77 Prints

One of the hardest things about the past year was finding my “look”. There’s nothing wrong with a crisp, saturated, fully focused photo. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s the look most people are going for when they’re snapping pictures from day to day. While I do want my photos to be in focus, I’m not overly concerned about the rest. I would pore over websites and blogs looking at other photographers’ photos and it felt like they all looked the same. Rich, saturated, super sharp photos, with creamy almost fake looking overblown skin  (this is huge pet peeve of mine). I don’t know where I saw my first “hazy vintage” (that’s what I call it, anyway) photo, but I was immediately drawn to it. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of people out there doing that look, but it’s certainly not as prevalent in family photography as the more traditional saturated look.

So I starting working on my own “recipes” to get the look I wanted. Turns out that recipe has to be tweaked with every shoot. Sometimes I can use the same ingredients over an entire set of photos, but sometimes it doesn’t work and then I find myself adjusting the recipe, photo by photo. And the real kicker is that I could do this for HOURS. Not because I didn’t get it right the first time, but because I just love playing around with variations on a single photo. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve taken a photo and run a few edits on it and said, “perfect”. And then for some reason I’ll start over again, do a whole new set of edits and go “oh I like that even better.” And then take it back to the beginning and do ANOTHER totally different look which I hate. And then I’ll say, “I liked that second one… now how in the world did I do it?” Because by that time you’ve tweaked every slider, every channel, every color, every level, and you can’t remember how you got there. So then you just have to start all over again and hope you get close.

As a result, I have a hard time getting a set to look like a cohesive collection. It’s extremely frustrating, but refining my editing process is way up there at the top of my resolution list for this year. I am hopeful that this workshop I’m attending next week will help me in that effort.

Anyway. This is a photo (not a particularly good one) that I took this weekend. Just watch and laugh as you see my brain at work here – as frustrating as this process can be, I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was fun. It’s like painting a new picture every 5 minutes.

Original (or SOOC, straight out of the camera) – and to give you some background, it was a very overcast day, so the second one is really quite misleading. Which bothers me.

Bringing out the colors, warming it up, adding a sky where there was none (but screwing it up around the top branches)…

And then washing it all out…

And finally, a completely desaturated take.

See? Every one of them different. But I don’t really dislike any of them. I just can’t stop myself from messing with it over and over again. I’m not sure what the point of this post is, but just imagine this process times however many photos I take in one afternoon of your family. Do you see the challenge?

I just sent out a survey to my 2009 clients and prospects to help me finalize the details of my 2010 packages. If you didn’t get a survey and want to take it, leave a comment or drop me a line and I’ll send you the link. Although I have no idea why you’d want to, but I hate to leave anyone out of all the fun.

So many photographers have been posting their favorite photos from 2009, but I’m not going to do that. If you read this blog, you’ve already seen my favorites so I’ll spare you the gratuitous recap. What I thought I’d do instead is give you some fun facts and stats about 2009 at 77 Prints.

- I took over 9,000 photos in 2009 and have 13,470 photos on my Flickr page to date.
- my most viewed photo of 2009 is of Oprah throwing the Longhorns gesture out of her car window when she and Gayle visited the State Fair of Texas.
- best marketing move of 2009: putting pictures of Oprah on my blog and Flickr page. apparently she’s popular?
- number of twins I photographed in 2009: 4 sets!
- number of pictures I took of my cat: no comment.
- days I spent at the Arboretum: it’s hard to say, but there was a time when I thought I might sleep in the pumpkin patch.
- number of random people at the Arboretum who would ask me to take their photo (with their own cameras): 5 or 6 at least, and this happens even when I’m working with clients if you can believe it.
- number of random people who wandered into my shots at public places: too many to count
- number of times I dropped my camera: 4 (one of which was actually not me, but someone “holding” my camera for me)
- number of times I lost my remote switch and had to buy another one: 2
- number of times I thought I lost my flash, bought a new one, and then found the old one in my trunk: 1
- number of times I was threatened with expulsion at the House of Blues for having a “professional camera”: 2 that involved direct confrontations, but I got many dirty looks from security in 2009. and for the record, I NEVER take my “professional camera” to music venues. it’s always my point and shoot.  even my Rolling Stone photo was taken with my point and shoot for goodness sake.
- number of hours I typically spend editing a session: 7 or 8 hours is a conservative estimate, sometimes more depending on how good/bad of a job I did on my exposures or on how many “keepers” I found on the first pass. that is number one on my list of resolutions – less time editing!

I could go on, but I think I’ll end the “scientific” stats there.

The last thing I’d like to say is thank you. Thank you for taking a chance on me and trusting me to take your photographs. Thank you for opening your homes, hearts and lives to me, if only for a few hours on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon so that I could do what I love. Thank you for sharing my photos with your friends, family and coworkers. Thank you for your referrals which are worth more than any ad or Google search return. Thank you for your kind words when you received your photos (and to blog commenters who flattered me with compliments). Thank you to my parents for being my biggest cheerleaders and for being supportive of this very expen$ive hobby of mine, and to my sister for pimping me out to her friends in Birmingham.  Now that the sweet stuff is out of the way…

Thank you for not asking me to photograph your husband bare-chested holding your infant with wedding rings dangling off the baby’s toes. Thank you for not asking me to Photoshop angel wings on your child. Thank you for being patient when I still didn’t have your photos ready. Thank you for singing those silly songs to make your kids smile. Thank you for jumping around like a goofball behind me to keep your child’s eyes pointed in my direction. Thank you for bringing me a Diet Coke when you remembered how cranky I am in the mornings. Thank you for indulging me when I asked you to casually lay down on wet grass/mucky dirt/jagged rocks. Sorry about the ruined clothes, my bad. Thank you for only laughing a little when I almost fell off my step stool… that one time… or twelve. Thank you for offering to carry my bag and/or step stool around – I’ll travel lighter next year, promise.

In all seriousness, I am truly grateful for the opportunities you have afforded me in 2009. It was a year of many ups and downs and lessons learned, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Thank you again for everything and I sincerely hope to see your smiling faces in front of my lens in 2010!

(yes, that is a “Don’t Mess With Texas” keychain. it is attached to my remote switch along with a CF card case. figured it would be harder to lose with a lot of junk tethered to it.)