THE EYES ARE A WINDOW TO THE SOUL

Many people ask me how I get the eyes in my images so clear, well I could tell you about some expensive software that can add brightness and sharpness, I could describe a long way round it in Photoshop or I could tell you the simple way that I get such lovely eyes.

How do I get such stunning eyes in my images, well of course it requires top professional equipment so firstly is a pro body camera, Next of course is a pro lens. A pro lens is not your £500.00 pound lens or your £900.00 pound lens, Great glass comes at a great price and yes you do get what you pay for.

My second tip is to turn off all in camera sharpening. Thats right turn it off you see the sharpness that you induce either in camera or in photoshop actually reduces the detail rather then increase it.

It does not help either that digital images are always much softer then film, so this is where those expensive lenses come in, The better quality the glass in the lens the sharper the image will be.

An understanding of ISO, and white balance are important, I dont tend to rely on my cameras pre-sets but use the Kelvin scale, the lower end of the Kelvin scale gives a warm redder tone and the higher end gives a cool bluish tone

File format is important to JPEG and TIFF are compression file formats so the images are processed in the camera and then squashed down into a smaller size to save space on the memory card. With JPEG the cameras computer removes self similar pixels, for example a large area of blue in a landscape,s sky thereby reducing the final size of the the file saved.

TIFF files are also compressed but they use a different compression method allowing files to be reduced by around 50%

I shoot in RAW which isnt a format at all but the RAW unprocessed image data from the camera its advantage is no compression or control of how the image looks put simply a RAW file is a digital negative

Focus and DOF are also very important to keep eyes bright and sharp always focus on the eyes dont rely on auto focus and turn any VR controls to off

I class myself as an artists, my camera body being my brush handle, my lens being the finest brush for without the finest brush I would create a harsh image

LETS MOVE TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS

I had a wonderful photo session with a small toddler yesterday, Her parents wanted natural non posed images to cherish, Capturing their daughter just being herself,

This would not have been possible in the confined space of a studio with its harsh lighting

The outside world is the best studio on offer one huge advantage is photographic sessions can be arranged anywhere, from your garden, to a park or beach, or any where that you desire

To many photographers are stuck in the Victorian style of stiff posed photo shoots,
while this may be what some people want more and more clients are wanting images that capture the essence of their family

What better way to capture true images that represent the real you,than to be some where you love and are relaxed and whats more some where you can have fun

Of course photos like this take effort from the photographer but from the family you can just get on with being natural no forced posing no forced smiles

The emphasis on my session is about having fun.
To me its important that the person being photographed is totally at ease and this can not be achieved in a hot studio.