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Why I Love to Photograph Senior Portraits

Why not?  Young adults…naive to the pressures of the world…bursting to get out of their parents’ house…young and in love with life; their boyfriend; their tuba; their swim team….Photographing highschool seniors is a blast!  You have those that have never really been in front of a camera before so their shy shell is a great challenge to break and one I like.  Then you have those aspiring models, ready to take on the world.  Those career minded kids with their strong profiles and perfect posture seem to shine in a camera lens. There is never a dull day in the world of senior portraits.  I like to talk to them about their aspirations.  I like to encourage their dreams and stand in their corner. I like to hear all the wacky stories and tall tales of what goes on in those highschool hallways. I feel like I was just their age! Where did the time go? Sigh…..

At JJ Photography we take pride in our beloved Seniors.  Why wouldn’t we?  They have that life in them before anyone told them they couldn’t.  They are the next generation.  Their cheeks are still rosey and teeth are still white.  The spirit of a high school senior about to go off and make their way in the world can be seen in those photos.  They will look back on those for the rest of their lives.  Heck ya, I want to be a part of that!

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Engagement Pictures in Austin Texas

Austin is a beautiful place for all pictures but Engagements are especially important because people want to remember WHERE they got engaged and what happened exactly.  Maybe they are making their home in Austin so they want pictures that represent that.  Maybe it’s just cool.  No matter the reason, we love shooting engagements in Austin! “How did he propose?” is the question often asked.  And we are there to capture they event in real time or celebrate the engagement after the fact.
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My engagement was funny.  Plan A foiled so my now-husband had to go to Plan B.  It happened in Las Vegas at one of my favorite casinos..the Rio.  There is an awesome restaurant on the roof of the Rio overlooking the whole strip.  The plan was to propose there but my husband didn’t check to see what time the restaurant opened and they were closed when we got there!  I had no idea what was going on and he was so disappointed.  We were standing outside the restaurant so he just got on one knee and proposed.  No time like the present right? We were overlooking the penny slots at the Rio instead of the whole Las Vegas strip! We laugh about it now.  Unfortunately Jackie was not there to capture it but she did take our Engagment Pictures here in Austin after we got back.  These were done at Old Settlers Park in Round Rock!

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What is your engagement story?  We want to hear about it! Tell us in our comment section or email me at sarah@jjphotographytexas.com.  The most interesting one will get a custom blog to celebrate your love and share your story on our website on Valentine’s Day!!  

February…the Month of Love…

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It’s February and love is in the air!  You are either excited about this news or you just threw up in your mouth a little bit.  Valentine’s Day is a love or hate sort of thing.  I happen to love it myself.  Celebrating love is a joyous thing and we are celebrating here at JJ Photography.  So what are you getting your sweetie?  Here is a man’s guide to the ultimate Valentine’s Day gifts.JJ Photography-29-L

  1. Lingerie
  2. Perfume
  3. Flowers
  4. Chocolates
  5. Wine

The problem with this common and expected list is that most women are a little health conscious these days.  These gifts are kind of an oxymoron.  I don’t know many women who want to eat a bunch of chocolate and then get into something slinky and silky.  So I made my own list for ladies because well….this is reality.

  1. A year of house cleaning (she will love you forever)
  2. Babysitting coupons attached to Massage Gift Certificates (trust me this will go over well)
  3. Amazon gift card (be careful here, she may dry up you bank account, especially with Prime)
  4. Becoming able to quit binge eating for good is going to put your cialis on line life at a stop to deal with erectile dysfunction.

  5. Fitbit (even if she is not a fitness guru, there is something exciting about counting steps after you push a stroller or work all day.)
  6. A Vacation (enough.said.)

Whatever you do….get her something. Even if she tells you not to because the truth is, everyone loves to feel loved.

See you around the blog! Peace!

Sarah

 

 

Photo Parties…the new craze!

We have all been to them… Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, Scentsy, and many more…. This party crazy started with the soccer moms but now everyone is doing them.  Why not?  If you host, you get something cool and free or a percentage of sales go towards your purchase, etc.  Your friends usually have a blast (depending on what you are serving) and it’s just an all around good time for some girl fun.  The newest hostess with the mostess has a photo party!  What a brilliant idea!  You can get as fun and creative with this one as you wantWith half the league looking pretty good and half the League looking pretty bad here’s your NBA Power Rankings: 1. order cheap viagra bought this.  How does it work?  To host a party means to invite all your friends over.  We set up a backdrop or choose a cool outdoor setting and one by one each group gets their picture taken by a professional photographer.  Prints can be ordered online later and the hostess gets one free!  You could do this for a birthday party, family portraits, or a fashion show for little girls! Throw in a little grub and some icy cold beverages and you’ve got yourself a party people will talk about for a long time!

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Tips for Stunning Senior Portraits

There are so many tips out there from clothing choices to make up and hair to location and even props.  When it comes to Senior Portraits, you want to be especially thoughtful about all these aspects.  These are your Senior Portraits!  They stay with you (or haunt you) the rest of your life they deserve more thought than just a trusty ol’ letter jacket and cap and gown.  Here are some tips for this very special time in your life:

#1 – Stick to YOU and your normal clothing style but kick it up a notch.  Keep the essence of you because you don’t want to look at the pictures 10 years down the line and realize you never wore that sweater again after your Senior Portraits because you didn’t really like it to begin with!JJ Photography (44 of 69)

#2 – Practice your smile.  You probably want to do this when you know your little brother won’t be spying on you in the bathroom but cheese it up in front of the mirror.  See what angles you like and what looks most natural.

#3 – Spend some time piecing together different tops with different bottoms and add in a variety of shoes and/or jewelry.  See what looks good. Get the opinions of your friends.

#4 – Remember that dark colors are slimming and stay away from patterns.  They take away from your gorgeous face!

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#5 – Get plenty of sleep the night before and make sure you have plenty of time to get ready.

#6 – Avoid sparkles or shimmer on your face. Enhance your eyes with a really good make-up job.

#7 – Schedule for early morning or late in the day to avoid harsh sunlight and sweaty cheeks.
#8 – Don’t use too much product in your hair.  If you tilt your head to the side, you want your hair to tilt with you.  This isn’t the         80’s!

#9 – Vary your clothing choices. Don’t do all skirts or all jeans.  Mix it up!  And don’t forget your props!

#10 – Make sure your nails look nice and clean.

How to create beautiful photos with the camera in your pocket?

In case you don’t have a professional with you, here are some tips that anyone can practice with the regular ol’ point and shoot camera in your pocket!

Zoom with your feet.

Many smartphone camera offer a digital zoom function, but you’re almost always best served by pretending it doesn’t exist!  In the live view, you’ll be able to see how noticeably your images degrade the second you start to “zoom” the camera.  The camera is simply cropping in on  what’s already there and basically guessing what the image looks like. It gets ugly fast.

Edit, Don’t Filter

I suggest getting a full-on image editing app like the excellent SnapSeed, Photoshop Express, or iPhoto. They’ll let you make reasonable adjustments, like contrast, sharpness, and color temperature. Stuff you’d actually do with images from your big camera.  You can also  to dump your images into Lightroom or another piece of editing software if you don’t feel the need to share them right away.

Don’t Add Fake Blur

Depth of field will always be one of the biggest challenges for a smartphone camera.  But faking it almost always makes things worse.

First, blur added with an editing app is usually applied uniformly across most of the frame. That’s not the way a lens works, so it looks unnatural.

Second, most of the time you end up with harsh transitions from sharp to blurry. It’s distracting and a dead give away that you’ve been messing with the image.

If you want the viewer to focus on one specific thing, make it the central object in the frame with a small camera. Try to keep your backgrounds as simple.

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Ditch The Flash

The problem with many smartphone flashes is that they are bright, but the color temperature can be gross and they miss one of the primary duties of a strobe: freezing the action in the frame. The actual “flash” duration is much too long, so you end up with an image that’s both blurry and terribly-lit. Not to mention how close it is to the lens, which makes those horrible demon eyes almost a given.

So, what do you do in the dark, then?  Often, your best bet is to seek out another light source.

If it comes right down to it, though, getting a bad flash picture can be better than getting no picture at all if you just want to remember a moment.

Keep Your Lens Clean

The result of  dirtiy lens are hazy, dark images that won’t look good no matter how many retro filters you slap on them. So giving them a quick wipe with a soft cloth can’t hurt (and your T-shirt will do OK in a pinch, but try not to make a habit of it). Once in a while, it’s worth the effort to break out the lens cleaning solution and really get the grime off of it. It may not look dirty and you might not even notice it in your photos, but often a deep clean will make a difference.

Make Prints

There’s a disconnect that exists between digital and analog photography at the moment. Many photo enthusiasts barely make prints anymore, if at all. Putting photos to paper makes them tangible and take away some of the assumptions people often make when looking at photos online.

Don’t Forget The Rules Of Photography

This is by far the most important suggestion of all. The rules for taking a good picture don’t change when you switch between cameras. Just because the camera can also make calls, doesn’t mean you should ignore everything you know about balanced composition and expressive lighting.

Before and After Photos

At JJ Photography we pride ourselves on great pictures right from the start.  We know our equipment and we know how to work it in every setting, even when the lighting is not ideal.  Of course, we are human so the shot doesn’t always come out perfect and our subjects are human so the shot doesn’t always come out perfect.  This is where photo editing software becomes essential and Jackie is brilliant at it.  We really spend time with our clients before a shoot to let them know what best suits the look they are going for.   Clothing choices, for example, can really turn a good picture to a great picture.  For our brides, the make up is an especially important topic.  While there are many great make up artists out there, sometimes they don’t know what might look good in person, doesn’t show up well in pictures.  A beautiful wedding can turn into hours of editing because of a simple make up mistakeProper blood flow to the penis is a prerequisite for getting erections also as for ronaldgreenwaldmd.com purchase cheap viagra maintaining a healthy sex life..  So for all you brides out there, please take to heart this one piece of advice…Do not let your make up artist put shimmer on your cheekbones.  You can still highlight with matte finishes but shimmer ends up making you look shiny and sweaty. The goal is to be a blushing bride and not one that looks like she is having hot flashes.  We can also edit any blemishes and yes even wrinkles.  What we do not want to do is take away from the way you were made though.  Natural beauty marks and such make you, well you, and that’s awesome!  We can do magic though at JJ Photography with editing software.  Rest assured you will love your photographs whether we have to use it or not!

2015 Bloopers!

Every so often we will get that funny shot that was totally unexpected.  They may not be worthy of social media for the client but they sometimes make my Blooper List.  Here is the best of 2015 wacky, funny, totally unexpected and even gross (but funny)!  Enjoy!JJ Photography-1

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And first place goes to:

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Boost Your Business – Show Your People

Just say NO to stock photography.  Showing real people doing real work will draw people in a lot faster than that tempestuous stock photography image.  According to Content Marketing Institute:

“Stock photos are cheap and easy, hence tempting. Do not be tempted by cheap and easy. (That’s advice that you can apply in other situations, as well.)

Visual content is a cornerstone of almost every branding campaign. And yet, we still see respectable brands using stock photographs that undermine the credibility of their hard-earned visual-branding standards.

Go authentic

Let’s start with people. Do you work at a company that employs humans? Some work around the office, while others have remote offices or telecommute. And those people, most of them, I assume, have faces. Maybe not attractive faces, but generally they are recognizable as human.

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Those are the faces that will replace the cheap-looking stock photos on your website and in your customer-facing materials. Immediately.”

This advice doesn’t stop at just your website.  Everything your customer sees whether in print or on a screen need to be authentic.  People will tell a difference and that difference can make or break your opportunities for new business.  Have your people dress up one day (preferably not casual Friday) and bring in a professional to snap shots of those pearly whites and then smear it all over every piece of marketing/branding materiel you have!  Real photos engage your customers.  Plus you are always running the risk your competitors will use the same stock photos. 

Stock photos are irritatingly perfect.  Studies show that authentic photos are preferred by customers.  Your customers are pretty savvy and will know the difference. So whatever reason you are currently not using your real people in your marketing, you should resolve it and watch your web presence spike.