PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS: Part 3

Sorry this is WAY over due, I started this post back in May but just now did I get back to it. I think I originally had more to say but I think I will just leave this post how it was and I will just continue with more blog posts in the future, and I promise I won't take as long as I did with this one, now that life will settle down a little more now that Summer is almost over.

PLAN AHEAD, WHAT'S THE STORY?:

Planning ahead before you have a photoshoot, or just taking some pictures is always beneficial. I always like the ones I have planned out the night before, week before much better.

When I plan ahead I try to think what I want to tell? What is the story? What am I trying to say in my photography?

Maybe since I was an Illustration major where we focused SOOO much on the story of our paintings I like to do the same thing in my pictures. And for me, I like to tell the story through color, props, angles, composition, and any other story-tellimg elements. Here are some examples that I have done to demonstrate what I mean:

For our Easter Picnic, I actually started planning a week or so ahead, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about the color: I wanted it to feel "Eastery" or spring so I used some pastel colors, with some accent bright colors. I also had us where it was green to get the mood for spring. I had us color coordinate so all of us looked good together. Luckily the "story" part was easy, it was a family going on a picnic, and than Thomas with bubbles. Having Thomas with bubbles worked great because he acted natural and we could see some of his cute personality. With all of this planning a head this series of pictures turn out great with not that much effort.

And yes sometime I plan "the everyday" pictures that don't look planned but I really thought about the in my head. For example for this picture. Thomas does this EVERYDAY, he messes with our bed, and I wanted to take a picture of it because it something I want to remember and also I thought it would be a cute picture because it would tell a little "story" about Thomas. I didn't use "props" for the picture, but I let our bedroom not be picture perfect because I wanted to be real and for me, it tells a better story.

Anyway, Like I said, I will try and post more and sooner!

The Happiest Place on Earth- Disney World

Yesterday we headed over to Magic Kingdom for the last time before we move, I'm going to miss having all the fun parks close by.

This trip to Disney was a lot of fun because Thomas was old enough to have as much fun as us. Last time I went to Disney he was just barely a year old so he still didn't know what was going on. But this time he had a blast, it was a lot of fun to see him get excited about everything. His favorite part was the monorail to get to the park, we could have done that all day and he would have been a happy camper. 

He loved all the rides we went on, that every time we got off he cried. We went on the Dumbo ride, It's a Small World, and The Pirates of the Caribbean. He thought they were great. 

I didn't take that many pictures because we were always on the move and there are SO MANY people that it's hard to get a good picture without having thousands of people in it. Also when we first got there we were trying to hurry and catch Merida from Brave for the little girls from the Hill family that came with us that morning. 

But I did get a few of the castle, they turned out better than I thought because I was literally walking and taking pictures at the same time, I learned that skill on my Europe trip.

Than we went home for lunch and Thomas and I took a nap. Than that night we decided to go back since we actually never seen the firework show and we figured this might be our last time, but right as we get off the monorail to head to the park it started pouring. So we just chilled at the station for a while, Thomas loved it, he could run all over and watch the monorails go by. 

And this worker thought he was hilarious and came to greet him and gave a little card. He was Thomas'  buddy for a while. Than the rain finally stopped. I love when it rains because people start leaving the parks so it's less crowded and the weather is so nice aferwards. 

Look who's going to be our next king!

(Thomas pulling out the Excalibur) 

When we got to the park we went on few more rides, we even got to ride the Peter Pan ride! A funny story to that, so both Dustin and I have never been on that ride, and the last time I was at Disney, literally every ride in the park was 5 minutes BUT the Peter Pan ride, it was about 70 minutes, and every time I have walked passed the line it's at least 60 minutes. So I'm thinking: What is up with this ride? Is it really that good? But I never went on it because I'm not going to wait in line that long, well through out the night we would keep checking it to see if the line would go down, and we were right there, when we heard this big, manly guy say to his friends, "I love that Peter Pan ride, it's probably my favorite." and he wasn't joking either, that Dustin and I started laughing, this whole idea of  "this amazing Peter Pan ride" just got funnier and funnier (you probably had to be there) and we saw the line was finally 35 minutes, but it ended up being like 10 minutes. We finally got in the ride, when it crashes, like right when we were about to start, and Dustin and I just started cracking up, "Come on! We will never get the chance to ride this amazing ride." well, it finally got back to work and we finally got to ride it. And it was fun but we don't know what the big deal was, both of us looked at each other and started laughing and we both said, "That ride is not worth the 70 minute line it usually has!'

 So there's that great story.

We also got to ride the Haunted Mansion which I loved! I thought it was the best haunted ride I've been on, the ghosts looked AWESOME! It was fantastic, but I love that kind of stuff. Both Dustin and I wanted to ride it but we didn't know how Thomas would do, I figured he would be fine since he's pretty young and he liked it like the rest of the rides, so we went on that one a couple times.

Another funny thing that happened that night was the firework show cancelled because of the weather so we thought that was funny because of all times we could have gone to see them the one time we do they cancel it, but we had fun anyway, and Thomas was awake the WHOLE time, I thought he would fall asleep but he was having too much fun, but the minute we got the car he crashed till 9 this morning, which was super nice.

Anyway it was a great day, and I hope that one day we can go back.

Random post

Not a whole lot is been happening with the Clark's the last little bit. 

 Right now I'm trying to get everything done before I leave for Idaho in less than 2 weeks! To photograph the AMaZInG Aubrey's wedding! I'm a little nervous, not going to lie, photos for me not a big deal, but for someone's wedding, let's just say I hope I do well. So I've been trying to get many projects done, and get things packed and finding people who want our furniture because, again, we are just taking what we can fit in the car, sometimes it's depressing because I feel like I have nothing to our name, but in a way it's nice because we get rid of so much junk that we don't need. 

So I have packed most of our stuff, so about 2 boxes ha ha. I just have kitchen stuff and some odds and ends. We also have been able to get rid of half our furniture which has been a relief. Also this week I taught my last art lessons to a 11 year old girl, which has been very good for me because it made me go back to the basics of art and remember how important it is. 

Also I have been working really hard to get this book done:

I don't know if this will be the final cover, I'm still working on it, but I'm definitely not a graphic designer, but yet a lot my random art jobs has asked me to some type of graphic design, so I'm always looking up logos and any information online, I wished I had taken a graphic design class now. I was planning on it but the class always conflict with my illustration classes.  

But I just have two paintings left and that are almost done, I will have it done before I head to Idaho, but I don't know when Jocelyn will put it up for a free download, but I know either end of this month or next month, but I will let you know. Also I will be having a free giveaway for one of my prints on my etsy shop (which needs some work on at the moment) probably around the same time she will promote this book, so check that out too!

Also speaking of art jobs, the other week the lady gave me the shirts I designed for that company I mentioned about, I was pretty excited I wore it all day! Her husband said he liked it so much he got one too even though he didn't do the triathlon. So here's me modeling it, ha ha. I guess my other design was somewhat controversial because it was just for a 5k so I used the same female runner, I guess some of the men in the race didn't want to wear a shirt with a female on it, the lady that hired me to do the job thought it was hilarious, and I just said, "I guess that's what you get when you hire a female illustrator". She thought it was great. 

Sorry, this post is random, but here is a movie of Thomas dancing to Tarzan, sorry you can't see his whole body but every time we moved him back he just moved closer. This is the first movie that I have been able to load on blogger so I'm just excited. 

Also last week, or the week before, can't remember Dustin and I saw the new Batman movie in IMAX. I'm sold on the IMAX, but 3D, doesn't do anything for me, but the IMAX was impressive it was my first time, and probably our last because it's more expensive, but we did it this time just because Dustin gets discounts so it was almost as much as a regular ticket, but it was AWESOME, they had a preview for The Hobbit and it looked amazing in the IMAX that now I wish we could do that one in IMAX too. 

Anyway about the Batman movie, I won't say anything so I don't ruin it for anyone, but it was my least favorite Batman movie, but ever since we've seen it I have been wanting to see it again. It's my favorite movie so far this year, Dustin's is still Advengers but I'm a HUGE Batman fan, and Christopher Nolan's movies fan. I have loved all the movies that I've seen from him like Prestige and Inception. 

Anyway, random post, but that's just what we have been up to. 

Tomorrow we are heading to Disney World one last time so I will probably do a post about that, but maybe not because I swear every time we have gone to disney some reason we have either forgotten the camera, memory card, or some other reason that we never have pictures, but I'm determined to get some pictures. 

Cocoa Beach

Yesterday on Dustin's day off we went to Cocoa beach as a family. We haven't been to the beach very often because the closest one is an hour way but since we only have one more month left to enjoy Orlando we've decided once a week we are going to do something, so this week was the beach and next week we are thinking Disney World one last time. 

To be honest, I've never been a big beach person, but I do love Orlando's beaches, the sand is soft and the water is the perfect temperature, that I'm beginning to understand why people love them. Thomas wasn't so sure at first because it's been a while since we have been to the beach he wasn't sure what to think but in the end he was running all over and running to the waves with no fear.

We are going to miss Florida and it's beaches!