Love My Lens

I've only had this lens for six or seven weeks, but I'm in love with it! It's quickly become my default. I love how you can focus so specifically on one little area, and everything else is blurred. It really points your eye to what I'm seeing when I look through my camera. Here is the original picture uploaded straight from my camera (with image re-sizing, of course), and the same image post-editing.

Simple Pleasures

As a photographer with a strong photojournalistic style, a lot of photos from a shoot can be shown individually and hold their own ground. But when you put them together with other photographs so they can be seen in context, they really come alive. That's the hard part of editing for me--I can't just narrow things down to the best three or four. I see everything in a story. Taking out one image is like presenting a completed puzzle with a missing piece. That's why I'm averaging a CD of 30 images from a 1 hour shoot...and that's why it takes me three days to sift through them all!

As a side note, I had dinner with my parents tonight and had out of the three fortune cookies, these were two of them:

1. Every artist was first an amateur
2. Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.

What are the chances?

Picture Perfect Family

There are just too many great portraits from the shoot yesterday. Rather than posting them all, I'll just post this one. It just wouldn't seem right to put any other photos with it. It pretty much stands alone.

Indian Summer

We are one week away from entering into November, but you wouldn't know it with the weather around here! It was 79 degrees and clear skies when I left work this afternoon, which is strange enough for the end of October. Even more strange since we woke up to a dusting of snow only three days ago! Perfect since I had a shoot in the park with Mary Jane's mommy and daddy that had already been postponed once for weather.

I'm not one for patience, and I'm absolutely thrilled with how the photos turned out! So I couldn't wait until I was done editing them all to post a few. And I'm now up way past my bedtime... stay tuned. More photos to come!

Love

I just love my husband. He has been so patient with me as I spend every waking minute that I'm home on the computer, editing, playing, re-editing and researching. I love that he enjoys my passion. He's recently taken to surfing the internet and sending me links to cool photography sites he finds. He encourages me, gives posing suggestions, and scouts out shooting locations with me. This shot was taken last weekend while I was searching for the perfect place for some family portraits. You can't ask for anything better than beautiful scenery, relative solitude, a tripod and a camera with a timer!

Self Taught?

So I've been going for these last few months, playing with photography and posting it online, doing my thing. I've done a handful of tutorials on Photoshop, but am really teaching myself the tricks as I go. It's amazing how much pride is associated with being self taught. (Yes, I have a bachelor's degree in photography, but all my training was on film. So regarding the digital aspect of photography, I'm on my own!)

"That's right," we think with a swelling of pride in our hearts and a grin on our face. "I did that and I taught myself how to do it. This is natural born talent right here!" Oh boy. Warning! Danger ahead!

I've noticed occasionally in these last few weeks that once I hit the "sweet spot" for a photo in the editing process, then save it and post it online...when I return to look at it again I think "Huh. That doesn't look as cool as I remember it looking." Then comes the discouragement and the drive to learn more. But once I finished editing this recent batch of golf tournament photos and saw how drab the colors were once I posted them, I knew something just wasn't right. I did some digging and, sure enough, I was doing everything wrong. Even down to "save as" vs. "save for web & devices." The way I was doing it was absolutely not recommended at all by the person doing the tutorial. Oops. That's what I get for winging it as I go. Oh sure...check this box...that quality sounds good...size it to these pixels. What a lesson in humility...and a little relief that I'm not crazy after all.

Below is a before and after. The first is the image saved "Jane's way." The second is the image saved the right way. There certainly is a lot to be said for education!

Golf Tournament

It took me almost a week to get through all the photos, but I finally got them edited! Here are a few more:

Great Oregon Divot

You may or may not know that I'm going to Uganda in February with a team of 12 people. We're working with a ministry called Africa Renewal Ministries. Although we will be working with the orphanages in a village of Uganda called Bethany Village, the main focus of the trip is providing media for the ministry. Currently, when the leaders from Uganda meet with churches in the United States in hopes of receiving support, they have no media to provide that gives an idea of the need. We will provide photography and video to help ARMS raise the support they need.

22 teams played at Aspen Lakes golf course in Sisters yesterday under clear blue skies with the Central Oregon mountains providing a majestic back drop. Early estimates are that we raised $13,700 for the trip in February!

On that note, I am selling photographs and portrait sessions to pay the rest of my way for the the trip. For more information, you can look at the support letter I've put together here

Here are a just a few quick edits of the 375 photos I took yesterday. More to come!

Lauren

It's taken me almost a week, but I finally have Lauren's senior photos finished. Nearly every single shot turned out--she is so photogenic! That makes it hard to pick my favorites, but here are a few. This first photo is of a traditional Japanese garment she received from her host family in Japan this summer. So beautiful! And the very last one of Lauren and her mom is my absolute favorite from the whole shoot!

Finding My Style

I'm so excited to finally discover my style. After two years of exploring photoshop, turning my camera in every direction and choosing every possible option I could think of, I've found my niche. Rich, artistic "outside the box" processing techniques that leave unique and striking results. This is one of Lauren's senior photos I took last Sunday. Working a full time job in addition to photography leaves only a few hours each night to edit 280 images over two shoots. I'll have the rest up this weekend.

Mary Jane part II

I finally had the chance to play with Mary Jane's pictures. I was thrown back to my darkroom days, when I would spend hours burning in blown out areas and dodging shadows. I'm learning to appreciate the burn and dodge tools on photoshop. I love this first picture of Mary Jane--she was playing peek-a-boo in her crib. It's just a little more fun than the standard straight on (which, of course, I had to take!)

Introducing Ethni Photography

I just want to give a quick update as to what's going on with me. I've been going full speed with this photography thing for two months now, and it's amazing everything what's been happening. I'm excited to say that Jane Johnson Photography & Design is now Ethni Photography. I'm going to keep the same blog address until I can get a website--hopefully in the next six months. To see the vision behind Ethni click the image below. I'm eager to see where it all goes from here!

Mary Jane

I spent an hour with little Mary Jane on Saturday afternoon. She'll be 2 soon, and she is a very busy girl with a very cute personality. She kept me laughing a lot and she had on a rockin' outfit! Here are a few I couldn't wait to post. A few more will follow, plus some from the senior session I did on Sunday!

Self Portrait

Just playing with actions and borders. This one is funky. I love the feel of it. It's nice playing around with these things on relatively unimportant photographs so that when I have tons of images to edit, I'll know which action brings a certain look. I have a feeling I'll be using this one a lot more!

Creative Outlet

Being a photographer without children means I have to get creative when I have the overwhelming itch to have a camera in my hands. Josh was exhausted tonight from his crazy working hours...so that leaves Diesel. Who, by the way, happens to be a very good, and very cooperative model!