Holiday Canvas Sale!

I rarely do promotions, but my lab is having a great sale on canvases right now so I thought I'd pass the love on to you!

Starting right NOW the next three clients (who have already had their session with me) can order a 16x20 Canvas Gallery Wrap at $199! (regular price is $295!)

*This promotion is only good through Friday Dec. 2nd, so hurry!*

This is a fantastic gift option for family members this holiday- or just a great way to deck out your own halls! Ask anyone who has one of these- they are just the best product out there. Frameless, modern, and they come ready to hang. 

To be one of the three lucky clients, just send me an email at stephanie@intuitiveimagesphotography.com and let me know which photo from your set you'd like. First two clients to order and pay will get the deal! Happy Holidays!

Overlays 101

By popular demand, here's a little tutorial on overlays- what they do, and a couple of free ones from me to you.

Overlays are basically just images with abstract shapes and colors that you can apply to an image to create a certain effect. In Photoshop CS, Elements, or whatever layering software you use, just select and copy the overlay, paste it on top of the photo you want to apply it to, and change that layer to 'overlay', 'soft light', or 'multiply'. You can change that layer to anything you want, actually, but the best effects are generally achieved through those three layer types. Then just drop the opacity to your desired look, and erase, smudge, or mask it off the sections you don't want it on. Easy peasy! You can use overlays with lots of texture, with warm colors, with different light patterns to achieve different lighting effects. Some of my favorites are by Florabella and Kaleidescope, but you can certainly make your own!

Here's a little subtle before and after using the Sunburst overlay:

and here's the overlay image itself: (feel free to download this image from this link, or you can get three free overlays from the link below)

My 3 free bokeh overlays are here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?n9c4e2tc79zwe 

rock em out, and show me what you come up with!

xoxo,

Stephanie

Dreams.

There are days when I wake up, and I know I've dreamed.

I feel as though I have been standing in a flowery field all night, the scent of grass still in my bedroom air.

I wish somehow I could photograph my dreams, to tuck them away in an album, to visit when I need inspiration.

I suppose this will have to do for now.

My favorite thing.

I read this article over on Photofocus, and thought I'd throw my two cents in. Photography is such a personal thing to me, and I feel it has many levels, so to pick my one favorite thing about it is pretty daunting. It's sort of like asking Santa Claus who his favorite child is. :)

But I've had quite a few sessions lately where the parents of small kids have been really focused on getting their kids to 'behave' or 'sit still and smile'. And while I totally get it as a parent, as a photographer, it's just not ideal. My favorite photos are those in which the kids are being themselves- playing, laughing, jumping, being rambunctious. And those usually end up being the parents' favorite as well, not just because it's a great moment in time to be able to capture, but because that's how we KNOW them. We play with them every day, we run and jump with them, we tickle them till they laugh and drool. And when they get older, start talking back, dating, and generally growing up, we can sit on the couch while we wait for them to make curfew and look at those photos and remember how it felt to hug them and swing them around in our arms. We can smell the sweet sweat of their little baby neck, feel their soft little chubby hands holding one of our fingers.

So, while it's not necessarily a one-sentence answer, that is probably my most favorite thing about this, as a business and as an art. It's the ability to freeze something so fleeting and so intimate, and the ability to crack open those emotions and memories every time you see an image.

What's your favorite thing???

http://intuitiveimagesphotography.com/

Real talk.

Listen.  There is bad photography.  There are bad photographers.  There are photographers with incredible technical skills and no people skills.  There are photographers with wonderful people skills who couldn't compose a shot with the rule of thirds printed out from wikipedia.  People have different skills, for sure.  But by FAR, the most important skill a photographer can have is self awareness.  To have the intuition to know yourself, and adjust your actions and you words accordingly.  If you think you're amazing, and you just plain aren't, well then that's a problem.  For you.  If you think you're terrible, but are actually quite good, that's also a problem, from a business sense. The same principle applies to business sense, by the way.  You cannot expect to run a business and act and speak as an amateur.  If you want to charge people money, you can't whine and complain about something your kids are doing to your PAYING CLIENTS while expecting them to take you seriously.  You can't do eight different things half-assed then wonder why none of them are successful.  If you are completely unaware, and have no sense about your own abilities, you will fail.  No question.

How do you obtain self awareness? Through a combination of humility, intelligent discussion, and being open. If you are incapable of any one of these things, your process will be stunted.  As will your artistic growth.

One of my biggest pet peeves with the portrait industry right now is copycats.  Everything looks the same.  And I think it's a symptom of lack of self awareness, on many levels.  For one, there are master photographers out there with a specific style and voice who are open and willing to share their knowledge and skill with those who want to learn.  This is a wonderful thing.  And the freeflow of knowledge is an important and vital thing in a creative industry.  The flaw, however, is that so many photographers are not aware of their own ability, and even more tragic, their own voice and point of view.  So they take classes, pay for seminars, read books, blogs, beg other professionals for tips and tricks.  When what they are really seeking is an actual voice.  Because they have none.  Nothing identifiable as their own. You wanna waste your money and your time and your effort trying to be a watered down version of someone else?  Go for it.  But don't expect anything in return.  Certainly not my respect.  Certainly not the label of "artist" or "professional".  There is a massive difference between inspiration and just plain copying.  And it's apparent.

Every day I get closer to finding my own voice, my own perspective.  But I can, at the very least, say that I am always myself.  I have never once, not ever, seen something incredible and tried to copy it.  (Oh, how do you do that? I wanna do that!)  Never once asked someone how to do something so I could try to do the same.  I am aware of my own abilities, my own point of view. And for that, I am proud.  

Vision.

The thing about vision is, you don't know if you don't have it.

By vision, of course, I mean an actual creative aesthetic, a premeditated purpose and intent with what you are creating. (Not just how your eyes see)

The same is true about style (see my previous post).

If you don't know you don't have something, it would make perfect sense that you believe you are operating under full capacity.  You plug along, playing with your little toys, thinking, "Oh, isn't that cute?", "Oh, I like the smile in this one."  All the while, never realizing that you are creating something with no emotion, no impact.  Sure, you can say you are, but then again, you don't have the vision, so your opinion is not fully informed.

 You can't learn vision.  You can't buy vision.  Vision isn't a Photoshop plug-in. 

Vision is having an understanding of who someone is, their tastes, how they see the world, and being able to create something in line with that.  True photos are not one size fits all. 

That's why I just can't believe how some people can buy all kinds of exterior crap, massive setups, fake backgrounds, silly props, etc. etc. etc. I'm not saying SOME of those things can't be an enhancement, at times.  What I'm saying is, that everything in a photo should speak to the purpose of the photo.  If you put a pair of bunny ears on a kid and tell them to hold a giant easter egg, what does that say about the child?  Absolutely nothing.  It says that you told them to put on a pair of bunny ears and hold a giant easter egg. And that's it.

But being with a new mother in her home, seeing how motherhood is changing her, understanding her view on the child that is in front of me, THAT informs a photo. Trying to create a photo that captures the intimacy and wonder of an ultrasound, and being successful. THAT is what I remember about good photos.  The feeling they exude.

As I mentioned before, I want to be a witness.  One of the things I love about photography is it's ability to capture.  And, if all you're capturing is something fake and forced, then what a waste of this art. 

I hope to always, ALWAYS be a witness to this artform rather than an outsider.