Modifying Light Part 1: Reflectors and Diffusers {Free Beginner Photography Class}

There are situations where the image you want to create cannot be done well in the available light.  When this occurs, it’s time for a little light modification.  We’re going to explore the most simple forms of light modification here for those situations where you want to improve your imagery.

Reflectors

A reflector is anything that bounces light back at your subject.  Photographers use both natural reflectors in our scenes as well as hand held reflectors.

Using a reflector is all a matter of angles.  Lets say we’re side lighting a portrait but would like a little more light on the dark side of the face.  Solution: hold up or use a natural reflector to angle light back into the portrait from the opposite side.  Using a reflector during mid-day shoots is must for reducing those under eye shadows.  Finding the right angle will be a matter of experimentation unless you’re good with visual geometry.

Natural Reflectors

Natural environmental reflectors are all around us.  For instance, the white walls of a house will naturally reflect whatever light enters the home.  Other natural reflectors include water, white/tan sand, light colored cement, white walls, and just about anything white/pale gray that will bounce light back into your subject from your environment.

With a natural reflector that’s immobile you’ll likely have to move your subject around to find the angle that works best.

Handheld Reflectors

I have used white poster board, towels, and burp clothes as handheld reflectors. You don’t have to buy a specialized piece of equipment, but if you want to buy  here is a cheap one on Amazon (affiliate link).  Purchased reflectors will have different colors: often silver, gold, and sometimes black to block light.

Examples when using a Handheld Reflector

The reflector used in this shoot is much larger than the one I linked, but this will give you a visual of using one.

Diffusers

Diffusers soften light and are great for those times where you can’t avoid mid-day portraits.  Holding a diffuser over a subject will soften that overhead light.  Diffusing light through a sheer white curtain will make window light softer in your portraits.

Like reflectors diffusers can be purchased, but for your purposes, a sheer white curtain panel and a white sheet/length of fabric should be perfect should you ever need to use one.

 

#14daysofThanks : a photo challenge

I issued a little challenge today to my newsletter subscribers and it’s just too good not to share with all of you.

#14daysofthanks

 

When I have a camera in my hands, I can see the world clearly. I can see the daily miracles I would have otherwise overlooked and I want to capture it. To gobble it up and drink of the Lord’s blessings. It’s a small perspective shift that changes everything. It’s in the way I’m wired.

I want to help you grow as the main photographers of your daily life, but I also want you to grow into content and grateful people. So I’m going to challenge you to take 14 images: one each day for the next 14. Not the posed cheesy images, but images of beautiful details that you’re thankful for. Maybe the flowers that your three year old picked amid the messy breakfast dishes. Or the wedding band of the man who is faithful. Or maybe the coffee cup first thing in the morning after a long night. Or the kids playing with a massive pile of legos but not arguing.

I think taking some time to record and share these moments will change us all.

Here’s a secret, you don’t have to pull out your DSLR. In fact, I’ll be taking my photos on Instagram and tagging it with #14daysofthanks. I might use my big girl camera once or twice… but I’ll still upload it for you there.

Join me? And then comment here to let me know how it changed you.

On the Waiting

 

Greenville SC Newborn Photographer

It’s been a little over a month since I raised my prices to a place that will allow me to bring home a salary equivalent to the value and time spent on my work.  I want to tell you, that’s been a scary leap for me.  It’s still scary.

I’ve booked a couple of St. Louis Lifestyle Family Mini-Sessions in this time, but nothing else.  4-8 people contact me a week and usually disappear after receiving more information even after great phone calls.  I’m standing in the gap between making a scary decision that is right for our family, and seeing the fruition of years of hard work.

It’s a scary place to be: waiting.  This pregnant anticipation between a dream conceived and a dream realized while waiting under the mercy of a sovereign God.

And that’s where I am right now: trying to hold on to contentment in a season of waiting on the Lord to move.

Here are some great links that have really spoken to me this week about waiting and dreams.

 

Hope and Your God-Sized Dream

Let’s be real; honest.

Let’s let go of regret and forgive ourselves.
Let’s run towards intelligent people who emulate the life we want to live.

Let’s be intentional in friendship so that community happens.

Let’s set aside our egocentric hours to serve someone else.
Let’s run into the Scriptures to learn the lessons we need to.

This is hope chasing. This is my dream. Will you join me?
~Nasreen Fynewever

When You’re Ready to Wear who You Really Are

Just like Eve, we women tend to spend more time analyzing what we are not or what we don’t have than recognizing who we were created to be. Satan’s victory with Eve started way before she ate that fruit.

The bite was only the culmination.

Eve’s demise began when she entered a conversation with the devil. And that’s what we do a lot. We talk. We rehearse on a daily basis what we don’t have or who we are not. We focus on the areas of our “garden” (our domain or our realm) that seem just out of our reach or control.

We take the seed of discontentment offered by the evil one and inform our souls of our dissatisfaction, unhappiness, or displeasure.

Just like Eve we have a choice.

~Chrystal Hurst

Save the Date

Waiting can be a type of resistance when you have something you’re passionate about. You imagine something, get motivated to do it, make a few plans. But then you hit a wall because this one part isn’t clear yet or that other part doesn’t make sense yet. And so you wait and imagine and have a long list of if only’s.

And it’s possible that somewhere in the waiting, you begin to realize how nice it is to have a dream but not have to do anything about it.

Maybe you’re waiting because it’s easier than doing the work.

~Emily Freeman

 

Sarah and Justin: Greenville SC Maternity Photographer

When I spoke to Sarah in our pre-session consult about the story she wanted me to tell as her Greenville SC Maternity Photographer, I knew I had found my ideal couple.  The story they have to tell about their little boy is nothing short of a miracle (I’ll share more after their newborn session!), but what drew me to Sarah was her laugh.  And we laughed hard and long for this session.

Fun Greenville SC Maternity Photographer

Sarah and Justin allowed me the privilege of doing a Beloved Style Maternity Session.  Beloved Photography is a genre that seeks to capture honest raw emotion through the use of verbal prompts to create an experience that is simultaneously photographed.  Basically, I take my clients to a location, find the light, pose them loosely, and then give them something to do or talk about.  As a girl with a degree in experiential education, this type of experiential documentary-style photography is my heart strings.  I don’t know why I didn’t try it sooner.

Storytelling Simpsonville SC Maternity Photography

I asked Sarah and Justin to write little love notes to share at the beginning of the session. I had them telling knock-knock jokes.  I asked them to dream about who they wanted their son to be.  And I had Justin tell Sarah just how much he would love her still even though pregnancy will change her body.

That last one may have brought bubbly always laughing Sarah as close to tears as I think she’ll admit.

Greenville SC Beloved Maternity Photographer.  A Beloved Maternity Session focuses on creating an experience for the couple to reignite their love and prepare for birth.

The beauty of a Beloved Session is that it helps a couple grow closer and have an experience they won’t forget while creating images that will help them relive the whole experience every time they look at their art.  The photographer is far enough away, that he/she can’t really hear the things they are sharing, but close enough to create beautiful images and give a new experience prompt when needed.

Greenville SC Maternity Photographer. Showcasing the love of this special couple through a Beloved Session.

Greenville SC Maternity Photographer

 

I’m pretty sure that I’ll be doing maternity sessions in the Beloved Style from now on.  I can’t believe the raw emotion and the authentic expressions we captured in just over an hour.

Dramatic Greenville SC Maternity Photography

Sarah and Justin, thank you so much for trusting me with this much anticipated season of your life.  I can’t wait to meet and snuggle your little boy in October.

Dear Strong Willed Wife {Construction School for Wives}

Construction School Button It’s Wednesday here at Quiet Graces and that means today is the day where wives are digging in to the dirt in our own marriage and, with God’s grace, growing to be better wives. Today I’m writing a note of rebuke and encouragement to the strong-willed wives. I can’t believe I wrote this… I’m not sure I want to read it.

______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Strong Willed Wife (of whom I am the chief),

You can’t do this on your own.  The reason you feel like you’re doing it all alone in your marriage is likely because you are.  Because you won’t let him help. And worst yet, you likely won’t ask for what you need, instead believing the lie that he should read your mind.  Speak up.  Ask for what you need.  Odds are pretty good he’s just been waiting to step in a rescue you from distress, when you’re ready to let him.

And while we’re talking about how you can’t do this by yourself, I want you to hear this, too. You can’t always have your way. His way might be better than yours… but it might not.  Either way you’re going to have to ask yourself: is this worth the fight in the end or can I surrender here to his wants?

A continual dripping on a rainy day
and a quarrelsome wife are alike;
to restrain her is to restrain the wind
or to grasp oil in one’s right hand. Proverbs 27:15-16

That’s us.  Do you want to be a continual dripping on a rainy day (with three toddlers climbing the wall and shrieking in your house)?  I thought not.

Let’s resolve together to count our husbands as more important than the cause we’re championing.

Submission is freedom. It’s not a curse.  It’s a bowing of your strong will to another so that you can enjoy your relationships.  Strong willed wife, submission might also be a a place to help you grow in godliness.  After all Jesus hubled himself and “did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8)”

Maybe humbling ourselves is the best thing we can do for our marriage.

What else have you learned being a strong willed wife?  How can we encourage each other toward godliness?

Working through this all with you,

Melissa (Chief Sinner of the Strong-Willed Wives)