A few years ago I started this blog and I’ll let you in on a little secret … I had NO idea what I was doing. Fast forward 3 years and I still don’t know what I’m doing. But through much trial and error, I have learned a few things along the way. First and foremost, how Dr. Pepper is the #1 essential tool in your blogging toolbox. Actually … that’s about the extent of my blogging knowledge ??.
I’ve had a lot of questions over the last year, a lot of them about photography so I thought I’d try to answer a few. Now do me a favor if you’re an actual photographer .. please X out of this window and don’t read any further because I don’t want to embarrass myself! ?
Photography FAQ’s
What camera do you use?
I first started on an old Nikon D70. I knew nothing about F Stops, Aperture, ISO, charging camera batteries etc. It was so overwhelming! But after 374 Pinterest searches, 9,372 practice photos and a few tears … I finally felt like I could successfully take a picture … on automatic mode! Ha! Getting into manual mode was a whole different story that I am still learning!
A year ago I was ready to upgrade to a newer camera and after lots of help from other bloggers, photographer friends and Jesus, I decided on the Nikon D5300. There are so many options when it comes to cameras and it was ridiculously overwhelming! It took me months to finally click Purchase. And then probably 6 months to finally get rid of the return label. But for what I do, this camera is perfect! And it has just enough bells and whistles for The Ericksen fam.
I primarily use 50mm and 35mm lenses. I love the photos that each of these lenses produces. The bokeh effect is just ?? They’re both auto-focus lenses which are posh in my opinion. Very helpful for beginners. And they really give that professional photo feel. The main difference in the two lenses is that a 50mm is more zoomed in. So I use them both for different photography settings.
Who takes your photos?
This is my favorite question ever. So many people have asked me if I hire a photographer for all of my “shoots” and I’m flattered, but no. Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat! My husband takes a lot of the pictures .. that is when he’s home ? When he isn’t home, I try to take them. My new camera has a lot of really cool functions that help with “selfies”. I can use the frame viewer straight from my phone to line up and take photos. But. My favorite photographer of all is my 6 year old Nora ? She has actually been taking photos on my DSLR for 2 years and has gotten quite good! I usually get the light settings all queued up and then she goes to town. I tell her I will pay her a quarter for every photo I use and she loves it. She’s already saved up enough for her own DSLR camera.
How do you edit your photos?
Something you may not know about me is I have been a graphic designer for 10 years now. Wow! I’m so old! With that came a lot of editing knowledge. I can navigate Photoshop like Khloe Kardashian can navigate a prank. But Photoshop is more time extensive when it comes to photo editing and I much prefer Lightroom. Which was another learning curve. Ugh! So much to learn with this D-word blog! I have come to love Lightroom and editing is so quick now! I have created my own presets that I use with all my photos – even the photos I take on my iPhone get my presets applied to them on the Lightroom mobile app. It’s so easy! I am considering selling me presets soon so drop a comment below if you are interested in them!
I have come to realllllly love photography and enjoy taking pictures of my family so so much! I am so grateful for what I’ve learned and the millions of photos I now have jamming up my scratch disks on my Mac (still trying to figure out what the H that means). We have so many memories and so many photo fails to laugh at ?.
Now you can enjoy some of my favorite photos of my baby bunny. She’s the hip to my hop.