FAQ for Photographers: Tidbits and A-ha! Moments

It’s been a long time since my last FAQ for photographers post, so I’ve been trying to think of something super clever and amazing to write about. Unfortunately, since I don’t consider myself an expert in most areas of photography, and since, truth be told, I myself don’t have the patience to sit through long and complicated tutorials on the internet, I decided to share in a way that I learn best: through helpful (and almost always completely unrelated) tidbits of information. In my five years of working at Starbucks, one of the big catchphrases during coaching sessions was the “a-ha! moment,” in which book learning and experience finally converge and all at once, everything just makes sense. As cheesy as it sounds, I’ve found that this still holds true for me. There’s a lot of trial and error in this business, but now and then I come across something on a website or in a book, and I literally want to smack my forehead.

That said, I’m just going to do a straight-up list of golden nuggets that I’ve either discovered upon accident or learned from the wisdom of another photographer recently. I hope you find one or two that are useful to you, too!

1. If you shoot Canon, upgrade your focusing screen.

Oh man. How did I not know about this before? It’s no secret that the Canon 5D Mark II has a less-than-stellar focusing system, especially if you shoot wide open pretty frequently. With a couple of my lenses, the focusing is a lot more reliable than others, but all around, it just kind of sucks if you think you’ve nailed the focus on a shot only to load it onto your computer and see that you’ve missed the focus by just a hair. And it’s not that I’m particularly crazy about every shot being perfectly in focus. In fact, I’ve had many “accidents” that have ended up being gorgeous. But for the most part, I’ve been wishing I could have an easier time with it, especially now that I have a manual-focus-only 45 mm tilt-shift lens (but more on that amazingness later). Anyway, if you change out the focusing screen to a $40 Eg-S Super Precision Matte Screen, it allows you to see better what’s actually in focus. It’s kind of weird, but the area you’re focusing on just “pops” more. But some words of warning: although it’s super easy to change out yourself, it can also be a little nerve-wracking messing with the innards of your camera, so if you don’t feel comfortable, take it to a professional. Also, it’s only recommended for use if you shoot at f/2.8 or lower, or it can make everything appear darker. AND don’t forget to go into your camera’s settings and change the focusing screen option, or you won’t be able to get a proper exposure. Other than that, enjoy!

2. Put together an emergency kit for weddings and shoots.

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for FOREVER and had just never gotten around to it, but I couldn’t have picked better timing to get my act together. Last week, I sat down and made a list and then went on a shopping spree at Target (and let’s face it, any excuse to go on a shopping spree at Target, especially when it’s considered to be a business write-off, is a good one). I started with a cute bag and then filled it to the brim with items like first aid supplies, a sewing kit, hairspray, bug spray, a giant white sheet (especially useful for protecting wedding dresses if you plan to shoot outdoors), Advil, oil-absorbing sheets, Colgate Wisps, Clif bars, a mirror, a clear “bubble” umbrella, and a pack of nice wooden hangers for shooting dresses (they’re only $5 for 5 at Target… you can’t beat that!). Remember the fire ant attack from the shoot I did on Sunday? Boy oh boy, was I glad I came prepared for treatment. I would’ve been even more thankful had it happened to a client while on a shoot. So needless to say, it’s a valuable investment for ensuring a great customer experience, no matter what happens.

3. Make use of shortcuts in Bridge and Photoshop.

Yeah, I feel kind of like a doofus for not figuring this out sooner. Now I can officially say that assigning my favorite actions and adjustments to F-keys has revolutionized my workflow. I mean, seriously. I could’ve saved myself a million hours of work just by using these. I also just recently began using Autoloader, which is an AMAZING way to speed up your workflow if you do a lot of finishing work in Photoshop. I can’t even tell you how much time I’ve wasted opening up individual files in PS, then saving them, then closing them, then opening the next one. Ridiculous. With this plugin, you can “autoload” a selected batch of files, and then it will open them up one by one for you to edit, and with one keystroke it will flatten the file, save it, close it, and open the next one in the queue. GENIUS! So now I do all my basic adjustments in Bridge, and then I use Autoloader to much more efficiently apply my “special sauce” to certain images. And finally, I know this may seem like a small and insignificant thing, but stumbling across this tip has done wonders for me. Did you know that when you’re changing the opacity of a layer in PS, you can simply hover the mouse over the word “opacity” and then slide it back and forth to change it, rather than drop down the slider and then manually slide it? This principle also applies to all the sliders in Bridge- you can either drag the dot back and forth across the bar, OR you can hover your mouse over the word and slide it back and forth. I know it doesn’t sound like it would be that different, but for me, it totally is. And maybe it will be for you too!

4. A stepladder can be your best friend.

Most of the time, I’m 100% okay with the fact that I’m only five feet tall. Even. But this is a serious disadvantage when it comes to shooting, because there are many times when I want to be shooting from a more elevated perspective and simply can’t. Sometimes it can be cool to shoot up from a lower position, because it can give clients a “larger than life” sort of look. Also, if I back up enough, I can get a relatively straight-on perspective which is great too. But for times when I want to shoot from above, just because it’s a really flattering perspective for most people, and because it can give you a more interesting composition, I either have to ask clients to squat, sit, or lay on the ground (again, not bad in moderation), OR I have to find something to climb or stand on, which is not always easy or convenient when there’s nothing around for me to do this on. My friend Kelly keeps a stepladder in her trunk for shooting weddings (particularly receptions, when getting that above angle is so much better for dancing shots), but I didn’t even think about using one for regular shoots until seeing Red Leaf Studios in action during their online workshop. They said they always bring one, and use it frequently, because even an extra 8 inches of height can make a huge difference in the look and feel of an image. So last week, when I was out purchasing everything for my emergency kit, I also picked up this amazingly lightweight $40 stepladder from Home Depot. I was a little skeptical of how much I would actually use it, especially because I prefer to travel and shoot as light as absolutely possible, but I was SO thankful to have it at Rachel’s senior shoot. No matter where we were, I always had a way of getting higher, and I was so pleased with the results. And it really wasn’t bad at all to carry around.

 

Whew. I feel like I’m entering novel territory once again, so I’ll leave it there for today. Looking back through these, it seems like the common thread is that sometimes all it takes is a $40 product to completely change the way you work. Crazy, eh?

If you found this post helpful, and/or if there’s a specific question or topic you’d like to see covered in a future post, let me know!