Aperture 1.4 {focused blur}

Ode to Central Park and Designmom.com

It's been a while since I've posted photographs! Shame on me! This past week I had the chance to photograph one of the most lovely families I have ever met! The Blairs have such an amazing rapport as a group and Gabrielle is the talented mind behind one of my favorite blogs- www.designmom.com

It also helped affirm my love of shooting in Central Park, so I thought I'd post a few of my favorite images from the Bethesda fountain area from the past year. Those archways are the best!

  

 

 

 

 

To see more of the blairs shoot you can go here.

Note: Brenda Barrett Taylor did all the prop styling for this shoot. She is so great! Loved getting to work with her as she is an old family friend! It was a lovely afternoon.

Sold Out!

The first run of the Portraiture Class is sold out! In fact it went so quickly that the website crashed. Don't worry-we got it back up and running in no time! Thank you so much for your support! I'm really excited to teach this class!

I've had quite a few requests about both "Oh Shoot" and the new portraiture class this morning. The classes are taught at www.jessicasprague.com. It's a fantastic site if you want to learn about photography, photoediting, photoshop, or digital/hybrid scrapbooking!  Jessica is a co-editor of mine at Creating Keepsakes Magazine and one of the very best teachers I know! If photoshop scares you, there is no one better to turn to than her. She will calm all your fears and teach you lots of amazing things in the meantime!

Here are the links to my class descriptions:

Oh Shoot- a 6 week beginning DSLR course covering all aspects of your camera!

Portraiture- a 4 week class covering all the details of portraiture.

Both class are sold out right now but we will be offering more soon! If you click the notify me button we will let you know when the classes are avaible again.

I just wanted to post a class description. Registration begins tomorrow!

Portrait Photography Class

• Course Type: Instructor-led
• Format: Video, Online
• Length: Four weeks
• Subject: Portrait Photography
• Instructor: Candice Stringham
• Difficulty: Intermediate

We know that the people we love (yes, the same ones that we lovingly create layouts about) are special, unique, and wonderful. We know that when we click our shutters, we want to capture their awesome personality and appearance and let these shine through the photos we shoot. Now if only we knew exactly how to work our cameras so that when that precious moment arises, we are able to capture what we see in front of us, express how it moves us, and preserve it forever on a photograph.

Enter Portrait Photography with Candice Stringham! For four intensive weeks, join Candice as she leads you on a journey towards taking better photos of your family and friends.

Here is a quick run-through of what to expect from the course:

• In the first week, you’ll learn about the basic elements of portraits so that you can maximize this knowledge to its fullest potential each time you photograph your loved ones.
• In the second week, you’ll learn how to shoot portraits with natural light.
• In the third week, you’ll be given tips and techniques for photographing subjects from different age groups, including how to ensure that your subjects are comfortable and natural, how to pose them, and how to look for the best locations to shoot in.
• In the fourth week, you’ll learn how to photograph couples, families, and group portraits.

Throughout the 4 weeks of the course you’ll receive:

• step-by-step video tutorials that will allow you to see and hear the techniques as you learn. These videos will be available foreverfrom your course homepage at jessicasprague.com, even after the course ends.
• a comprehensive lesson and assignmentfor each week
• an email from Candice 5 days a week for all four weeks, with encouragement, coupons, and inspiration
• access to a private class message boardwhere you can ask questions and chat with other participants about portrait photography as well as everything under the sun
• a weekly live-chat session so Candice can answer questions about the lesson and assignment
• access to the class image gallery, where you can upload your lesson photographs and get praise and feedback from other students

Plus! At the end of your 4-week portrait photography journey, Candice will personally review your individual final three-photograph portfolio!

Because Candice wishes to deliver individualized and personalized instruction for each student, the course class size will be limited. Registration for the course begins on April 27th at 9:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.

Course Prerequisites

Because this is an intermediate photography class, you should have already taken the Oh Shoot! Photography class, or have a working knowledge of how to use your camera on manual mode.

Registration:

Registration for the May 2009 session of this course begins at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time on April 27, Monday.

Class dates:

Class runs from Monday, May 4th to Sunday, May 31st.

NOTE: Because Candice wants to personalize the instruction for this course, class size is limited.

Thank you so much! And a winner!

Thank you so much for all your comments! They were really helpful. An official description of the class will be up tomorrow here and on www.Jessicasprague.com were the class is hosted! I'm sure you've all been to Jessica's site but if you haven't or you haven't been lately you should go! She is a great teacher and has a lot of new classes!

We printed out the comments and Grant chose this name out of the pile. Amie, email me and I'll tell you how to register for the class when the time comes!

I am so excited about this class I loved Oh Shoot and can't wait to see what you have to share with us this time. I would like to learn about photographing really anyone but kids and toddlers in particular. I would love to see tips on posing and lighting as well. Possibly even what lights to use in a home studio if you would recommend using lights. I can't wait for this class to begin!

Posted by: Amie Fetzer | April 19, 2009 at 03:39 PM

 

New class...

I'm in the middle of developing and designing a new class on portraiture! I'm so excited about it and I think that it will be great but sometimes when you are in the middle of a large project it's hard to see through to the end result. I want to be sure and cover all the things people want to know about photographing well...people. So I have a few questions for you dear readers!

What do you want to know about photographing people? Do you have posing questions? Lighting questions? Babies? Teens? Adults? Families?  

What has always alluded you when you were trying to take a portrait? Would you want to see a full shoot on film? Or would you rather just see techniques in the videos?

I'd love to hear any questions or thoughts that you have! Post your thoughts and questions by Monday and one of you just might win a spot in the class for helping me out!

Because sometimes you need to get out of the city, so you take spontaneous trips...

to Louisville and you get tired after driving all night so you think it is hilariously funny when they sell mustaches at the diner along with the food. So you buy them and wear them.

And in some cases it's cute:

 

In some cases it's a little bit sexy, in a strange wild west kind of way:

 

 

But in other cases it's just very, very wrong. Like in a "I'm a zombie, here to eat your brains" sort of way. (I can't believe I'm even posting this. It's amazing the sort of judgment impairment missing a whole night of sleep can cause.)

I am so glad that I'm not a man! I do not look good with facial hair, but still the stash did provide many laughs on the way home, so it was money well spent.

If you ever visit Louisville, stop by the Paradise Cafe. It's good times for all!

 

The birds are chirping!

It's 6:50 am here, the sun is out and the light is spilling in from the window and across my lap and onto the couch. The birds are up chirping and building nests outside on top of the air conditioner. And all that would seem very pleasant if I had gone to sleep yet! That's right I haven't been to sleep yet! I have some big deadlines and spent the evening commenting on photographs to finish up my last class at www.jessicasprague.com and editing photographs for the films we are in the middle of making for the new portraiture class!

I'm excited and exhausted but I wanted to share this photograph of some of my favorite people in the window light studio we rented for the first half of the class videos!

Matt,Sarah,Elsie, and Patrick.

 

Hope to see you there! Good night, er...or...good morning.