Progress and Friendship

It's the story behind these photos that brings us to this point, and to tell the whole story we need to get our hands on at least one of the photos shot back in the day when these talented, dedicated, motivated and cheerful young women were first starting out in Girl Scouts. We'll see what we can do... Nevertheless, these seven savvy sisters have come a long way in the program, which launched in the early 1900s in beautiful Savannah, Ga., thus proving that friendship is a great motivator and a critical pillar for progress. To each of you: Congrats on your achievements!

Every once in a while...

... we actually make a blog post. At least as of late. And every once in a long while, we post something besides people pics. This is one of those times. In honor of the oh-so-strange 90 degree April 1 weather, we probably ought to be posting pictures of a swimming pool or kids playing in the water of a fire hydrant.

But no. We're sticking to spring. Found this bird in some 10-foot bushes on the St. Charles Community College campus. Just chilling. Acting as though it were spring; that is, acting as though it felt like spring. Shot w/ a 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 lens, the most important thing was to get in as tight as possible so that the bird's eye is in focus. Miss the eyes, and you miss the shot.

Introducing Lily

Watch out world - we have a rebel flower. We hung out with Faith this weekend and got to meet her beautiful 12-day-old niece, Lillian (Congrats again Shannon and Chris!). She soo wanted to stay awake and see what was going on, but she just couldn't pull it off. She put up quite the cute fight though, living up to her blanket's fun embroidery.

All four images: 50mm. f/2-f/3.5.

Sweet T.

As we took photos this weekend of Sweet Teagan and her proud parents, it was clear she was somethin' special. So happy. Such bright eyes. Super long and lean.... (The list goes on!) But we had no idea that she has actually been voted the "No. 1 Most Beautiful Baby in the World." By whom? Dad, of course. But we're not disputing it. Nice to meet you, beautiful, sweet T! Keep on turning heads...

Photo Editing 101

Becca and I had a long, 3-min. conversation yesterday about the evils of photo editing... After the long, arduous discussion, we came back to the same conclusion that we were at before: some "photoshopping" isn't so bad. It's the over-the-top editing, (including, but not limited to, HDR) that is annoying (albeit sometimes really cool looking. See: Pictures of downtown St. Louis' Arch and Old Courthouse!).

Enter, Lightroom. It's the perfect photo processing tool that allows you to get the most out of your image while really maintaining its original nature. Like the name suggests, it enables some post-camera tweaking, similar to what a master developer might strive for in the darkroom. And that's why we love it. It lets us easily hone in on specific colors, tones, shadows, etc., without spending tons of time in Photoshop; and, yet, if we want or need to make other significant edits, boom -- instant Ps connectivity. Ideal.

Two samples of the same image. The first, no post-processing. Exactly what came out of the 5DII at 70mm, 400 ISO, 1/15 second, f/4. (Hand-held). The second, 15-30 seconds of Lightroom work. Again, same image. Mind you, neither one is great. It's just the illustration and the principle. The one on the right is much closer to reality. The one on the left is what the camera thought it saw. It's like cheap film vs. nice film, in a sense.



Our next conversation: full-frame image sensors vs. APS-C. Sound boring? Maybe. But I think you'll be surprised to see what you've been missing. (Think wide-screen movies vs. "adapted to fit your piece of junk tube TV from last decade.)

cute or what?

Our most recent shoot focuses on Duncan, the adorable 4-month old with a striking resemblance to his adoring big sis and simply overflowing with smiles ... On a scale of 1 to 10, boy is this guy cute or what?


The specs: Photo 1: 47mm, f/8. Photo 2: 131mm, f/7.1. Photo 3: 39mm, f/9. Photo 4: 50mm, f/7.1