the smallest thing.

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject.

~Henri Cartier-Bresson

:: merry christmas ::

Here’s wishing you all a season filled with much joy, love and happiness!

{notes} :: I made this year’s Christmas card using my digital scrapbooking supplies. I enjoy making my own christmas cards and the kid’s birthday invites. While I’ve never considered myself very “crafty”, digital scrapbooking is a lot more forgiving. The “Undo” command is your best friend. Besides, in photoshop, cropping is straightforward (pun intended ) and recoloring, repositioning etc is just so easy. Nothing is permanent so you can tweak it till you get it just right.

I still cringe when I remember my first (and probably last!) scrapbook night when I accidentally cut the face on my son’s picture in a failed attempt to crop the background. Then, I proceeded to inadvertently glue a tag to another picture, completely destroying it in the process. That’s when I packed up and decided that I was done for good.

The trouble with me is that I have no patience. I cannot be bothered to be precise when the scissors which is a BIG problem in scrapping. Impatience with precision is also the reason why baking is another talent that will always elude me. Needing the exact measure of ingredients is just not my thing. Cooking, on the other hand, is something I love. It’s strange though… give me a picture to edit or a digital project to complete and all of a sudden I have patience coming out my ears. I will work on it till I get it just right (in my eyes). Crazy, huh? But I digress.  Back to the card.

[credits - Michelle Coleman's "Beautiful Journey" papers , Nanci R. Janitz "Holly Jolly" paper, star & stitching - Michelle Coleman, photo - srilu viene photography]

Have a great christmas!

:: busy around here ::

It’s not like Christmas sneaks up on us. We always know when it is. Yet, somehow I always seem to have a gazillion things to do at the last moment. We’ll be spending Christmas with family followed by the wedding of a very dear friend. Life is about to get very busy. But the good kind of busy.

It’ll be fun! Everyone’s getting really excited. But it also means that I have a ton to get done so this blog will be intermittent at best. I’ll try to post some in between but it probably won’t be daily. Hope everyone has a wonderful christmas break!

“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.”

— Elliot Erwitt

:: 63 seconds ::

In 63 seconds, you can go from this:

to this:

And 34 seconds later….

:: jayden ::

Jayden is our 3 year old son. He is the sweetest little boy who continues to amaze us on a daily basis. He has also been on the receiving end of my camera and photog ways so much that he has learned very successfully how to dodge the camera. Which really stinks if photography is your passion. Alas, I have run out of tricks. He has the uncanny ability to sense if there’s a camera within 10 feet and he promptly lowers his face. I’ve tried everything – even laying prostrate on the floor shooting upwards to get that elusive shot but he simply averts his head leaving me with a shot of his hair. Which really, let’s be honest here — even though he has nice hair – do I really need 50 pictures of it?

So, good pictures of him are few and far between. Which is what makes this recent series one of my favorites. He knew I was taking pictures but he was having such a blast being outside on his trike that he just didn’t care. You can see his trademark wide grin (the kind he has when mom doesn’t have her camera). And even though I was shooting into full sunlight, these pictures turned out to my liking.

Here’s a close-up of my favorite:

{photo notes} :: I shot these in manual thus forcing the shutter speed at 1/200th of a sec. This was taken in the bright AZ sun at mid-day. Because I also wanted to control the depth of field (notice the blurry flowers in the foreground), manual shooting was my best bet. How many of you have taken pictures in the bright sun and thought to yourselves, “this is a fantastic shot” only to find that the subject is so dark that you can’t discern anything. I have been guilty. In fact it’s what forced me to make the full switch to manual shooting, 24-7. It takes a bit of practice but when you nail exposure- it makes it more than worthwhile. There is nothing like the feeling of nailing a shot. Aaah…..but I digress…

In situations like these, try shooting in Manual mode or use Shutter Priority and set your shutter speed. The results will surprise you. Any questions? As always, you can leave me a comment or email me at sriluvienephotography@gmail.com

:: let’s talk texture ::

Texture is wonderful effect in photography. When used properly, it bestows a dimensional quality to pictures thus allowing you to convey a feeling, a desired mood. It can truly take your pictures to another level.

Take these photographs of Nia. I liked the original versions fine but I felt like they could convey a lot more emotion. So I added a chipped paint texture and voila:

Don’t they look artistic? Pretty neat, huh?

Textures can also be used on scenic shots. Here’s an example of a picture I took in Spain a few years ago. For comparison, I’m including the before and after versions.

The before:

and the After:

Adding texture and boosting contrast, gives this picture a lot more dimension. Pictures like this lend themselves to textures.

And lastly, here’s one in Venice with texture:

:: christmas time ::

I grew up in India for the most part. As you may guess, Christmas in India isn’t quite the same as it is in America. My friends and I would go to a few fun parties, have a fantastic time and that was the end of it. That’s what teenagers did- we just needed an excuse to get dressed up and go out. We didn’t exchange presents (with friends or family), bake cookies or even put up a Christmas tree.

The first Christmas I spent in America was exciting and almost overwhelming. Everything and everyone is so festive and you can sense the anticipation building up as you near the big day. Yes, Christmas is a huge deal here.

As I’ve had kids of my own, I am beginning to view Christmas through their eyes. It is a fun and happy time. I’m embracing traditions as we go along and having fun tailoring them to what works for us. I enjoy putting up our Christmas tree and shopping for that perfect ornament that will serve to symbolize my kids for that given year. I love picking out our family ornament and baking those Christmas cookies. How my life has changed.

I will save our current list of traditions for a future post but here are some pictures of last year’s christmas tree :

{photo notes} :: For the photographers amongst you, the key to capturing pictures like this are long exposures/high shutter speeds. I love the twinkling lights – this is what I think of when I envision a Christmas tree – and I wanted to capture that.

So I set my camera on a tripod, set the mode to shutter priority (Tv on a Canon) with a exposure of 30 seconds and left the ISO low (100 – the default) since I wanted the high color saturation. My aperture was automatically set at F18 by the camera (one less thing for you to worry about in Tv mode). And if you’re worried about camera shake when you press the shutter, you can set the delay timer on the camera.

A tripod or a flat surface so that you don’t need to hand-hold the camera is an absolute necessity. You will not be able to hold the camera absolutely still for such a long time frame. You can tweak the shutter speed some but it still has to be in the 15+ seconds range.

Give it a shot (pun intended ). It is more than worth it because you’ll end up with some stunning pictures. Questions? Leave me a comment or email me at sriluvienephotography@gmail.com

some favorite pictures

 

…these little snapshots are their little stands against the flow of time. A shutter’s clicked, a flash goes off, and they’ve stopped time. Just for the blink of an eye. And if these pictures have anything important to say to future generations, it’s this:

I was here, I existed. I was young, I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world…

… to take my picture.

—”One Hour Photo”

I have always loved that quote although I must admit I never saw the movie. I heard it wasn’t very good.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite pictures of late:

I’ll leave you with one of lil’ Miss. Personality!

Happy Sunday!

everyday moments.

Just a fun picture of Aysha & Nia to share today. For those that are wondering, they are our twin daughters who just turned 19 months. The last year and a half has been a blur for sure. At times like this, I am very grateful for my camera and for the opportunity to capture these everyday moments. It is within these pictures that I find my memories. Do any of you feel the same way? I think that’s what draws a lot of us to photography – the need to capture the moment thereby allowing us to preserve the memory for the future.

One day, I hope my kids will enjoy looking through their pictures and learn about themselves and their childhood. There are so many moments I would love to remember and share with them and photography certainly gives me the opportunity to freeze the moment, so to speak.

As soon as John saw the girls in their car, he called them “Thelma & Louise”. It made me laugh and hence the title —

{photo notes} :: Storyboards are becoming an increasingly popular and effective way to group pictures to aid in the storytelling process. While one picture captures a moment in time, a group of pictures tell a story. Many photographers are offering their clients storyboards as a print option – something I’d highly recommend.

In this series of two, I don’t particularly like that Aysha is sucking on her thumb but this is something she does a lot and it was important for me to capture the moment exactly as it occurred. What makes this picture important to me is that it’s not so much about their individual expressions, as much as what they are doing together — their action. It’s an ordinary, everyday moment in our household – just the kind I want to remember.

cartoons & jammies

I’m one of those people that has to have the kids dressed by 8:30 am regardless of whether we are going out or staying in. Having to juggle 3 kids (3 and under) and being what some might call a slight Type-A personality, I prefer things be done in a certain order. It’s just the most efficient way, I’ve found. Seriously though, if you do something time and again, it becomes apparent – don’t you think?

The kids are early risers so it’s easy enough for us to get ready early. Today was not one of those days. The kids have been fighting colds for a while now and so I thought it might be nice to just chill. We let them hang out and watch cartoons in their jammies. They had fun playing around in bed and I got a chance to get some fun pictures. We were happy all around.

Here are some from this morning:

{photo notes} :: I really like pictures with shallow depth of field (DOF )- i.e. pictures with just the subject in focus and the rest is blur. And of late, I am particularly favoring pictures that have visible blur both in front of and behind the subject. While this picture doesn’t have the background blur since the subjects are up against the wall, you can definitely see the foreground blur. I was shooting from outside the room and you can see both the door and wall are out of focus, lending the picture some depth and more interest (or so i think! ). Also I opted to shoot off-center (another common trick to up the interest quotient).

foreground and background blur!

And to show you that I can take normal pictures too – here’s one below that I love of Aysha: