No, the photo above is not Dannie and I kissing the PPA on the beach, but in a way it does represent the moment we stopped being “just friends” - it’s the last photo ever taken by my good ol’ Nikon D800 Camera
and the attached Nikon 70-200mm zoom lens
. Moments later they went on an amazing adventure on the Gulf of Mexico, at about two feet below sea level… Read More
Category Archives: Gear + Tips
Earlier this month we spent some recreational time with our family. Dannie and I headed to Weeki Wachee with my father and her mother, and we all Kayaked together down the river. The Weeki Wachee River is fed by the Weeki Wachee Spring, which pumps out over 117,000,000 gallons of fresh water a day, at a constant temperature of 74F. Paddling down the crystal clear river we could always see the bottom, which was a relief for Dannie and her mother, Karen, who are not experienced Kayakers (In this group, I was the second most experienced, having kayaked 4 or 5 times before). I thought I would take a risk this time by bringing my camera with me. Read More
Have you ever seen a picture of yourself where everything seems to be fine - you look good, the scenery is beautiful, and it’s not out of focus or underexposed - but for some reason you don’t feel like the the photo is of anything. In other words, you can’t tell if it’s a picture of a person in a park or a park with a person in it. In this post I want to go over some techniques that can be used to draw the viewers eye to the subject of a photo, and make it clear what the photographer was trying to capture. Here are five ways to make the subject of a photograph stand out from the rest of the scenery: Read More
No matter what brand you use, the Nikon 70-200mm is a classic for photographing weddings. We picked ours up this Summer as a way to celebrate the booking of our first wedding clients since moving to Florida. Even though we bought it to photograph people, I couldn’t wait to break it in so I gave in to my inner nature photographer and took it for a walk in the park. Read More
We wanted to discuss copyright, ownership of images, print releases and model releases these are some of the most widely misunderstood subjects among photography customers. Keep in mind that we are not lawyers, and nothing we say should be taken as legal advice. Most of what you see here is paraphrased from the PPA website, a resource for professional photographers. After reading this post we hope that you will walk away with a better understanding of who owns photos and what you and your photographer are each allowed to do with them. Knowing the terminology related to these issues will help you to build trust between you and your photographer. Read More
We bought this lens to celebrate our transition into the world of professional photography. Our focus had always been on travel and nature photography and our gear reflected that leaning. The Nikkor 85mm is used regularly by fashion photographers who shoot for magazines like Vogue, and its reviews were untouchable. We wanted a lens that was ideal for portraits, and we were not disappointed. Read More
We got our Nikon D700
a few months before we photographed our first wedding. Dannie uses it more often because it suits her style of photography a little better - Dannie tends to take more photographs than I do, and the D700 is all about speed. Read More
The Nikon D800
was the first professional grade camera we purchased, though we didn’t buy it with Jake and Dannie Studio in mind. At the time we had been married for half a year and we were getting ready for a trip to China. We had it in our heads to publish an E-book about our trip and we used that as the excuse we’d been looking for to upgrade our gear. It arrived while we were packing for the trip, and I read the instruction manual on the plane (I already had a pretty good idea how it works, but it’s always a good idea to read the manual). Read More
Ever since I cut my leg on during a couples photography session we have made an effort to be a little more safety conscious. Obviously preventing me from falling down and hurting myself will be a long and difficult journey well beyond the scope of a single blog post, so we’re going to focus more energy on patching me up afterward.
Introducing our new first aid kit! Read More