Hey Y'all! Hope your week is going well. The holiday season is upon us and I'm watching Hallmark Chistmas movies already! LOL The holidays are special and time to spend with friends and family. A great time to capture the meaning of the season to you.  Holiday photography can be fun and memories can be had to share with the ones you love. Now we've all had that uncle Bob who had a good camera and was taking all kinds of photo's and fumbling with his equipment all of the time. Sometimes you had to wait for ole uncle Bob to get his stuff together before the shot was taken and the mood may have been lost. Don't be that guy! For Christmas photography simple is better. Being spontaneous and quick to the trigger is the best for these type of photography and don't be shy of using your mobile phone. When I think of intimate family photography I think of my friend Jennifer who takes great cell phone photo's. She post and shares online and the photographs are fantastic. She has a big Girl Camera and takes wonderful photo's but the everyday shoot from the hip shots are great. (Don't tell her I said this don't want her to get a big head) LOL Now there are all types of photography from formal portraits, Christmas cards, casual snapshots, to details of decorations and food being prepared. Lets talk a little about each.

Christmas Cards. These need to be planned well in advance of time to send these out. And they may be a thing of the past with all the new advances in tech. People don't send cards like they used to. Or if they do one they send it via Email or online. But I'm in favor of the Printed card with a special personal note when sent out. I must confess I haven't done one in a while but they are fun to do and are sure to make someone's fridge or mantle. 

Formal Portraits. I did this one Thanksgiving and of course I over did it. I had backdrops , Lights , Tripod the works. The photo's came out well but it was a lot of stuff going on. I wouldn't recommend this but a great family portrait using a self timer is a must do every year. This way you get at least a photo of everyone every year. With additions to the family and youngsters growing up in the photographs. This can easily be done with a cell phone or your big boy/girl camera set with the self timer. Make sure you get everyone in and go wide enough so you can crop a little to get the right size for framing.

Now you can use your phone to take most of these shots. I suggest bringing them into LightRoom to give them the sparkle that they need. Although most shots shot with your phone look good you can make them look better. And of course bring in your regular shots into your photo editing software like you always do. Afterwards you can export in any size or quality you want to social media or to get printed.

Details. To me this is the fun part. Table decorations, Decorations around town. Christmas lights, Food being prepared , the turkey coming out of the oven . To me photographing these things during the holiday really puts me in the mood for the holidays. Stupid Hallmark movies are getting me all misty eyed. LOL Until next week Get out and Shoot!

I'm looking forward to the holidays and hope you are. I wish that each and every one of you have a happy and safe holiday season. 

Hey Everyone! Hope you're having a good week. Me pretty well getting ready for another fall trip to the mountains. This year we'll ( my camera club) will be going to West Virginia in the New River Gorge Area. Thankfully we didn't plan to go to the devastated North Carolina mountains this year as we have done in the past. It saddens me all the devastation to the place that I hold so dear to my heart. Well this week we will talk about something I don't really talk about too much. How your camera isn't that important in photography. I know, I know, I'm a gear guy and this blog is mostly about the gear that we use. Now I'm going to tell you that for most of us the type of camera body that you use doesn't matter. If you watch YouTube or Instagram or Ticktock you know that they Pops are always hyping the latest and greatest camera body's , what they can do , how many frames per second how fast they focus, the megapixels or whatever new feature they might have. I'm here to say that unless your are a professional photographer or specialize in some sort of photography that needs 120 frames per second or focus that can track a fly in mid-flight you don't need the fanciest camera out there. And I'm here to tell you that if you're an average photographer like I am if you buy the top of the line camera that you are wasting your money buying features that you won't use and unless you have disposable money unlike myself you should use what you have.  For most of us our photo's won't improve with the new camera.  If you use your camera like I do for street, travel or landscape photography a new body will not improve your photographs. The frames per second or the fancy fast focus will not focus any sharper than the camera you have. Unless you're shooting wildlife or sports the fast shooting or fast focusing won't help. Megapixels don't really matter except for crop factor if you really want to crop in a lot. If you're using your photo's for social media, or printing for your wall how many megapixels isn't really going to matter if you have 24 megapixels or more. Now this is all my opinion. I think that you would be better suited in buying good lenses and spending your money there than in fancy bodies and not improving your lenses. Road to the TempleGoblin Valley State Park Utah Lens quality I think is more important than that of the camera body itself. A good lens no matter what body you have on it will give you sharp photo's. I try to practice what I preach my main lenses each cost more than the body that I put them on. Only one of them is the top of the line but the others are very close to the top and very high quality. The camera body that I am using is a Sony A7C which is very new to me. It is not considered a professional camera but a consumer grade camera. It was released in 2020. The camera that was a Pro/Sumer camera that used to be the main camera is the Sony Cherokee A7III which was released in 2017 I still have it and used it around the house and for my negative scanning. So I don't have the latest and greatest camera body. But I still think that I produce very good photo's and don't think the camera body is holding me back at all. Very much the other way around. I don't think that I use only just a little of what my current camera body can do. 

So why am I telling you all of this? Because I think there is too much pressure on getting new camera's the latest and greatest. Don't get me wrong everyone wants and likes new gear. But for most of us it's not needed but with social media , Peer Living Waters pressure there is a lot of pressure to upgrade to the latest and greatest. And yes I have fallen to this in the past. Thinking that if I get this camera or whatever type of gear that my photo's will get better. So I would buy that new body. But the photos never get better. I may focus faster, the megapixels may be more but the photo's still look the same. You've always heard folks say " Hey that's a great photo you must have a nice camera" And you always think to yourself. Silly the camera didn't take the photo I did. You wouldn't complement a carpenter " Hey nice house you must have a nice hammer" No you know the EYES skill that the carpenter has built the house and the hammer was just a tool. The same is with the camera. It's the photographer that took the photograph not the camera. It's just a tool. So if you want to take good photographs I would advise you into investing into photography education, learning how to use the current camera you have and practice , practice , practice. You will come out with better photographs and spend a lot less money. Then and only then when you reach your camera's limits then upgrade.

Well that's all I have for this week . Until next week get outside and shoot!

Hey Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week. Me? Well last week I was in West Virginia on a Fall Colors workshop with my Photography Club. We spent 5 days going around taking photo's of the stunning landscapes and cute little towns. We were based in Fayetteville West Virginia in an Air B&B and traveled mostly in the New River Gorge National Park area but did veer away from the park many times. We had good food and fellowship and did editing and helped each other in areas we are weak in. I love these workshops it's like being with my photography family and I'm the crazy uncle. We had some members that had never been to West Virginia before and it was fun showing them around and seeing what photo's they got out of the new environment. They really got some good ones I think from what I saw when we were editing. When we go on workshops they are really workshops not vacations. Although we have fun and kid around we start before the sun comes up and often finish after it sets. We eat a local restaurants to support the communities we visit and the food is usually excellent. We may eat in one night making spaghetti or Pizza. I like to explain it as summer camp for old folds. There is a lot of kidding and joking. We even give nicknames like in summer camp. Fun is guaranteed .  For this trip I tried to keep my equipment simple. Usually I bring lots of lenses and equipment. This time I brought 2 lenses. The 20-70 F4 and a 100-400 , both Sony to go with my Sony A7C body. I was the only Sony of the group. I was very happy with my choices.  I did bring filters and tripod and that was it for digital photography . I did bring my Canon Demi EE17 half frame Film Camera but didn't get through a roll of film. I was too busy with my digital and I was Volunteered to take and make the trip video. You can see it here at this link. 2024 Fall Trip West Virginia It is very hard to shoot photo's and video at the same time. I think they both suffer when you try to do both. It's much easier to pick one or the other and just shoot it.  But I was doing both plus trying to get some film in and of course an iPhone shot or two to post quickly into social media. So I was working 4 Cameras. For photo editing and backups I used an iPad pro with the M1 chip in it. I would back up photo's to an external SSD hard drive then pick a few photo's to edit in Lightroom (mobile) the same with iPhone shots I would bring them into the SSD and choose which ones to edit and post to social media like Instagram and Facebook. I was the only one using a iPad everyone else was using a laptop and to tell you the truth I will probably go back to a laptop when the iPad becomes too slow to work on but now it works fine for mobile editing. The house we were staying in was very nice with a great view of Hawks Nest State Park. I even got my own room this time which was a first and I quite like it . Usually I'm sharing a room or bunk house with the other guys on the workshop. Usually we spend a full week but shortened it this year to 5 days because we had Spring Workshop in the Low Country of Georgia and South Carolina and there were some people that didn't have the vacation or PTO days to go on this trip. We only had 6 attend. But the cost was still low. 350 for 5 days and share gas and house food. You can't beat that for being economical for all the stuff that we did and our accommodations .  Here is a quick rundown of what we did on our trip.

Day 1- Travel day- On the way to Fayetteville WV from North Carolina is about a 6 hour trip. We stopped at  Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was very windy and cold when we got out of the warm truck I was riding in.  After that we went and found a local Restaurant and had a great lunch. We then headed to Brush's Falls just off the road on the way. We have never been to this waterfall before and it was fantastic. We left there and headed towards our house and stopped for Mexican food before getting to the house after dark unpacking and going to bed.

Day 2- Grandview and Sandstone Falls in the New River Gorge National Park. First it was to Grandview which looks over the New River and it makes a big "U" turn in front of you. It was cloudy so the sunrise wasn't great then we went to Turkey Spur Overlook which looks over the same spot in the river but much higher (stairs) After that we headed to Sandstone Falls near Hinton WV. After shooting the falls we ate lunch in Hinton at a cool restaurant that we've ate at before. We then headed to Thurmond WV an abandoned town on the way there we stopped at a waterfall Dunlop Creek Falls a very nice waterfall on the road to Thurmond. After shooting the Town we were pretty tired and decided to head to the house and cook some spaghetti . It was delicious. Thanks Caitlin .

Day 3- Babcock State park Day. First we to breakfast at Cathedral Cafe a restaurant that was made out of a church with stained glass windows . The meal was good and the people watching was good too. Then we headed to Babcock State park. If you look up West Virginia and look at photo's you will see the Grist Mill at Babcock. It is a photographers eye candy and the colors always seem to be pretty good. This year was no different. Perfect shooting. Cool weather, leaves falling and colors popping. What's not to like. We then headed to New River Gorge and the Bridge there. The place was packed the most people I've ever seen there. We went to the Bridge over look and then took the road to the older bridge going under the Big bridge. The next day would be Bridge day a festival where there are Base Jumpers, Bungee jumpers, People Rapelling off of the bridge. We decided not to attend the festival . One there would be lots of people and you would have to have clear bags to carry your gear. After the Bridge area we went into town and to eat and the little town had doubled in population and eateries were packed. We picked one and waited 45 min to be seated and had lunch. We then walked around town a little then headed to Nuttalburg WV an abandoned coal mine once owned by Henry Ford. It was kind of cool. After that we headed home and stopped at Walmart to get something to eat for Supper. 

Day 4- Hawks Nest State Park. We stayed away from the Bridge because of Bridge Day. They close down the bridge so the traffic is diverted around so all the roads get busy with traffic. Hawks nest was just 3 min away so we did a sunrise there at the overlook. It was a good sunrise. We then went and explored the rest of the park. It was very chilly and pretty. After spending the morning there we headed to Gauley Bridge. A small little town and explored a little then had lunch at a local BBQ place. Everyone was pretty tired so we headed to the house to do some editing and rest a little.

Day 5- Travel day Home. This day we got the house all settled and packed up our vehicles for the trip home. We left and on the way home we stopped at Camp Creek State Park. We stopped at Campbell Creek Falls which was a lovely fall with lots of color all around. The next fall was Mash fork falls. This was not much of a fall. We headed out and stopped on the way home at a local establishment to eat lunch then headed home. This was a great trip and I had a great time. Just wish it was longer. LOL

Until Next week Get out and Shoot!