Little Corner of Ania

While I was editing the photos from this weekends wedding, Amalie was curious about what a wedding is all about.

Amalie: “I want to marry Adrian!” (her brother)

Me: “Yeah well, I don’t think that’s gonna work, Amalie. You’re siblings. You can’t really marry.”

Amalie ponders about this. I try to explain further:

Me: “When you find someone you love, you might want to marry him. Or her.” (yeah, we try to be PC here ;p)

Amalie: “But I love everybody!” (pause) Then solemny: “But mainly Adrian!”

Haha :)

She also wondered what people did in a wedding - “did you kiss a lot?”. I’m not sure if she meant me and her father, or the bride and groom :p

Nevertheless. I am working on my editing-routines. Too much frustration with/during the past works have learned me that no, I don’t really need to “edit that one photo just to see if I can save it post-production”. Current routine now includes two rounds of rating & eliminating the photos, doing my best to limit myself to just the 2-3 best photos max from each similar situation. Then it’s time to edit. Then, after editing, I’ll do a last round of picking the photos that’ll be included in the CD for the recipients.

The bride and groom whom I photographed last Saturday asked me to do posed/official wedding photos. I don’t really do posed photos. I am not really qualified to do posed photos (if you aren’t aware, I’m a photojournalist. There’s a reason I’m a press photographer, because – we kinda just document things as they happen.).

When you do posed photos, you’re expected to guide and lead the couple in how to look their best while shooting. No matter how pretty you are, I find it pretty intimidating that if you don´t have the knowledge (of posing) on your own, and rather seek to me as the photographer for directions... That's one thing I need to work on for sure nevertheless. After making sure that the couple really were aware that I didn’t really do these kind of shots, and thus don’t feel qualified to do so, and they still wanted me – then – sure – I was up for the challenge.

I learned a lot. I’m making mental notes.

And because I’m the sharing kind, I thought I’d share my thoughts here – and asking you for further tip and advice.

- Hands. Really need help what to do w/the hands. Going to make mental notes of what other photographers do w/peoples hands. Haha. But really. Hands can be sort of awkward.

- Poses. Add notes of interesting and cool poses from pictures I see from now on.

- Need to stop leaving so much air above peoples heads! Srsly, wth am I doing that for!! Sigh. (and be more aware to not cut off peoples feet, cough & ugh)

- I think I should stick to f/2.8 and maybe f/3.5 as the smallest aperture. Did f/4- f/5.6 some times, but then I wish the background were more blurred at these photos. When I had to use the flash however (and thus using even narrower apertures), it worked out fine – despite me really needing to figure out if my sb-600 can be used at high speed (doubtful, but I haven’t checked the manual yet *cough*)

- Not be afraid to ask for more help w/the reflector. Even if it doesn’t seem to light up that much/be that much needed – it yields so much more life to the eyes when the reflector reflects in the eyes.

- I want a 70-200 f/2.8! And a macro for the details…. and a better second body that´s my own……:)

Anyone out there who might have more tip and stuff? I have at least another wedding to do, where part of the package is also posed pictures. And – just so it’s said – I am honest with my clients & tell them I am more a documentary-style-photographer, preferring to document the day following (usually) the bride – and rather leave the posed part to (studio)-photographers who do that.

Ohwell.

I narrowed 971 (I think) photos down to 264 or so (I’m so so darn proud of myself now) and have applied basic editing in Lightroom (I downloaded the LR3 beta now by the way – the noise reducer is simply amazing! Just need to figure how to change the color-space to sRGB instead of the current ProPhoto RGB, but that should be quite easy. I hope.). Really oughta narrow the photos down further, but I’ll do that later tonight or tomorrow along with proper cropping & finishing touches in CS4.

Nevertheless. Here’s some of MY favorites from the day…bwahahaha :)

“Sorry girlie, it’s too late. I’m getting hooked anytime soon now..”

Figured I sort of needed to share a photo of the ceremony too (I have lots, no worries ;) ). Thought this one was pretty nice – putting on the rings… (oh by the way – ISO1600 :) ) Think I kept the aperture at f/2.8 pretty all the time, while I experimented w/the shutter at between 1/60 and 1/125 depending on the focal length at the time (on my 24-70).

Cute cute cute! Methinks. The girl in front is the maid of honors´ daughter.

Yeah – the posed photos. We went to a place called “Gamle Haugen” – a beautiful place w/a mini-castle and stuff. Lots of nice backdrops. The sky changed between stark sun and overcast. I was happy when it was the latter, muttering and grumbling when the sun peeked through. Very pleased with how this one turned out. Bummed that her dress-strop is outta place though. Isn’t typical – shot two or three frames like this, before noticing – and correcting – and shooting lots more – but ofcourse this one is the one w/the look. Sigh.

Hm, tried to play off the lines here – trying to be somewhat artsyfartsy :p Maybe this is the kind of photo/motif where you really oughta do narrower aperture hm?

This one is soo fake – seeing as we tried to pretend her veil was caught by the wind (so cliché I know). Still – something about her smile and look here that makes me like it. Maybe I should crop it tighter though, towards the bottom right?

Ha! This one is pretty amusing! They wanted some jumping shots in front of the beautiful –63 model car – and it was fun – until the best man sort of pulled a muscle or something – with me there ready to document the whole thing ;) (yes, I have a nice collage of photos where you see his face struck with pain all the way down from the air :p What – I’m a photographer – you don’t expect me to stop photographing immediately? I did ask if he was fine afterwards. When I was done laughing. :p)

Gotta eat some in between too! :) (I like this one – a touch of reality in between the fairytale-day :) )

Mmm like this one too – dramatic skies & snapshot-feeling.

Isn’t cool? M&M’s with their faces, names and date of the wedding! Oh. And here’s why I so need a macro-lens…..

You can see why much better here. Sigh. Macro.Lens.Now!
(I guess these shots are sort of alright still. And yeah I know, focus should have been on the rock on the ring, but hey – being able to read the m&m is ok too). Sorta imagine focusing in such situations being much, much easier if I only had a ….macrolens! ;p

Y’know, it was a very interesting experience doing posed/official shots w/the bride&groom, but…this kind of photo….that is what I after all love to get the opportunity to do when getting to do weddings. Catching small glimpses of pure happiness. Of the bride and groom sharing a laugh while doing the first dance. All now together: “awww”.

Right. So much more photos to do.
And I do have scrappy stuff to share too – just..trying to prioritize atm & weddingphotos win!

I shared this layout at the Fancy Pants’ Productspotlight on “My Family Tags & Titles” . I used the tag as my title, decorating it by creating a border for it, rubbing some rub-ons w/bling and attaching ribbons. I like this picture. My grandparents from both sides at our living-room back home in Oslo. Of all these people in the picture, only grandma (to the right) is still alive – here’s the recent layout I made w/her and my kid. Notice the painting on the wall behind them? My mom painted it when she was young. I love it. I’ve known it for as long as I have lived. She never got around to finish it though. It misses the shades. We keep bugging her to continue painting (and other creative stuff she did before she got us kids), but she hasn’t done so….yet :p Ah. Good memories. The old furnitures..the lamps w/dried flowers as deco… my grandparents..I have no idea how old the picture is – but it must be at least 18, so maybe 20 years old as the first one to die did when I was..hm.. 12 I think? Or maybe 13.. Looking at the picture makes me feel it’s really great haven gotten around to know your grandparents. I miss them.

I think I pretty much used “My Family” here – papers, rub-ons, tags and ribbons. The border-paper and one of the ribbon is from “Rusted Sun”, though. Here’s an older layout w/Fancy Pants’ “All about a girl”, as shown in this productspotlight here. The collection sure is bright, but not that bright as seen in the picture here – sometimes my layouts etc comes out really really saturated no matter what settings I use. I even lowered the saturation on this picture, but didn’t feel I could lower it any more despite it still being pretty saturated. Hrm. Oh, and the little one? Such a drama queen. Cute, and tiresome (no, don’t ask me where she’s got that from thankyouverymuch).

Title: “Spider’s Web” – Katie Melua

After the Communion I had some pictures I wanted to share with my family, so I started the work w/creating CD-cards for them. I believe they ought to have received the mail by now, so here they are:

First out is a card made with Pink Paislees’ “365 degrees”. I so love that collection – such fresh and gorgeous colors :) This card was a part of my Tuesday’s tip over at the Pink Paislee blog :)

The inside..

Love how the Martha Stewart-punch really fit here, along with the beautiful Bella Brad :) And the Artisan Tape! Really liking the material they made the tape of – it feels versatile :)

Mixed two of the Die Cut Tags here :)

Needed bling to spice the front some – KaiserCraft makes really trusty and versatile bling! :)
And I love the Glitter alpha, aswell as finally getting around to try out the new Artisan Swirl Embellishment which is created from a sort of weird, but rich and surprisingly heavy foam. Mine is sprayed with red Maya Mist and painted with white gesso.

Love these Prima flowers – and how the cork button makes such a nice centrepiece along with yet another bling :) 

 

Here’s two more, this time created with 3ndypapir :)

 

First off, a card made with the older designs from 3ndypapir – last years summer-collection :)

Other stuff includes flowers (both paper and glitter) from Making Memories, sticker (Photographs) from October Afternook, transparencies from Hambly, ribbons from AC and Prima and letters from AC and Adornit :) Ooh and bling from Kaisercraft :)

Love layering :)

The last card is made with the “Secret Garden” collection from 3ndypapir, spiced up with Hambly, AC and Prima :)

The inside…note how sweet the Hambly transparent stickers (flowers) fit with this tag? :) Moar layerage! ♥

Have a lovely weekend! :)

I’ve been spamming personal photos lately, so this post will start off w/some scrappy stuff before sharing a few piccies ;)

Yesterday was my turn to do a Fancy This-post over at the Fancy Pants blog. I created a notebook-binder from scratch.

The above photo is a work-in-progress-photo – the almost finished binder before the decorations. This is the gorgeous Road Show-collection by the way.

Check out the FP post to see the full tutorial on how to make this notebook-binder all the way from scratch.

For this weeks Pencil-Lines sketch (#187, guested by Jane Jones) I decided to whip out my 3ndypapir-stuff, mainly Secret Garden + some scraps from last years papers. The photos are brand new – my kiddo w/his great-grandma :)

Some extra embellishments – tulle & prima-stuff (the stitched heart-rubon is from Hambly).. Aswell as American Crafts, Prima and Fancy Pants-stuff :)

 

Yesterday we celebrated the National Day of Norway. Didn’t get to take too many pictures, because as parent to a 3rd grader it was our turn to volunteer at the school which meant I was standing in the balloon-booth for a while being terrified kids would throw their darts the wrong way and hit me :p

Nevertheless, here’s three photos from yesterday (and none of me in my national dress Østfoldsbunad (I got the green variant ♥) ahwell – better luck next year :p).

Amalie inherited a dress from her cousin. A tad too small, but it was nice to have her wear it once :) (and yes, that’s the flag she’s holding in her left hand – upsidedown – oops! :p)

Adrian with his classmates (and Amalie, who didn’t want to walk w/her kindergarten-peers. She didn’t leave Adrians side for the whole parade). They even held hands most of the walk. So cute – for as long as it lasts :)

♥

 

Title: “Dear Jessie” - Madonna

The day before the Ascension (Christian holiday, last Thursday) me and my oldest went to Oslo. I’ve brought Amalie alone with me before, so when we were gonna break the news to her that this time, Adrian would go with me, she quickly asserted that yeah indeed, it was his turn now since she’s been with me before. Phew!

Here we are at the airport in Oslo.
The reason for us going to Oslo was because my step-sisters daughter (which I guess would be my step-niece, if we’re gonna think in terms of family-relationships) was going to have her very first Communion. 
Attending a Mass (?) isn’t something I do like, every day, and the little rites and stuff that differs from what I’m used to are both beautiful and intriguing.

Like using incense, quickly filling the huge church with the familiar scent. When I was little my father liked to use incense once in a while when meditating and stuff :p

Here she is, walking down the aisle in her beautiful gown looking very very happy… “Oy look at this candle I’m carrying!”…or something like that :p
The Catholics who did their first Communion this Thursday was a mixed bunch with different traditions as to what to wear for their first Communion. I thought everybody (well, at least the girls), would be dressed like Zara, who’s Polish Catholic, with minibrides-dress and headgear – but no – the Italic Catholics seemed to have different dress-codes, aswell as the Asian Catholics and so on and so on. Most were dressed prettily though.

Adrian admiring the architecture of the Church.

I love such stained glass windows. I’m pretty sure I could get lost in such a Church taking in (and shoothing!) all the little details. :) (Only, I’d bring a tripod if I had the time & space I guess :) )

Ey, that’s my father checking out what I’m shooting. In this example, him :p

Peeking..

“Immagonnaeatit!”  
Walking past with the Body of Jesus :p

Love this twirl of her hair :)

 Tuva – sorta finding the whole Mass pretty……boring. Rebecca too in the background.

  Love this shot! She looks so grown up and so confident :)

“Oooh auntie, this is sooo boring!”. Poor thing :)

Her dress was special-ordered from Polen. Beautiful :)
(not too fond of this kind of editing, w/soft light turning the photo slightly blurred, but figured it sort of fit this particular photo..?)

All done – on the way out :)

“We’re soon done, Tuva, soon…”

I was fairly bummed because they said they would have a group-shot in front of the Church (St. Olavs Church), but as I was coming out from the Church (not being one of the last ones!!) I heard them do a countdown – and hurried down the stairs – only to snap this overblown photo (serves me right – for such hurried moments I guess using aperture-mode would be best instead of manual when not being really good at adjusting from indoors to outdoors in a snap..at least I got the ISO down :p) just as the group dissolved – duh. Ahwell.

Got this one of Zara and her mother on the way to the car, though:p

 

No idea why Tuva is giving Adrian the look here, but found it pretty amusing :) We had some time to kill before the dinner started, so we waited at a nearby Cafe for some Latte/Mocca/cocoa :)

 

I did all the indoor-Church-photos w/ISO1250-1600, but am thinking I could probably have done ISO2000/2500 and instead tried to make sure to expose them correct/overexpose them slightly to minimize the noise. Hm. Definitely needed to up the shutterspeed at some photos, which turned slightly blurry, bleh. Oh, and WTB 70-200 f/2.8, I used my 24-70 f/2.8 during the whole trip – and from where I was placed I guess a 70-200 would have been quite handy. Also, I need to get some sort of noise-reducing program (or at least CS5 - *drool*). I used to have Noise Ninja, but it wouldn’t work with CS4 so it’s a bit bleh having to load CS3 for NN only sorta. None of the photos were run through any noise-red. program, which shows in some of the areas, but ahwell. It’s sorta charming no? ;p

Anyways. Slightly annoyed when people kept telling me to not use flash, when I DO NOT USE THE FLASH.AT.ALL. I am aware of the customs of photographing a Mass (or inside a Church for that matter) thank you very much, and it’s surely not to use flash (ok if you’ve spoken w/the priest in advance + it’s like, the bride walking the aisle or something like that, but that’s another case. Still prefer to not depend on the flash).
Also, sort of wished I could move around as some other (with on-camera-flash!) did, but I was a good girl and stuck to my appointed bench. I guess it’s ok to not work for once too, although I did take a few photos still :p

Right.

Tomorrow’s the National Day of Norway, I’ve got three cakes to bake and need to get some scrappy stuff done aswell. Off to “work”! =)

Ps. Am sorta feeling unsure re the Live Writer and how it treats my photos, I’m sharpening and saving them for web, doing my best to optimize them for display, but I feel they look diff and slightly off / not too sharpened when online. Could it be something that’s happening when Live Writer posts the pictures to the web? Something with the blogformat? Hmmm. Prob just me who sees the diff, but it’s annoying :/