santa has been very, very good to me: cleveland ohio photographer

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is the chance that you get to reflect on your life and how thankful you are for what you have. The crazy busy-ness of 2010 left me with little time to actually stop and realize how amazing this year has been, how my business has grown in ways I never thought could happen so quickly and how lucky
 I am to have such amazing clients.

That's the business side of what I'm thankful for (which this year, is at least 75% of my life!) Personally, I am so thankful for my fiance. Every single day he supports me. The nights of being up until 2AM editing, putting together print and album orders, shooting sessions, the never ending attempt to organize my workflow - he supports me. It never crosses his mind to be jealous of the time that I put in, he doesn't resent me for the dishes that might sit a little too long or the laundry that might pile up, he has stepped up on every front - if our home needs cleaned, he cleans. If I haven't had anything to eat all day from working, he makes delicious meals for us. I know that all of that is 100% not romantic - but those are the things that have gotten me through this past year of learning more about who I am, the direction my business is going and what I want for my life. I can not wait to marry the love of my life next May. Can. Not. Wait.

I wanted to share a little bit of this year's success in images with you. My equipment has gone from a single, entry level DSLR and two not so hot lenses to an arsenal of top of the line gear that has seriously stepped up my game and I haven't even had a minute to "brag, champ, brag!". So here I go :)

-------------------------------------------------------------

This is the holy grail of wedding photographer camera bodies...the 5D Mark II. It is amazing. Amazing, amazing, a-freakin'-mazing. I'm going to do my best not to speak in "camera talk" but I'll just say my favorite part so far of this camera are the high ISO capabilities. This means that in really low light, I am able to get much clearer photos. On my previous bodies, the higher I would have to set my ISO in a darker room (i.e. a church for ceremonies), the grainier the photos would be. Also, I know that some people say that pixels, once you get over 10MP, it doesn't make that much of a difference...Well, they lied. This bad boy has 21.1 mega pixels and the files are INSANE. Yes, insane. Working with them is wonderful.

So any-who, here it is, my baby :)

-------------------------------------------------------------

The next super exciting addition was the purchase of my Canon 70-200L 2.8 IS II. This is the "wedding photographer" lens that is primarily used to shoot ceremonies so that you can get nice close up shots even though most churches require that you stay back a certain distance. It allows you to take candid shots because you do not have to be directly involved with what is going on and people forget that there's a camera in the room :). Although a lot of people only use this for ceremonies, I plan on trying it out for portrait sessions in the future because I just used it a bit for an engagement session and the clarity of the photos are to die for. To die for.

 


      -------------------------------------------------------------
The Canon 24-70L 2.8 IS has been very good to me since I purchased it. I am loving this lens for wide shots during portrait sessions and it's the perfect length (for me) for reception photos. It's almost as sharp as my primes and the images are so creamy when I use it. Perfect for photos of little ones running around and being the busy bees that they are!

-------------------------------------------------------------
My Canon 100L 2.8 IS is the lens I used to shoot all of the above images. It makes for the creamiest bokeh and incredibly sharp shots. It's the perfect lens for ring shots and for smaller ceremonies, I will use this lens as a prime rather than the long zoom of my 70-200. Love this one :)

-------------------------------------------------------------
My Canon 50MM 1.4 is my go to lens for all portrait sessions. I can honestly say that during 90% of a portrait session, I use this lens. It is so unbelievably sharp and being able to stop down to 1.4 is pretty great. I'm planning on upgrading to the 1.2 sometime in June because I was able to shoot with that lens this past December and it was love at first shot :)





-------------------------------------------------------------
My flash! Any time that I have available, natural light, I will use it to its fullest potential. I am a huge fan of natural light, but for sticky situations and wedding receptions, I couldn't ask for more than what this flash delivers.





-------------------------------------------------------------
The original Canon 5D - this is my back up body. Before upgrading to the Mark II, I bought this 5D and fell in love with full frame bodies. After loving the ISO capabilities and the look of my files with this body, I knew I had to upgrade to the Mark II. This lovely camera stays in my bag with me at all times just incase anything should go wrong with the Mark II.





So there it is! The photo equipment behind my business :)

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a joyous celebration of bringing in the new year! Here's to a wonderful 2011 :)