To do lists are a big part of actually getting work done. I previously blogged about the workflow chart. It’s a great chart giving you information on what has been done, what needs to be done, etc, with just a glance at it.  But what about those daily to-dos. How do you organize those? Post it notes, that occasionally fly away? In your notebook that fills up with ideas? Maybe on the computer?

I used to write my daily tasks in a notebook. But throughout the day as things happen I’d continue to write down things that come up that need done. And, any ideas that were coming to mind. My to-do’s were getting lost in all of my want-to’s.  I needed a better set up. For me I’m much more successful when I write tasks down. And then, ya know, the satisfaction of crossing them off as you finish them. Don’t deny it, you love to cross things off!  The Make It Happen Daily To-Do List came into full force!

I needed something that was designated to just things that needed done. Not ideas or notes, just tasks. And not just a blank paper that ended up having the longest list of things to do on it. That became overwhelming. Sometimes to the point of ignoring it. The Make It Happen list helps me focus. Taking 5 top, must do, things and making them a priority. Yet also listing out other things that needed done, but breaking them down. Seeing a few emails need sent or phone calls to be made that I can do in a minute if I have the chance. Listing out some errands to run if they come up. And a space for more to-do list items that need done but maybe aren’t a priority and must be done today. Print these out to have on hand. And then filling them out the day before. Yes the day before. At the end of our work day it’s fresh with what we haven’t finished or the next things to do. In the morning it takes us a little to get going. This way if it’s done the day before and you sit down for work you know exactly what to do and aren’t trying to think back to where you were or what was that one thing yesterday you thought of!

Organization! It makes our lives so much better. The hard part is getting organized. So download this form and start organizing your business!  Keep on top of everything!  Share it with a friend, help each other be successful!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE MAKE IT HAPPEN TO DO LIST!

Happy Tuesday, Friends!

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Up until about 8 months ago my business was sooo disorganized. And because of it’s disorganization I was working more. Yes. Spending more time working because I was so disorganized. Honestly I’m not an organized person, so naturally my business didn’t start that way. Being organized with a system and a schedule has allowed me to work less than 30 hours a week. And I LOVE it!  However the hardest part about being organized is actually getting organized to begin with. Once you’ve a built system and workflow charts, schedules, files, etc. It’s easy to keep those up. Even if you automate or build a template or chart for something and it saves you just 2 minutes. Times that by the number of times you’re doing it and realize you could be saving yourself alot of time if it only took you a few seconds

I’ll definitely blog more about getting organized and building a system, schedule, and workflow. But today we’re talking about the client workflow chart. Now I use a studio management software called, Pixifi. It’s the bomb dot com, my friends. It takes all of this and keeps it electronically online so I can get to it wherever, whenever. But I love the workflow chart. First it’s easy to see every client in progress, what needs done, what I have done, etc in half a second. A glance up and I can see what needs to happen. As you’ll see in the photo below it’s time for this girl to start making some wedding day timelines!  But there’s also this simple satisfaction of x-ing off what you’ve done. Crossing it off the checklist. It’s so damn satisfying I just can’t get over it!  So it’s super handy especially in the long run to have this all filed online in my studio management software, but it’s super duper nice to be able to quickly glance over and see where I’m at. And if you don’t use a studio management software I highly recommend Pixifi. But if you’re just starting out or looking for other ways to organize, this may be the perfect answer for you!

You’ve probably seen these charts before. Because they’re AWESOME! I made mine in photoshop with basically just placing a bunch of lines and text on a new file. It organizes who has contracts & invoice, questionnaires sent, engagement sessions, whether they’ve been blogged, uploaded to PASS, delivered, thank you cards, etc.  You can find these through many different resources. Some giving you lots of customization capabilities. If you love this one, guess what you can have it!

Just click the link below to get it! Give it a few minutes to open, it’s a big file! Save it to your computer and open it up in Photoshop. All the layers are there in folders for you to move around and customize to your needs. You’re workflow may be very different than mine, however this will give you the bare bones to make your chart come to life!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE WORKFLOW CHART

I printed mine as an 11×14 through Costco, yup, through Costco. I needed to get a smoothie there anyway Then popped it in a frame I loved. Snagged some dry erase markers and voila!!

Now I’m off to start some wedding day timelines since this chart is showing some work is needed there!

Enjoy!

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The last part of the exposure triangle, ISO.

ISO – your cameras level of sensitivity to light.

In film ISO was the indication of how sensitive the film was to light. Measured in numbers on the film, 100, 200, 400, 800, etc.  It’s the same principle in digital photography.  It measures the sensitivity of the image sensor. The lower the ISO number the lower the sensitivity to light and finer the grain in the image.  Higher ISO is usually used in darker scenarios where you need more sensitivity to light to get a faster shutter speed. And each camera has its own limit on ISO capabilities.

Setting your ISO at 100 is probably considered normal and will give you images with little to no grain  I’m usually bumping up my ISO when I’m being specific about the aperture I want, yet need a faster shutter speed more often. ISO is the last piece of the triangle that I’m going to change if it needs it.

When I have a ceremony in a church I’m usually cranking up my ISO. Churches are kinda dark, sorry, but they are. Now my camera allows me quite a bit of wiggle room in the ISO department. The photo below was shot at 2500 ISO. Your camera may not be able to go that high. But there actually isn’t a lot of grain (also called noise) in this photo and often it’s most noticeable in the shadows. I zoomed in a bit and you can see a little noise there but it isn’t bad I had my aperture at f/2.0 and my shutter speed was only 1/125 of a second. So not terribly fast but good enough with a 50mm lens to get a still shot without motion blur.

Now you know each piece we just have to put it all together and then talk a little about composition and technique and you are off to a great start to start making amazing images

What happened before this?

Step 1 – Get to Know Your Camera

Step 2 – Modes & Exposure Triangle

Step 3 – Shutter Speed

Step 4 – Aperture

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Let’s tackle aperture!  Aperture is the probably the hardest of the exposure triangle to understand.  However once you get the hang of it it’s a breeze

Aperture – the size of the opening in your lens allowing light in. Also determines depth of field in an image.

Back in Step 1 you learned your camera and where each button and dial is. Aperture is usually a dial on your camera. Turning that dial changes your aperture setting, the opening in the lens. The larger the opening, or wider the aperture, the more light you let in with each exposure. The smaller the opening, or narrower the aperture, the less light you let in.

Stop for a second. Take that in.

Read it again.

Understanding that?

Now one might think if a wider aperture lets in more light why would we ever use a narrower aperture.  You may end up in a situation where there is too much light, overexposing your images. Narrowing your aperture is one way you limit the amount of light coming in. More than likely you’ll be adjusting your aperture to determine how much of your image you want in focus. The narrower your aperture the more your photograph will appear to be in focus. So a landscape photographer often uses a more narrower aperture. They want that landscape photo to be appear in focus through the whole thing most of the time.

You’ve probably seen photos (even on this blog)where the subject is in focus but the background is blurred. This is achieved by using a wider aperture. This is often a desired look in portraiture.

Aperture is represented in what we call f-stops. A lower number such as f/1.8 signifies a wider aperture (more light, more blur). A larger number such as f/22 signifies a narrower aperture (less light, more focus). The lens you use will be marked, usually close to the glass, the widest aperture possible. For example the Canon 50mm f/1.8 can only open up to a 1.8 it cannot open wider than that to say a 1.4, 1.2 or even a 1.0!  It’s limited to 1.8 as the widest. Some will say a range such as f/3.5-5.6 This is common for a zoom lens. When you have it zoomed out as far as it will go the widest aperture available is f/3.5. When you have it zoomed all the way in on your subject the widest aperture available is f/5.6 As you zoom it changes the widest aperture that you can go. There are fixed aperture zoom lenses. They cost more money. The Canon 24-70mm is a f/2.8 You can zoom all the out and then all the way in and still be able to have an aperture of 2.8.

Ok take a second. Breathe. It’s alot right?!

Let’s summarize that a little. A wide aperture, such as f/1.8, lets in more light and has a shallower depth of field (meaning less of your photo will appear in focus). A narrower aperture, such as f/22, lets in less light and has a deeper depth of field (meaning more or your photo will appear in focus).

Let me show you an image in different apertures so you can visualize it. I used the Canon 50mm f/1.8 lens. Couple of reasons it’s an inexpensive lens. As you’re starting out you probably don’t have thousands of $$$ to drop on a lens. The Canon 50mm f/1.8 is about $100. It isn’t the best quality of build or the best glass but it is an inexpensive option that you can still produce great images with. And it has a wider aperture of f/1.8 to work with. I decided to focus on the green grass ball thing on a shelf in my living room.  I stood about 3 feet away from it while taking these pictures. I adjusted to my other settings so that the light coming in was pretty consistant otherwise we’d have black images by the end. I want you to see how changing the aperture changes the amount of the image in focus. And these are all straight out of camera. So I have not edited them.

Starting at f/1.8 and the focus on the grass ball. You’ll notice that not even the whole ball is in focus. The front is and it begins to blur before the end of the ball.

At f/2.2 the ball is more in focus, not entirely, but more. And the hand mold starts to become more in focus.

At f/4.0 the ball is more in focus, the hand and even the bottom of the frame starts to become sharper.

At f/5.6 it’s all beginning to look in focus.

At f/16 we see it all has definition in focus. The shelf isn’t very deep so even at f/22 it would look very similar to this.

Now to see them all together.

Next we’ll tackle ISO and then bring it all back together!

Looking for previous steps in the Learning Photography series?

Step 1 – Get to Know Your Camera

Step 2 – Modes & Exposure Triangle

Step 3 – Shutter Speed

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Alright lets break down the exposure triangle a bit and look at each piece separately. We’ll start with shutter speed as it’s generally the easiest to grasp. Here is the definition of Shutter Speed that I gave you in Step 2.

Shutter Speed – is the amount of time that the shutter is open to allow light into the camera sensor.

Shutter speed is measured in seconds. Most often it’s a fraction of a second. So the bigger the denominator the faster the shutter closes. 1/2000 sec is going to shut much faster than at 1/30 sec. If you’re beginning to shoot under 1/30 sec you’re going to want to find a way to stabilize your camera to minimize camera shake, or use a tripod.

To determine what shutter speed you want first look at what your photographing and the movement involved. How much movement do you want to show in your photo? You can freeze it with a faster shutter speed or let it blur a little or a lot by slowing the shutter speed.

Motion isn’t bad. It could be exactly the story you’re trying to tell.

One other thing to consider when determining your shutter speed is the length of your lens.  The longer the lens the more shake you have, meaning the need for higher shutter speeds to avoid camera shake blur.  A good rule of thumb is to keep your shutter speed 2x the length of your lens. So if I put a 50mm lens on my camera I’m going to want my shutter speed 1/100 or faster if I’m trying to avoid motion blur.

Now remember when you’re in Manual mode there are 3 pieces to making making the exposure you want. Shutter speed is just one of them. As you change you shutter speed between images you may need to change the aperture or iso to get the right exposure. We’ll talk about aperture and iso separately next and then bring them all together!

Lost? Check out the previous steps:

Step 1 – Get to Know Your Camera

Step 2 – Modes & Exposure Triangle

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I meant to post this up on Friday however Friday was CRAZY. Meeting with a gorgeous bride, another following with a photographer and then rushing to pack and get out of town on a mini-vacay for a friends bday. So here we are!

Alright I left you last week with some homework. Missed it? Check out Step 1. Did you take your photo and learn the buttons on your camera? You did! YES! Now we’re going to talk about the Exposure triangle and the different modes your camera has.

The exposure triangle is made up of shutter speed, aperture, and iso. All of these relate to light, how it enters the camera, and then how it interacts with the camera.

Shutter Speed – is the amount of time that the shutter is open to allow light into the camera sensor.

Aperture – the size of the opening in your lens allowing light in. Also determines depth of field in an image.

ISO – your cameras level of sensitivity to light.

Now we’re going to go over each one of these more in depth in the coming days to give you a better understanding of each. In order to go through the different modes on your camera you needed some definitions.

There are a few different modes you can use your camera on. Each doing something different. So, you may or may not, end up using them at different times

A – is for automatic. If you’re just starting off you’ve more than likely always had our camera in this mode.  It takes care of all of the pieces for you, automatically. In this mode your camera determines the exposure of an image.

P – is for program.  In this setting your camera sets the aperture and shutter speed, but allows you to change the iso.

Tv – is for shutter priority.  This mode allows you to set the shutter speed and iso and the camera will set the aperture needed for a proper exposure automatically.  To give an example of when you might use this mode: Your at your sons soccer game and you want to take a photo of him in action but want it sharp and not blurry. You could set a fast shutter speed and allow your camera to do the rest.

Av – is for aperture priority. This mode allows you to set the aperture and iso and the camera will set the shutter speed automatically.  This would be used when aperture is the most important aspect for you. I won’t go too far into this one as we’ll talk more about aperture specifically in another post. Aperture determines the depth of field in an image. If your priority was to take some images with a very shallow depth of field you could switch to this mode, adjust your aperture appropriately and your camera would do the rest.

M – is for manual. This mode allows you set aperture, iso, and shutter speed, giving you full control of your camera. I switched to manual when I first started learning my camera and have never gone back.  Because I use manual from here out each new post in the Learning Photography series will be using your camera in full manual mode. YAY!

Now if you skimmed through homework last time and aren’t totally familiar with your camera now is the time to learn how to change your camera mode and where and how you change shutter speed, aperture and iso.  Next up we’re going to dive more into shutter speed, aperture and iso each individually. After that we’re going to bring the triangle all together!

Lost? Check out the previous steps.

Step 1 – Getting to know your camera.

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Who here just got a new camera for Christmas? Or do you have an SLR but when you take photos they don’t look like the images you see photographers taking?  I bought an SLR after my daughter was born. Primarily for a faster shutter speed. My point & shoot would have this delay after you took the image and Cattie moved so fast it would end up blurry or would totally miss what I was trying to capture. I wanted a faster camera. So I bought an SLR.

A year later Joe and I got married in Mexico. Brought some AMAZING photographers from Florida with us to photograph our wedding. After getting our photos back from them I was so unhappy with the images I had taken at the beach. I mean I had a decent camera it should have just taken these incredible images right? Just like theirs!  Well, wrong. Camera’s have a mind of their own in a way. They try to read what you want to photograph and take the image according to what it’s reading, not what you’re telling it to read, until you learn how to.

So 4 months after getting my images back from wedding in April of 2010 I decided it was time to learn my camera. All I wanted was to be able to take some great images of my daughter growing up. I didn’t expect it to grow into what it is now. So know that this series is for everyone. If you want to be able to learn your camera and take great images of the happenings in your life. This is for YOU. If you want to start learning to create beautiful images for you, for your family, for your friends. This is for YOU! Want to learn photography and possibly have it grow into a business? This is for YOU.  This whole series is FOR ALL OF YOU!

As I started my journey I started searching for everything I could find to help me learn. Blogs, forums, emailing people etc. I was eager to learn. I’m going to do my best to put all of this into a series for you to follow step by step. Know that I’m sure there are many ways to learn this or go about doing some of this. This is how I learned, this is what I did. It’s not the only way and at times may not be viewed by others as the RIGHT way. It worked for me, it was right for me, and if it helps just one of you than I am happy!

To start this series off you have homework. Yes it will take work to create killer images

You of course need an SLR, brand doesn’t matter!! I shoot Canon now, but I started with an Olympus.

Go out and take one photo. Of anything. Anything you want. Or anyone you want. This is your starting point.

Read the manual to your camera. Yes, I said it. It will be so helpful I assure you. You need to know what all of the buttons on your camera do and where they are located. It will save you later.

Specific things to learn from your manual and buttons to find for Step 2:

1. How to change camera modes. A, P, Av, Tv, & M.

2. What button to push to change aperture.

3. What button/dial to change shutter speed.

4. What button to push to change ISO.

You do not need to know what ISO, Shutter Speed, or Aperture are right this second. We’ll cover those in step 2.  However knowing where to access those on your camera will make Step 2 flow a little easier. So, step 2 to come in a couple days and will break down the exposure triangle and using your camera in manual and what the other modes actually mean and do.

Have questions you want addressed about Step 2 or anything photo related, leave a comment and I’ll make sure to cover them! Or hop over to the FB page and ask away!

And I’ll try to play along. I went on a hunt for some photos. Here is one of my first photos I took as I was starting to learn to use my camera. I promise that the image you go out and take today or tomorrow will be something you look back on and then pat yourself on the back as you can SEE how far you’ve come!

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