Discussion: Photography

This week's discussion post is my monthly discussion about something moreso about me!

One of my hobbies, outside of blogging, is photography! I started off as just taking senior pictures for my sister and a couple of other people in her grade. After that, I ended up taking senior photos for at least one person every year for the next few years. Granted, the people I took pictures for were family, friends, or people I worked with. I didn't really have anyone outside of my personal circle that I took photos for.

Once people started to be more interested in me taking pictures for them, my dad gave me $500 to go out and buy a good camera. Instead of continuing to take the pictures with a digital point and shoot camera. I ended up deciding on a Nikon D3000. I like it alright, but I think I could have done better. I wish I would have looked more into what kind of camera to buy before I made the purchase. Maybe talked to some people with fancy cameras. I think that I want to sell my camera and buy a Canon T3i or T4i or something. I know someone who has one of those and it takes waaaay better pictures and the manual settings are easier to figure out! My biggest problem with my current camera is that I can't set it up so that I can use the screen to take pictures instead of using the viewfinder. Having glasses and having to look through the viewfinder doesn't always work so well.

I generally only take portrait photos. I like having a model. I have messed around with other kinds of photography, but portraiture is where my interests lie. In 2014, I took a three day horse photography program. My boyfriend's mom paid for it for me so I could help her with taking some pictures. She's never actually had me take any pictures for her so it was basically a waste of my time and her money. I don't even like horses.

When I take pictures for someone, I usually just charge $100. If it is a type of session that I haven't done before and I'm not 100% confident in my abilities, I only charge $50. I haven't had very many paying gigs yet, but I've had a few. I usually set up a time with the person and I pick them up in the morning and we go spend all day driving around and looking for good places to take pictures. We usually only stop because we've gone everywhere or it's getting dark. Then I go home and I look through all the photos and I burn all the good ones onto a disk. I also go through and pick my personal favorites and I edit them and burn them onto the disk as well. I let one girl look at her pictures before I did all this and she picked out the ones she liked and there were 62. I edited 62 pictures for her and that took me FOREVER! NEVER AGAIN!

This one is one of my favorites that I've taken! She actually got professional pictures taken and she hated them and loved the ones I took which made me feel super good.

One of my biggest pet peeves that I've had to deal with is people acting like I'm the one who has to set up a time for someone to get their pictures taken. I was going to take pictures for the brother of one of my high school friends and I repeatedly tried to get ahold of him for pictures and he wouldn't respond. And I was talking to his mom about it and she was like, "Well, he's busy with work and what not." Okay... Annoying. If you go to a professional photographer, they aren't going to run around trying to get you in. You are going to actively try to make an appointment with them. So I don't know why people were treating me any differently because I didn't just sit at home waiting for someone to need me for pictures. I had a life at one time.

This is the only boy I've taken senior pictures for and he was my first paying gig! I wasn't 100% prepared to take pictures of a boy and I feel like a lot of the pictures turned out awkward, but I got some good ones! 

This pregnancy session was really fun. I wish I would have had more time with her, but I had to work. I would really like to do more pictures like this. It was cute and fun!

These are a couple of pictures that I took of a local band playing in a bar. This one was fun and a bit of a challenge. I generally only take portrait shots outside in the daylight. So it was a challenge to photograph a band in a dimly lit bar with everyone constantly moving around, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well some of the pictures turned out!

One thing that I think I have going for me, is that I find it easy to make people smile. Because when you're out ALL DAY taking pictures, it gets hard to continue to have real looking smiles. This girl, she's so good natured and sweet. I didn't even have to try, I had her laughing all day. No fake smiles from her! It was considerably harder to get serious faces out of her. But you're supposed to smile for pictures so that's okay. 

These last four pictures are my sister! She was the first person that I took pictures for and I love all of hers. Some of them are kind of weird, but my sister is kind of a weird person. She chose some goofy poses to do and would not let me talk her out of them. This picture with the piano is my all time favorite photo that I've taken! I entered that picture in an art contest and I got a third place ribbon! The piano we found in an old, abandoned house. You actually have to crawl through a broken window to get to that room. The room you need to go through to get to the piano is missing the entire floor! 

So yeah, that is one of my hobbies besides reading and blogging. If you're interested in seeing more pictures that I've taken, you can check out the Facebook page that I made (X). I rarely ever update it because I rarely ever end up taking pictures for anyone anymore.

This is probably not the most exciting post ever, but hopefully you at least found the pictures interesting. What are some of your hobbies outside of blogging?