MudEyes

Post by: Holly

It’s official, I am all caught up! I just mailed out our last fall wedding to the couple yesterday. It is such a good feeling to be free and not worrying about getting caught up every moment of my life. Noah and Alex were the last couple and I am just in love with their love. 🙂 It was such a joy to have their photos as the last on my catch up list. We rented another D700 (for me!) for their day as we thought it would be really dark being an October wedding. Full frame really does make such a difference when editing. Noah and Alex have the love and it completely shows in the photos which is also such a great thing to look at all day.

We have one wedding left this year, it is actually next weekend, the 27th. So it will cut our Christmas weekend a little short, but that is ok, we LOVE shooting weddings. I have one wedding left to edit before our last one to shoot so my goal is to get that thing done TODAY! Is that ambitious? Why yes, yes it is. I recently gave up caffine as well. My drug of choice is Dr. Pepper but that stuff is murdering my kidneys so it had to go. So the lack of the Dr. makes this even more ambitious. Thus, I look to netflix.

We just got nexflix like a month ago and recently found out they got their “instant” view working with macs! Thus, I can choose from tons of movies and watch them right on my computer. I really love it. I need noise throughout the day so I don’t go crazy and watching the same shows on TV everyday is getting so boring. I can’t handle 5 hours a day of home improvement and NCIS for much longer. The great thing about netflix is there are a lot of “sub-par” movies on the instant play list. My criteria is that it is not so stupid that I can’t stand it, but also not so interesting that I won’t get any work done and in that area, there are a lot to choose from.

If I can manage to get this actually done today, that means I get until Christmas to goof off! I have BIG plans for my goof off days. I have some paintings I have just been dying to do, I would LOVE to clean our apartment up really nice and most of all, get used to the new Camera. I am the kind of person that seemingly only learns by doing so I am going to have to play around with the new Canon for a while to get used to it. Everything is backwards, it’s like I’m in some alternate Canon universe.

Anyways…not getting my editing done procrastinating on this blog now am I? ….but I figured if I wrote it down somewhere that I’m trying to bust it out in a day than I would have a little more accountability to push through it. 🙂

post by: holly

I have been editing like a crazy woman lately trying to catch up on weddings. I been getting sick so much lately that everything just got away from me. I am finally feeling better again and back at it. After a couple hundred photos, I needed a break and my usual tv shows were all old episodes so I went looking for some new music to help me get through the day.

Featured on itunes was Katie Costello. I won’t lie, I only clicked on it because the tiny album icon had stripes and it caught my eye. I had never heard of her and listened to a few clips and I really loved her voice. It is different and spunky, and that is what I like.

You should check her out. Isn’t it lovely is a…well…it’s a lovely song. 🙂

post by: Ryan

Its been a crazy couple years on flickr! I started my flickr account coming back from hawaii and Cambodia discovering the world of DSLRs. I spend the winter reading and researching because I thought i did pretty good with my first camera, a Canon a520 point and shoot. I first saw photos from my friends Nikon D70 and was amazed that stuff like that was possible! I decided on a Nikon D80 that I was hoping to get by Feb of 2007. When I went to the camera store I held the D200 next to the D80 and I had to have the D200!

I started photography loving candid kids shots and planning to try to do it professionally… until I shot my first wedding in May. I was in love. There was just so much going on all day and so much to shoot! I did a few more free weddings and by this time I met my now wife Holly, and shot our first paid wedding in December of ’07. It was very difficult with the pressure of being paid. We have gotten so much better the more weddings we shoot together. I invite you to scan through our earlier photos and see the difference! So much better in editing, and style. We have since done 17 weddings, 31 seniors and spent over $10,000 on equipment! We now have 17 weddings and counting booked for next year, and I will be joining Holly, going full time working in photography!

I never could have done all this so quick without Flickr and the people on it! Flickr has been part of our life and we see flickr as a collaborative person. We are always checking to see if Flickr loves us! It seems flickr enjoys us a little bit. We have surpassed 50,000 photo stream views, and a quarter million individual image views! We have 151 contacts that I love to check up on, and over 400 people that call us a contact! Can you tell I love stats? I wish I knew how many shots I have taken since then. Last time I checked there was 62,000 images in my computer’s hard drive. Minus all the copies in there, but then I am sure we deleted an equal amount!

We are constantly evolving and our style has become more and more our own! Thank you so much to everyone that has ever given us comments of encouragement and letters full of kind words! Thanks again everyone. I must also thanks the Lord for giving Holly and I the talent to do something we love for a living! I can’t wait to use my talent for him overseas!!

post by: holly

Christmas is coming up so fast this year and I am so excited! I am really enjoying making ornaments for our tree and to finally have a tree of our own. My mom has a much more elegant and “fancy” style than me so our tree for the past few years has been all gold and crystal. It is a beautiful tree, but there is just something about decorating one that is yours, if that makes any sense. We are going to have a Dr. Suess-ish Christmas. 🙂

This is the first ornament I painted and I love it. 🙂 I have a few more but this is my favorite. I am hanging them all with polka dot ribbon too!

I love having the heat on, and all the lights, and the colors, and the shopping…and I think I am going to decorate Christmas cookies this year!

So…that is all. Just wanted to proclaim my love for the Holiday. I think I like winter up until the New Year and then I am certainly over it. So for now…I am happy and totally in the Christmas mood!

post by: holly

We got the “anniversary edition” of the game of life for one of our wedding gifts and we decided to break it open on Sunday.
Ryan took the road of no college, and I took the road of college (just like real life!) and I totally kicked his butt!

The funny thing is, In real life…I work with him so we are the same, what are the odds? haha so much for school, right. But in the game of life, I win by 1 million dollars!!

I only had one son, and he was bad so we put him in the back of the car.

RYAN…however…had 5 KIDS! He could not even fit them all in the car, he had to put the last one on top of everyone else. Sheeeeesh he better not expect that from me in real life, hah.

I like this game, but I think it would be even more fun with more people. Anyone up for some life?

post by: holly

Last week she arrived! My brother has had Rebel for years and he is getting old now. Rebel is a golden retriever. Eve is his new little sister and she is a golden doodle, half golden retriever and half poodle.

She seems so smart and she just loves to cuddle. I instantly fell madly in love with her and it was so hard to leave. I went back to muskegon just for the day to take some photos of her.

{{She already has a little bear friend she likes to chew on}}

{{Sooo cute, I think they have already bonded}}

{{I KNOW we already bonded. 🙂 She layed on my lap and slept for hours.}}

{{BEHOLD! …a puppy}}

{{My brother Craig, and eve}}}

{{Gotta have an upshot, of course}}

I really hope to be able to visit again soon to love her some more. Hopefully, someday when Ryan and I can get a house and settle down we can get a puppy. I told him we need to get a puppy before we have babies…hah it is kind of like a baby, just fluffier.

This wedding was pretty relaxed for us. We didn’t have to start super early so it was great to sleep in. The reception was at the Battle Creek Country Club and is also where they got ready. It was a pretty fun group of people which really makes our job easier!

{{I am going to start with a reception photo just because it is so great….and I took it! YAY!}}

{{Perfect for an october wedding! I thought this was really cute.}}

{{I loved this cool mirror}}

{{before the ceremony, the girls were having some fun in the nursery where they were waiting…}}

{{Little tiny chair in the nursery..haha she tried to fit into the little kid car, but that didn’t work as well}}

{{I was so excited that I got such a great walking out shot! It happens so fast so sometimes I just don’t have time to focus fast enough, but I was just soooo happy with this.}}

{{All the mens}}

{{and all the ladies… I was trying to get them to all do a fish face with the “fisheye” lens. They couldn’t quite pull it off, haha, but I think actually turned out much funnier}}

{{sunset, this was ryans…and he is really awesome}}

{{…and this is mine…I’m awesome in a different way. 🙂 }}

{{Gotta have a little dip kiss in a place like this}}

{{What a cute baby! His older brothers were dancin’ fools at the reception! So cute}}

{{sooo i’m not sure what this is called, but Ryan told me…and I forgot. Either way…its really funny.}}

{{hahah I don’t even know what to say about this….}}

{{Lights! I highly recommend having twinkly lights at your reception, this is what happens when they are out of focus so they give a really cool vibe in the photos.}}

{{hahhaah I love to take photos of people dancing. They make the craziest dancing faces!}}

Andddd thats all.

A few weeks ago we met with Ashley, her mom and future mother in law. They decided to go with us for their wedding and about 3 days later we did their engagement shoot. They live in georgia so finding time to get up here is difficult so it is great we were able to fit them in.

We did their shoot in downtown battle creek and had a great time, they were a fun couple to work with so I am really excited for their wedding next year!

{{I absolutely love this photo. We started the shoot at his parents house which is an amazing house at the battle creek golf course. I just love her face in this.}}

{{His parents requested they have a photo with the light post and the gay in it, and I think it turned out pretty well! Looks very october to me. 🙂 }}

{{Not much to say about this, but I think it’s lovely.}}

{{Her Ring! Gosh it is huge and magnificent. Sometimes when we take really close up photos we can see flaws and such in the diamond that close, but this thing is just flawless, well done john paul!}}

{{This is also her ring! We just finished up the shoot and were talking about albums and such for the wedding and Ryan noticed her ring sparkling all over his shirt. Amazing!!}}

{{This is the same spot we had some of our wedding photos taken and I think is it the greatest.}}

{{Something I am really excited for next year at their wedding is her hair. She works at a salon so I am sure her hair will be phenomenal! I love all the volume it has in this photo}}

{{A sweet red door and some fancy editing makes for one fabulous photo.}}

{{This is one of my favorite photos of the day! I Sooooo wish we would have had time to walk around the corner of this building on our wedding day to take a photo like this. I just love absolutely everything about it.}}

{{This is so cute, so I think it is a great ending. Keep an eye out next year for their wedding photos!}}

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This article is a comparison of 2 lenses that new people should consider when buying a DSLR whether it be a canon, nikon, or even a Pentax.

When I bought my first D200 I had read that the 50mm 1.8 was a lens every photographer should have. I didn’t know why, but I figured it was the same price as the 18-55 and they say it was a much better lens. I still have that lens but I bought a 1.4 to get a little more blur and a 2/3 stop speed advantage (at weddings you need all you can get!)

It took me a while to figure out why it was so much better. Maybe because I wasn’t used to the slow 18-55. I wondered, could it really be THAT much better in low light? I have done some test shots to show you just how much more you can do with a 50mm. For the particular test I will be using my 50mm f1.4, which has quickly become my favorite lens which I use for 80 or more percent of my shots.

These few shots were taken at dusk where I could demonstrate the low light possibilities

All these shots are streight from camera. That camera being a Nikon D700.
Also I am using the same lens insted of an actuall 18-55mm because I dont own one. but at 50mm or 55mm the maxium aperture is f5.6
So this test is only to show the low light capability where is would be identical.

You can see the only setting changed here is the aperture. The 1.4 has a 4(!!!) stop advantage! 1/60th is aguably the lowest shutter speed you would want to use without getting blur at 50mm. Therefore at this light and the 18-55, this shot would be impossible handheld without cranking up the ISO.

To get the correct exposure with the 18-55mm you would need to compensate with ISO, or a lower shutter speed. this next shot
demonstrates that.

Now you may be looking at these shots like ok, my camera goes up to 3200 iso. But keep in mind, unless you have the luxury of a full frame D700 your shots will bare a lot of grain, and lose a lot of detail and contrast. There is just no substitute for speed.

Also if you bring the shutter speed down to a quarter of a second, I don’t care who you are your image will be blurry unless you use a tripod as I am here.

So now you know how much speed matters. If that wasn’t enough to convince you, we can talk about sharpness! the 50mm lenses are up there with the sharpest lenses nikon makes. To even be close to the sharpness achieved by the 50mm you would need to stop down to f/8 which number one is very slow, and 2 you loose any background blur.

So to recap,

50mm pros

-4 stop speed advantage
-loads of backround blur wide open
-very sharp from f/2.0 and up
-better build quality and looks much cooler =)

50mm cons

-fixed focal length

18-55mm pros

-wide to telephoto range
-ummm good for.. stuff… sorry I got nothin’.

18-55mm cons

-4 stops slower the 50mm
-not sharp until f/8
-not enough background blur
-feels cheap

I guess really it depends on what you do. For me, I am a wedding photographer, that doesn’t like to use flash, and likes a lot of sharpness and blur. If you plan on shooting weddings at all don’t even bother with any cheap zoom lenses unless you plan on getting really good at flash.

If you buy one of these lenses, I can tell you they are at their best when you use them at f/2 and as close to your subject as you can stand. The blur creates a magical effect that will wow anyone if your composition is good.

post by: holly

I have a new birdie painting on the way!
This is the sketch of it, I just colored it in this morning to plan out what things will be. Still some details to finalize and then I will blow it up on my board! It is going to be amazing!