THFC Photographer Critiques :: Busy Backgrounds, Cutting Off Toes, & Sun Spots

My wonderful photography friend, Victoria who shoots for the Happy Film Company, loves when I make feedback videos. It's such an awesome way for us to review her work after a shoot without having to set aside a bunch of time to meet up. I can make it and she can watch in our own time. Plus, we can always go back and re-watch in the future and share the videos online so other photographers can benefit too! Hooray the benefits are abounding! haha

In this "THFC Photographer Critiques" video, I drew attention to Victoria's backgrounds, cropping and lighting. In particular, we are searching for simple, clean and not-distracting backgrounds. We are careful to not crop off toes, hands, and other body parts so things don't like amputated or "missing". This is a fine attention to detail but once it's brought to your attention I dare you to try and forget it. Lastly, she was on a beach where the bright sun is a massive challenge. It's also very challenging when it's shining through trees and giving you lots of dabbled light to work with. Oh the challenges of photography. Enjoy!



xoxo
Chamonix

THFC Photographer Critiques :: Recomposition & Cropping Under Trees

Light glowing through trees — without a doubt this is my new favorite thing about being a Seattle family photographer in the spring/summer time. Trees trees and more trees...give me more trees! 

So I was pumped when Victoria (one of amazing photographers who works for my family photography business, the Happy Film Company) did a shoot together last month under the tall trees at Greenlake Park in Seattle. After I posted the pictures on the blog, Victoria emailed me asking why her pictures from this location were not included in the final collection. 

I made her this little video to explain how to recompose photographs to really show off the beauty of tall trees and make them look amazeballs with people standing/sitting underneath them. The main trick to showing off trees in family portraits is tilting your camera upwards. You can get down low on the ground (yes, even on your belly) and then focus on the family. Hold the focus (don't let it go!) and tilt the camera up until the family is at the bottom of the frame and you can see all the glorious leaves above. #awesome

Did I mention I love trees? haha

Great job Miss. Victoria for taking beautiful pictures and thank you for being my example in this video.

xoxo

Chamonix

Creating my Very First Wedding Video for Layla & Chris

Feet were flying at me from all directions and I was army crawling along the ground. I was in the middle of a wedding reception dance party and I JUST HAD to get that video footage of peoples feet — close up! (See if you can spot the dancing feet in the final video!) haha Rick shouted over to me, "If you're going to get that close to the action, you have to dance." I laughed and almost started to dance (like a happy wedding photographer) but then remembered I was shooting video and I couldn't move (or heaven forbid everything would be shaky as heck!). I was so excited when my good photography buddies, Rick + Anna, asked me to come with them to one of their weddings and be the videographer for their first wedding highlights video. This was my first wedding film and I'm so excited to share it on my blog today. Here is is! Congratulations Layla & Chris! You're both crazy sweet and I loved making this video for you! Enjoy ;) 


Layla & Christopher Wedding | June 7, 2014 from the Happy Film Company on Vimeo.

My Mission: Prowl the wedding for 11 hours. Collect gorgeous candid video & audio footage. Assemble it into a 5minute video within 2 weeks.

My Biggest Challenge: keeping that darn camera still & smooth AND coming up with interesting ways to move the camera while recording (I was trying to avoid just panning ALL the time).

My Biggest Lesson Learned: a tripod would probably work better than a monopod — especially a video tripod that has a ball and socket at the base and a rotating head on top. that's one of my next investments for sure! the monopod is great for moving around quickly but it's kinda wobbly.

My Biggest Reward: just knowing how special this video will be to this family now and in 10 or 20 years — they won't care about any shaky video footage because there are lots of really special moments in there for there

My Favorite Footage to Record: i got most excited when i was recording the bride's dress because I saw on the back of the camera how the crystals on the dress were glimmering and I basically just freaked out with how pretty it was haha

My Favorite Footage to Edit: the dancing! it made me so happy watching people dance and look so joyful — especially when the groom and his dad & brother busted a move

I'm Most Embarrassed Of: the little moments in the video when it shakes or bumps or isn't quite the color or exposure. im not really embarrassed about these things but they do stand out to me as something I definitely want to improve on next time

I'm Most Proud Of: the moment when I uploaded the video to Vimeo and I saw it online for the first time. i'd spent so much time with the video — just the two of us — and I was proud to click publish and put it out there in the world. Just seeing it in the Vimeo player made it look suddenly more professional and for a minute I was really impressed with what i'd created and that I'd actually done it. Mission complete!

xoxo
Chamonix