keridoolittlephotography.com

Denver Blizzard 2012

admin — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:20:25 +0000

Well, as it turns out, it really does snow in Denver. We’ve had such a mild and warm winter that I was actually starting to think that Denver never gets snow. Until today. As promised it dumped about 10 inches last night and it is still snowing. I think we are supposed to get an additional 4 – 6 inches throughout the day and more overnight. It was quite the spectacle in Denver yesterday…government offices and local schools began closing before the snow even started…in fact, it was still sunny out! Everyone and their mom rushed to the grocery store to “stock up” for the weekend, knowing they might be house-bound. In fact, when I went to King Soopers at 5:15 PM last night, there were no carts and the line to check out wrapped around the last row of the grocery store, I had never seen anything like it. Frustrated, I walked out of the store and came back at 8:15 PM…MISTAKE. Look what was left:

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.

Happy Birthday Easton Shea!!!

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:05:04 +0000

My little boy is now 3 years old…today! I hurried back from Las Vegas this morning in order to get in a fun, family birthday party for the handsome boy. Easton is a pure joy! He is funny, smart, articulate, cuddly, entertaining, athletic and loving! This kid cracks me up everyday! He loves his big brother, Ryland and loves to sit and be momma’s “cuddle bug”.

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…Golf Fest 2012!

admin — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 16:43:27 +0000

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!!

On a personal note…the blog will be dark until next week, as I make my way to the city of Lost Wages for a little sister-vacation.

Nashville, TN Wandering Photographer

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:00:51 +0000

This post is loooooong overdue. It is actually PART 3 to my ESPN and Alabama posts, which can be found HERE and HERE. Back in November I traveled to Tuscaloosa to visit my friend, Brandi, and go to the big ‘Bama/LSU football game. Happy to say that the January rematch ended much better for the University of Alabama. Anyhow, back to the story…I quickly found out that Birmingham was SUPER expensive to fly out of during the “Super Bowl” of college football, so I started looking for another route home. A close 1.5 hour drive north of B-ham is the lovely city of Nashville, TN. The plane tickets were about $300.00 cheaper, so I decided to rent a car, drive up to Tennessee and explore Nashville for awhile. Turns out, I was there a few days before the CMA’s, so my goal was to find a country celebrity or two. Mission accomplished!

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!!

Photographer FAQ’s

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:00:05 +0000

A couple weeks ago, one of my past mentees, Karen, shot me an email with some situations where she thought she needed improvement. I always encourage my mentees to follow up their session with questions, if they didn’t get answered during their session. I thought Karen’s questions were great and I asked her permission to share them on my blog:

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. :-)

I have found the secret to success!!!

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 05:00:43 +0000

Yes, I have finally found it, the secret to success!!! It hit me like a ton of bricks last night and then I couldn’t sleep, I was tossing and turning all night in anticipation to run to the pet store. Yup, you got! The secret to being a successful photographer is…wait for it…a DOG! So, I bundled up the kids, dropped Ryland off at pre-school, and Easton and I headed to our local pet store and purchased the CUTEST little dog, EVER!!

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.

Denver, CO Social Media for Photographers

admin — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 13:42:17 +0000

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!!

Parker, CO Photographer – To flash or not to flash?

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 05:00:21 +0000

This is a follow-up post to my “To reflect or not to reflect” post that I did last week. Last week, I chatted about shooting during the middle of the day, 12:30 PM, in harsh lighting conditions. We talked about using a reflector, which is probably one of the best and LEAST-EXPENSIVE investments you can make in your photography business. Now, lets move onto OFF-CAMERA LIGHTING. This will be a little more of an investment than a reflector, but the results can be pretty spectacular. In the images below, I used an Alien Bee 800, a Vagabond Portable Power Unit (the old-school one that is being discontinued) and an umbrella (not this exact one, but similar).

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!

Pinterest Giveaway!!! Happy Valentines Day!

admin — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 06:00:47 +0000

Valentines Day is rapidly approaching, WHAT?! I went to Target about 3 days after Christmas and all the clearance Christmas items had been moved to the very back corner and the aisles next to them were adorned with Pepto-Bismol colored candy, cards and chocolate. The history of how Valentine’s Day came about is a complete mystery, just read this article from the History Channel. So, for now, we will just blame it on Hallmark. Don’t get me wrong, I love the holiday because my kids really get into it and it seems to be a fun event at school.

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):

Pin an image that is inspirational
Pin an image that showcases you favorite photography product
Pin your favorite ENGAGEMENT image
Pin an image from your favorite FAQ post
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!!!

Stiletto Women in Business Awards – Finalist

admin — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 05:00:00 +0000

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!!!