These ladies rocked their 6:30am session! We beat the heat and the crowds! Are you a morning person? I certainly am! Early to bed, early to rise. I have been this way my whole life!!

Angie’s branding session #2 of four for the year was so great! Her first session we did at the gym and this one we did outside! I love that she understands and appreciates branding. If you ever need any workout clothes or just comfy clothes, Angie would love to chat with you about Zyia.

Thanks, Ang! Great to see you again! See you in the fall my friend!

Angie contacted me to help her with her branding. It was the best surprise for me to get a call from an old friend. Angie and I go back to school days. Just the other day, right? 😉

Angie is a representative of Zyia. Zyia is an active wearing clothing that is versatile. It compares to the high end active wear. A unique brand that has new items drop every Wednesday. Angie is an Independent Rep and can do in home or online parties. You can go straight to her website to purchase. www.myzyia.com/ZCHIC

To see these images in color, please check them out on my blog. Link in bio, click on “blog” at the top. I love these images in color and black and white so I had to share both in different platforms.
Black and white is a bit moody and color is fresh and clean.

I look forward to Angie’s next branding session in June. Great to see you again, Angie! Thank you for trusting me with your business needs.

We rented an Airbnb this round! We spent an afternoon capturing shots that show what they offer, some of their team members and products! These sessions are planned out and done quickly but all goals are reached! Heidi is so good at keeping her social media updated and fresh! It speaks volumes on how she runs her business. If you are in the market for a facial, book one with Heidi or one of her team members! They are all trained to give you the best experience and your face feels absolutely amazing afterward. They also offer other services so please check out their website to learn more. www.heidilaneesthetics.com
PS. If you have a beard, or know someone who does, check out Justin’s products for beards!

Studio/Studio Yard Sunday!!

We have been busy in the studio during the day! Headshots and branding sessions mostly. As it gets cold outside and maybe not ideal for people in your group, the studio is a beautiful option.
The studio got a new makeover and we are loving it!!

Meet Arisa! She was my kids preschool teacher!! We don’t need to mention how long ago that was! Arisa is taking a new path in life and is now a realtor! She needed some branding photos so we did a variety in the studio and the studio yard! She freaking rocked it! She said she normally doesn’t like photos of herself but LOVED her photos! I will take that as a compliment!

Now, I have to brag on her and let you know that she has three grown children and four grandchildren. She is 44 years old and looks like she is 16! You are gorgeous inside and out, Arisa! So great to see you and get caught up! You are killin’ it!!

Need a new headshot?
Need branding photos?
Need updated family portraits?

Contact me! Let’s talk!!

As we get the studio ready to rent out to others, we needed a cute little model to show some of the props we have. Isn’t he so stinkin’ cute?!?!!

🙌The studio rental comes with perks of being able to use all the props. We have couches, newborn props, furniture, toddler props…so much stuff!
🔺We have newborn wraps, furs, blankets, things to place them in.
🔺We have cute tutu’s and dresses for the toddler age along with various props to place them in.
🔺We have couches and stools that are great for branding or headshots.
🔺We have various lighting options. We have continuous lighting and we have flash. The studio is also natural light ready. We have reflectors.
🔺We have the natural brick backdrop or we have a backdrop stand with many backdrop options.

We are requiring a “Studio Tour” before you are given a private link to book the studio. We want whomever is renting it to know their way around a bit. I hope to see you at a studio tour! To book a “Studio Tour”, please click the following link (or copy/paste the link) and book your “Studio Tour” today!
https://bookedin.com/book/photography-by-kam?date=2020-10-06
Click a date✔️
Book a spot under “Studio Tour” ✔️

This girl is on fire! 🔥

She has a gift and is touching more lives and offering more with the opening of her second location! One location is downtown Boise and the other is on the Bench.

Have you ever had a facial, massage, cupping, reiki or infrared sauna treatment? What are you waiting for?? Click this link to book your amazing experience that will have you dreaming of going back as soon as possible!! I’m not even kidding you guys! Click here to book: https://www.heidilaneesthetics.com

“Double Tap” if you would love to go see Heidi and her team! If you have gone to her, tag a friend that needs to go see her. Now, when I say “her”, you can honestly book with anyone on her team as Heidi trains them all to be just as awesome as she is!!

Tell them I sent you! ☀️

Trilogy Law Group needed updated pictures for their new website. This group was fun to work with and not a dull moment in our short studio session! I hope I never have to deal with this group outside of headshots and Crossfit but great people indeed!

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This gorgeous woman needed an updated headshot for various reasons. If you know her, you are blessed. She is an incredible person. I was honored to update her headshots and the bonus was I got to see her in person and get caught up a bit. Thank you, Christine for trusting me with your business needs.

Basic Understanding

Learning camera basics doesn’t have to be horrifying or boring. At first you might find yourself wondering if you’ll ever get ‘f-stops’.  However, after awhile, and the more you use the tools, your mind will suddenly tick over and there will be an ‘Ah, I get it!’ moment.  This level of understanding is really fundamental to controlling the results of your photographs. And if you can take the time to learn

them before jumping in, you’ll be thankful later.  It’s kind of like baking a cake. We can all buy a cake mix at the supermarket and pump out a reasonably ok cake. However, if we were a chef, we would follow our own recipe, and of course it wouldn’t just be a cake – it would be a bakery master piece.

The idea is to know the tools well enough to know when, how, what, why and where.

Even if you have been shooting for ages and you think you might know all the camera basics, I’m going to challenge you because I know myself that I can’t be reminded enough of how ‘stuff’ works…

apertures, shutters, and iso’s

There are three basic elements in understanding how exposure works; the aperture, the shutter, and the ISO.

So, we are going to do a quick run down of each.

First is the aperture. – Your lens.

It’s often explained as being like the iris of your eye. It opens up, to let more light in, and closes to let less light in. What is confusing about aperture is that the ‘wider’ the opening, the smaller the number that it’s called.

For example – a ‘small’ aperture is f1.4, f2.0 or f2.8. Where as a large aperture is f8 or f11.  An aperture when open wide is a smaller number. So if the iris is big, the number is small. If the iris is small, the aperture number is big.

What does aperture really do? Well it controls the amount of light that is let in, however more importantly to us; it controls the depth of field. 

The shutter speed – the curtain in your camera.

Think of the shutter as just that … a shutter. It opens to expose the photograph – just like a curtain, and closes again. The higher the number that the shutter is, the FASTER it does it. And the faster it does it, the less light that it lets in. Shutter speeds can be minutes long – or faster then the eye can blink.  So a slow shutter speed would be : 1/25th – if you had a fast moving child and your shutter speed was at 1/25th the child would be blurred.  Simply because the lower the shutter number, the longer it is left open to expose. Allowing for more movement to be recorded. In a single frame that movement is going to appear as a blur. A slow shutter also lets a lot of light in.  On the opposite scale if you had a shutter speed of 1/2000th then you’re likely to freeze the moment in time.  When thinking about shutter speeds the two key things to remember are: 

1. If your shutter speed is anything below 80 – you are better using a tripod. Anything above 125 is a safer bet. 

2. If your shutter speed is around 2000, you would want your aperture to be wide open or there simply wouldn’t be enough light let in to expose the photograph.

The ISO – the film speed

Whether you shoot digital or film – the ISO value is important.

The ISO on a film camera is the film speed. On a digital camera it’s simply amplifying of the image sensor.  ISO speed defines the amount of light that is let in. And the more light that is let in – the higher the ‘grain’ to cope.  You may have noticed that some photos have more ‘grain’ or ‘noise’ then others. This is judged by the ISO rating. The lower the ISO, the less grain. A fine grain film would be 50 or 100 ISO. However this doesn’t let in much light – so it can be more difficult to work with.

A very high grain ISO would be 1600 or 3200. As you can imagine, this

speed lets in a lot of light, is very very easy to work with however the

grain is very obvious.  So, the key thing to remember about ISO’s is: If you want a sensible amount of grain, and a reasonable amount of light – try an ISO of 200

to 400.  If you’re working in very low light conditions you can use a higher ISO –

it allows for so much more light – such as 1600. However, remember your photograph will be very grainy.

Depth of Field

Depth of field is the distance between the camera and what is in focus in front of you. It also refers to what is out of focus behind what is in focus. Point and shoot camera’s are not very adept at playing with wonderful depth of field concepts, and sometimes that is what people notice the most about professional shots.  Changing the aperture: either having a wide-open aperture to focus on a small part of the subject (i.e. baby foot) or having the aperture stopped-down to keep most of the scene in focus (i.e. traditional family portrait) controls depth of Field (DOF). Using a shallow DOF (wide-open aperture) in some images makes the focal point quite obvious.  This is a wonderful technique.

There are many uses for shallow DOF, including putting the focus on a body part,

rendering backgrounds out of focus, or highlighting 1 person in a group of people. The possibilities are endless, and we encourage you to play around. 

Play with your camera. Next week we will talk about human connection.