Starting Behind the Line: Tips, Tricks, & General Observations

It's always interesting to me to look at the photographic works of others. As a photographer, I obviously enjoy a well-balanced and properly lit picture that has just the right amount of post-production work done to it. I think that it is good to look at my fellow photographers not as competitors but as teachers and students. In fact, many of them have blogs just like this for the sole purpose of helping other photographers. Some of them actually spend a great deal of time and effort making savvy videos and tutorials. (By the way, THANK YOU!!! All of you! I mean it: without your guidance, I might not be where I am today.)

It's important that you know how I feel about other photographers and photographs because I want to discuss what I have observed by watching other photographers on site and in videos; by reading articles, blogs, forums, social networking sites, and e-books; and by my own personal experience.

Primarily, I want to dissect a few aspects of the photography process itself. Before I begin, I want all of you to know that this is not a step-by-step instruction manual. This is not even a recommended way of doing things for every person out there. Instead, this post and the posts following this one are simple observations that I have made along the way.

I am mostly going to talk about wedding photography as there are more aspects involved. However, you can apply many of the observations/suggestions to most types of photography.

If you just shoot pictures of your pets or children or if you are a professional (or aspiring professional) photographer, you may be interested in these posts. It is also good to know what to expect or look-out for at a photo shoot as a photographer and a the person being photographed. If nothing else, you may want to read that post!

To help you, I have made a list of what I will be discussing:
1. Photographic Equipment
2. Meeting the Client(s)
3. Preparing for a Shoot
4. The Day of the Shoot
5. Post Production
6. Sharing with Others

Since I feel like my first blog post may have been a little too long, I will break this one up into sections. In fact, this posts already seems a little long, so I am going to cut it off here and start with the list in the next post.


~XOXO Love Ya!
Monica Bedsole with Fire Fly Photography