Photography so far…
The pictures I’ve taken is what I have been most proud of since starting Everything At Once Studios. I’m very proud of the podcast and the tree house series, but my photographs have just been so well received. I feel like my edits are unique and original making the pictures stand out from other photographers. I use colors, contrast, lighting, and shadows to make incredible images for my clients. It has been a blessing I have been super fortunate to be able to take some amazing pictures for people over the past year. It has been incredibly rewarding, especially when I am invited to look at the pictures with the people who have requested them. This is such an incredible time. To see the reaction of my clients when they look at what the pictures I took and I see their response and the emotions that these pictures bring out… there is just nothing like it.
I have only been taking pictures for the last 9 months. I spent a huge amount of time and continue to invest my time into research. I have easily spent days researching all my gear before purchasing it. Currently I am using a Sony A7 IV, and my primary lens is a Tamron 28-75 mm F/2.8. This camera and lens combo is just amazing. I rarely switch lenses just because I love the versatility of the Tamron 28-75mm. It’s an awesome budget brand lens. I also own a Sony 50 mm lens, and my next purchase will be the Tamron 70-180 mm zoom lens. This will be such a game changer.
There has been a lot of situations where I have had to crop my images to make the subject larger, which is fine. My camera takes super high quality images that I can blow way up and not deteriorate the quality of the image. In fact most of the pictures I take are too big to upload onto social media, and I have to upload them at 75% resolution, and sometimes lower than that. Its fine, they still look amazing at this resolution, but if you try to zoom in on the lower resolution images they quickly deteriorate. With this new lens it will allow me to be in the background, and not be so close to my subject. This is great because I won’t be in people’s way anymore or blocking anyone’s view. Hopefully this winter one will manifest in my life.
Not only have I been researching my gear but I have been researching editing, and photography techniques. I have immensely enjoyed watching Peter McKinnon on YouTube. He is an amazing photographer and has tons of fantastic tutorial videos on how to use Lightroom. Lightroom is basically THE photo editing software, along with Photoshop. He has been a huge influence on my editing style. He helped me recognize how to highlight areas, and bring out shadows to create depth in my photography. He also taught me that great photos don’t have to be technically perfect. I think most people who are not photographers don’t realize this but a lot of my coolest pictures are completely blown out images before they hit Lightroom. The technical term for this is overexposed, which means I let the senor take in too much light and the image became distorted by the stronger lights.
I really like over exposure in some image because they are not “perfect.” I think that there is something incredibly special about a photo which is supposed to be a perfect rendition of the exact time and place that was captured. It was supposed to kill painting because it was the peak of still image recreation, but what they weren’t expecting back then was that people wanted that humanity of things not being perfect. People want the abstract perceptions that has made so many paintings memorable, and to me this is in the editing my pictures. This is where I can make things not quite exactly as they were when the photo was taken. This is where things get creative and I can enhance or deteriorate certain qualities to make my pictures have a certain feeling. This is where I take my creative liberties and make it something that is uniquely artistic and an expression of myself and my subjects. It has been something I’ve really enjoyed, and something I want to explore more. I love portraits, but I want to keep exploring other creative avenues of photography through editing, Photoshop, landscape photos, and funny and interesting projects that will push my editing skills. One idea I’ve had is to take pictures of cats when they are laying down with their heads up, then I will chop out the cats and place them on a body of water to make them look ducks. It’s hard to explain in written words so you’ll just have to wait until the picture is done. I think these kinds of pictures with intense editing and use of Photoshop will be super fun, and well received.
There is so much more to learn about everything and I can’t wait for more opportunities to do so. I’ve been working on updating the photo and video gallery but its a huge job, but if your on the fence about getting a shoot its a great place to see some of my work. Huge thank you to all the people who have let me take their pictures so far, and I hope you can be one of them! Peace out humans!
~T
