My holiday weekeed was a busy one! Three shoots in 2 days will really wear you out. Family session on Saturday and two NA Rider’s Calander sessions on Sunday. But it was completely worth the sweat and heat exhaustion! I ended up scoring a Nikon Nikkor 24-70mm lens for the job, really impressed with the lens, but I think I’m going to explore some other lenses before making a big lens purchase. Then again, I’ve heard that lens is the work horse for a lot of people. First shoot, good time with the Jett family, long time friends of mine. I came out with a few good shots, but I think I was trying to find the sweet spot on that lens, and a lot of the shots didn’t turn out how I wanted. However, on a better note, I got one of my favorite shots of a child I’ve ever snapped.

The calendar shoot was a lot of work and a lot of batteries! My speedlights just suck battery power, I used nearly 30 batteries in the process. The shots came out great, we did some inside stuff and I really played with lighting techniques, some techniques worked others didn’t. Some shots turned out better then expected others did not, so I’m still in the learning curve, but overall the experience was well worth the work. I’m learning more and more how to interact with the model to achieve the best expressions and looks. The more comfortable I make them feel, the less awkward they will feel. I remain completely professional at all times, but try and make them laugh to “break the ice” so to speak. It just get things moving in a more positive direction. Overall the shots turned out pretty sick, but I came out of the experience knowing that I really need a new camera body. The LCD on my D5000 just doesn’t have the resolution I need to really see how my shots are turning out. I’ve had to do a ton of editing on these, more then I would of like to. So just another piece of gear to add to my list! Til’ next time…