highly encouraged), then he/she will be able to coordinate your day with all wedding vendors.  When meeting my brides and grooms for the first time, I always encourage doing a “First Look”.  Having a First Look before walking down the aisle will allow the bride and groom to have an intimate moment, by themselves, to talk and compliment each other on how fantastic they look and maybe to shed a tear or two.  It alleviates stress and also frees up a ton of time after the ceremony for the bride and groom to enjoy cocktail hour with guests they haven’t seen in a long time.

4.  Relax and HAVE FUN!!  I have had some AMAZING brides and grooms over the past 5 years (wow, 5 years, that is crazy) and I adore each and every one of them.  Take time to pamper yourself, go to the spa, delegate items on your “to-do” list and have some wine.  Fellas, go and get a professional shave, play some Wii and enjoy chillin’ with your buddies.  This will be one of the best days of your lives and I am happy to document everything that you have worked so hard to plan!

The Thursday before Christmas, Denver received about 15 inches of new snow, followed by days of warm, sunny weather (that is my kind of weather!).  Should remain in the upper 40′s the rest of the week, fabulous!  I have to say, the Rocky Mountains look BEAUTIFUL on a clear sunny day, the sky seems to be a bit bluer here in Colorado.

Back to Christmas…we started the season off by seeing The Muppet Movie, which Ryland and I had a happy-cry at the end of the movie, it was quite moving.  We also were lucky enough to have breakfast with Santa last week.  The boys were so excited to see the big man!  This event is held at the Wildlife Experience, here in Parker, which is a short 2 miles from our house.  They also put up a spectacular Winter Wonderland light display, which we have attended every year.  This year they had a pit for roasting marshmellows, which, of course, we participated in!  On Christmas Eve the boys got to go to Build-A-Bear to make their new stuffed animals…Ryland made a nice, fuzzy Denver Nuggets bear named Kayden and Easton made a Colorado Avalance Smurf named Smurfy.

The boys have been busy playing and ichatting with the cousins and we plan on topping today off with a visit to glow-in-the-dark monster mini-golf, which was one of the boys Christmas presents.

Hope you had had a fantastic Christmas!!  Happy New Year to everyone!!

So, we are a little out-of-focus, but that is OK.  :-)