Tripod Shmipod

I like to get my daily fix of bloggers and today was a good day for the Pioneer Woman blog. I haven’t read her in a few weeks and stopped by today for some fun reading.

She is a great teacher and I’m grateful that she happens to be a Nikon shooter. =D

She posted an amazing image at night WITHOUT a tripod and I was blown away by how great it is. I had to get this on the blog today.

Here is her blurb on her blog about this amazing shot:


“Then it happened. The moon rose high in the sky, and the clouds around it blocked some of its light. But they let enough of it through that it looked like the moon was a flashlight pointed at a spot in the ocean where a fishing boat was anchored. I quickly framed the shot to include both the moon and the boat, which meant I had to zoom out. But now the moon appeared smaller in the photo, and that meant there was less of its light in the shot. There was no way I’d get a shot without a tripod. Or so I thought.

Never underestimate the utility of having willing accomplices (i.e. family members) around. My cousin Gerard volunteered to be my human tripod. With his feet planted in the sand and shoulders squared up, he stood in front of me and let me prop my camera on his shoulder for more stability. And with that move, I was able to fire off a fairly steady shot at 0.8 seconds, which would have been too long for me to handhold.

Then, further down the shore, this happened.

See that magenta-colored light on the right? That isn’t a Photoshop effect. It took a couple of seconds for me to realize that it was lightning. On a cloudy but rainless night. It was sheer luck that one of the many shots I fired off managed to capture it. The lightning also added another light source to the shot, which meant I could take it at 1/3rd of a second. I probably could have handheld this, but I didn’t want to risk missing the shot when I had just discovered a convenient makeshift tripod in my cousin’s shoulders.

So that’s my little piece of encouragement for today. Don’t write off taking photographs just because it’s dark outside. Even without a flash, and even if your hands are shaky. You can still pull off night shots as long as a good part of your frame is illuminated by some form of light source.”

Inspiration Friday

I found this photo via the Caroline Tran Photography blog and fell in LOVE with this image. I love the clean and crisp look of her photos. I want to achieve something like this, along with Jasmine Star, but I have no idea how I’m going to do it. I play and play and play with Photoshop actions, but I haven’t quite nailed it yet. I’m also still working on my exposure. I hope to do an engagement session sometime like this in the future!



This weekend is my hubby and I’s one year anniversary! We are off to do a little fishing and some dining at a new Brazilian steak house for dinner! I should have some fun photos of that up next week. Cheers to the weekend!

Jasmine Star

I have fallen in love today. I recently stumbled across the talented Jasmine Star. She is a wedding photographer in Orange County, California. Although wedding photography is not my forte, her pictures are absolutely AMAZING! Her photos are so smooth and buttery. YUM!!! She has a great eye and her creativeness in her poses are awesome. She is one of my main blogs that I greatly admire and read daily.

http://www.jasminestar.com/

http://www.jasminestarblog.com/

Karen Russell

I stumbled across this photographer via my friend Krista’s Blog. I absolutely love her style. I’d like to call her style as “timeless”. It’s very clean and crisp and the daily photos from her life just draw you in. I have a feeling I’ll be reading a lot more about her!

SNAPSHOTS {of a good life}