Archive for the ‘General info’ Category

Most of you probably don’t know but this blog is actually posted to by two people: Me (Nathan), the one whose picture resides at the top of the page and Jessica, Fyrefly’s resident expert in finding, compiling and posting all things that are good on the internets (pictured left).

Jessica and Nick (you’ve seen his work as a second shooter on almost all of our weddings!) are insanely close friends of ours. Actually they’re the kind of friends that we refer to as family…yeah, that close. Although we may need to stop referring to them as family because their son Hendrix and my daughter Lily are betrothed to each other (they’re both 1.5 y/o) so that might make things a little weird:)

So anyways, Jessica works hard to bring you posts like “Etsy your Wedding”, “Photography Art Spotlight” and other fun creative things that are housed in cyber space somewhere.

What you also may not know is that Jessica is a BRILLIANTLY talented creator/seamstress/Etsy-ier/blogger of her own over at ALittleGray.com. A part from this blog being an amazing source of creativity and inspiration this is also where Fyrefly gets lots of the custom products we use to make our client experience unique. We LOVE her Louise Bags and her Fabric Envelopes. Both are great ways for us to show clients we love them!

If you are like me and like to click, click, click on the internet then you should spend some time on her blog. It’s the kind of blog that you stick in your RSS feed and hope that there is a new post when you wake up in the morning. Really great stuff on there!

And if you are interested in whatever crafty goodness she has going on right now you can check out here Etsy store here…skip shopping at Target for your next baby/bridal shower/birthday gift and get someone some truly unique!

Here is some of her craftiness on display:

Mt. Adams, Eden Park & Alms Park | Cincinnati, OH I only met George and Anne a month or so ago when we met about their wedding but it has been great getting to know them.  They are a great couple who love each other very much.  This was one engagement session that I didn’t have to direct too much because they could keep their hands off of each other:)

Here are some of my favorites from the day:

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Royal Oaks Country Club | Cincinnati, OH I met John and Heather last year when we first sat down to talk about their wedding.  I got to hang out with them again when we took their engagement pictures with a really cool Chevelle :)

They are a sweet couple who couldn’t love each other more.  It was great to hear their Best Man and Maid of Honor talk about how they couldn’t go to sleep each night without talking to each other for at least a few minutes.  They are truly made for each other!

They held their wedding at Royal Oak Country Club on the eastside of Cincinnati and the day was beautiful, even if it was a little warm.  I loved hanging out with them and I wish them the best for their lives together.

Here are my favorites from the day:

*to be notified of John and Heather’s entire catalog when it becomes available go here to sign their digital guestbook.

In honor of the beautiful weather we’ve been having in Cincinnati this week I thought I would do a quick post about taking better outdoor pictures of people.  Here are two tricks, one easy and the other requires a little more effort.

1. White Balance – All light sources, even the sun, cast a certain color on your subject.  On AUTO your camera tries to guess what color the light is and adjusts accordingly.  Even my super high end camera does a poor job of this most of the time.  So go into your settings and find “White Balance (WB)” or “Color Temperature” and select the best setting for your day.  If its bright and sunny, choose “Daylight”, if it’s cloudy or overcast choose “Cloudy” and if you are shooting a pretty shady area then choose, “Shade”.  This will make your colors pop and appear truer to life.  If you are unsure, take a test shot with each setting until you something that looks most like real life.

I didn't take this picture but it illustrates the point.

2. Reflector – If you are shooting into the sun (the sun is significantly behind your subject) your camera is usually going to expose for the brighter light source, which in this case is the sun.  This will leave you with a really dark subject and a pretty blue sky.  Or even worse, your camera will split the difference between the two leaving you with a slightly dark subject and a light blue/white sky.  To fix this you can try to bounce the sunlight back onto your subject using some sort of reflector.  They make fancy ones, but since you aren’t looking to start a photography business you could try something easier.  Grab  white sheet or blanket and have your spouse, friend or older child hold it at a 45 degree angle as close to your subject as possible without being in the shot.  This will throw some of that sunlight back on your subject and balance them with that super bright ball of gas and fire in the sky.  Needless to say, it’s easier said than done if your subject is a 2 year old who doesn’t sit still:)

Didn't take this one either, but you can see how she is balanced with the sky using a reflector, or maybe an off camera light.

Hopefully this helps a little.  Happy shooting!

Boom goes the dynamite!

February 28, 2010

The last few days have been a bit crazy and when things get crazy the blog suffers. I am working on a few posts right now but in the meantime let me leave you with one of the greatest You Tube videos of all time…

I am kind of a stickler for good design.  I am not a great designer but I can fake it with simplicity most of the time.  I knew when I started my business that along the way I would need to have GREAT design in order to stick out amongst the crowd of photographers in this city.  So I started with really terrible logo, then I improved and improved until I had something I was ok with.

Then, by chance, I met Corey at a local coffee shop and we got to talking about life and school and all that good stuff.  Turns out she was a design major at the Art Academy.  I asked her if her class ever took on small businesses as a project and she said yes.  So I gave her my (terribly designed) card and hoped to hear back.  A few months later, she emailed me to say “Our class already has their project set for this year but…” I expected “…maybe next year”.  Instead she said “A friend and I are started a freelance design business and we are looking for projects to build our portfolio and we would like to take you on as one of our projects”.  Best part: “We wanna do this for materials cost only!”  Wow.  Along the way of starting your own business I think you need a couple breaks here and there just to keep you encouraged.  It’s a hard road to say the least.  This was one of my many breaks.

Starting in December I met with Corey and Zach from Yellow Whale Design and ironed out a new logo (which you can see in the header of the blog) and pitched an idea to them for letterpress business cards.  They were stoked!  They have been working their butts off the last few weeks to finish the business cards and I got them today!  I was so excited I spent some time photographing them so you could see the results of their hard work.  If you need some design please contact them through their website…they are just getting started but they are going places so get them while you can afford them:)

Once someone said to me, “Letterpress is so yummy.”  I couldn’t have said it better myself.

No two cards are exactly the same. Pretty nasty (in a good way) if you ask me.

You have to be really special to get one of these...I am getting "replicas" made to pass out to all the people who don't deserve them:)

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Cincinnati, OH | On December 1st I opened our first of many (Not so) Professional Photo Contests.  You can read about the reason and criteria here.  We had 19 entries from a couple states and even one from Great Britain! Today is the day we get to see some shots and see who won!

1st Prize – A free portrait session

Wendy Clark – “God Smites a Glacier”

This is such an incredible photo!  No photoshop, no high end equipment…just nature and good timing (and a big travel budget).  Brilliant shot Wendy!

Mentions – A copy of Capture Cincinnati ’09

Dale Craven – “Overachiever”

I love this photo because you totally connect with the idea of it.  There’s always one in every crowd that is trying so hard to stick out:)  Again, nothing special about the equipment or editing, just a good eye and having his camera on him.

Tiffany Judd – “Bubbles”

This is one of those pictures that you can feel.  The joy and innocence of a child is so contagious.  We’ve all been there and we all would love to unplug for a few minutes during our normal workday and just go blow bubbles.  Grab a camera, give your kid something to play with and wait for some cuteness to ensue…a recipe for a good photo every time.

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I wish I time to walk through and tell you what I love about each of these photos but here are some of my other favorites sent in to the contest:

Cincinnati, OH | Have you ever had an experience that seemed so surreal that you wonder if it really happened? A couple weeks ago I got an email from a city-wide photo contest called Capture Cincinnati. The email stated that I had won some sort of prize for one of the photos I had entered a few months back. I knew that this contest was huge so I figured there was some sort of “Thanks for playing” prize for everyone who entered.  Regardless, I blocked out the time and planned to go, just in case it was something real.

When I showed up my name was on a list and I was ushered to a special area with about 20-30 other people.  I started to get an idea that something was more than I thought seemed when there was free food and drinks to those of us who were up there.  When it came time for the award announcements I was starting to get a little nervous.  Am I really winning something?  Is this an episode of Punk’d?  Did they accidentally send the email to me instead of Mason Teel?

The host began to read off the categories and explain how a person could win.  There were 9 categories, a cover photo and a grand prize winner.  Each of the categories had an editor’s choice and a people’s choice award.  The people’s choice meant that you had been selected by the number of votes you received throughout the contest.  She read off a few categories and then came Landmarks & Architecture.  ”And this year’s People’s Choice in Landmarks & Architecture is Nathan Peel”.  Wow.

1400 photographers, 25,000 photos and over 2.4 million votes and I was 1 of 20 photographers to win an award?  That’s nuts!

And if that wasn’t surreal enough they had all the People’s Choice winners stick around for the book release to sign on their winning photo…seriously:)  It is hard to believe that it actually happened and that I really signed a hundred or so people’s books.  I have never had an experience like that I am guessing they will be few and far between.

Thanks to all of you who voted!  I have 2 photos in the Cap Cincy 09 book and a couple more on the accompanying DVD.  If you want to get it you can go to the Capture Cincinnati Website or local bookstores and purchase it.

Here are the pictures featured in the book:

Cap Cincy-100Holy Cross Immaculata (page 122)

*winner of the People’s Choice in Landmarks & Architecture

Cap Cincy-101Tickets to Heaven or Just the Fun Slide? (page 57)

This one is one the DVD (I haven’t watched it all the way through to see if there are any others):

JayaJaya (in the “Friendly Faces” section of the DVD)

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You’ve heard it said a million times, “Just be yourself”.  It doesn’t matter if you’re walking into a big interview, a first date, a big speech or whatever, just before you got there someone texted you to say “Just be yourself”.  It starts to sound cliche after hearing it so much, doesn’t it?  You start to think to yourself, “Who is this me that I am supposed to be?” or “How to do I find out who I am?”  It’s so easy to walk into a party or a dinner and have a friend introduce you to the person sitting next to them.  You strike up a conversation and before you know it you feel like you know a little about who they are.  They are laid-back or uptight, out-loud or quiet, funny or introspective or a million other things.  But how do you introduce yourself to yourself and find out the same kind of things?

When I started Fyrefly I knew that I wanted to start a photography business.  I knew that my ultimate goal was to support my family by building it into a full-time job for me and possibly my wife and/or friends.  I knew I wanted to take family, kid and wedding pictures.  I envisioned a lot of what I wanted Fyrefly to become down the road.  But early on I realized that there was only one thing that could set me apart from hundreds of others in Cincinnati just like me: ME.

There are so many photographers out there that take great pictures and have great websites and know lots of people.  There are so many things that I have that you can find in any other photography studio in town.  But I am the only Nathan Peel that exists in Cincinnati, or Ohio or the world for that matter.  When people hire Fyrefly they are getting great photography laced with my personality.  With that in mind, I figured I better get someone to introduce me to me quick!

The easiest way I have learned to infuse myself into my business is to write down words that describe who I am and let those carry over into my photography.  So over the last little while I have been whittling down a list of words that describe who Fyrefly is and what kind of pictures I want to produce.  It’s important for me to burn these words into everything I do and not stray from them.  They will color the experience people have when they interact with Fyrefly.  I wanted to share with you guys, the ones who have made it this far in the post, the ones who truly care about where this thing is going and who I really am:

  • Laid back – We will never be uptight about our photography.  I want clients to be relaxed so I am relaxed.
  • Fun – I want you to remember your session or wedding for all the right reasons.  We’ll laugh at each other, the people walking by or just because…but most of all we’ll have fun.  We’ll discover new places, try new things and most of all just have a good time.
  • Believable – This is a word that I need to remind myself of every day.  I want pictures I take to be REAL!  There are a lot of amazing photographers out there that can do crazy tricks with light and camera.  I don’t want to get caught up in that.  I want the pictures I take to look like a real kid or family or couple.  I want them to look like they enjoy each other.  I want the emotions that come across on film to have been there when I took the shot.  This puts some pressure on me to lead people to this place, but it is so worth it when you look at the final product.
  • Love - This is an overflow of the last one but the emotion you are most trying to capture in photography is love.  It doesn’t matter if it’s couples or families or brother and sister, you want them to show their love to each other in a visible way on camera.  Genuine love is the most beautiful thing on earth and we all want more of it, even in our pictures.
  • Timeless – This is the hardest one to produce.  There is so much competition in photography to keep up with fashion, or lighting tricks, or certain fad poses.  Sometimes I wonder if we will look back on our photography 5 years from now, maybe 2 years from now, and think, “What was I thinking?” (i.e. www.awkwardfamilyphotos.com).  I want to take the kinds of pictures described in the first 4 words to create timeless shots.  These are the shots that no matter how old your album is or what the newest fad is you will always look at them and love them.

Basically if I can stay away from being posey and trying too hard to produce a “fashion” or “rock star” shot then I should be able to be me.

I am still learning what it means to be all of these things consistently.  I am constantly trying to overcome envy of all those great photographers out there that have their style and nail it every time out.  Sometimes I look at other’s websites and get a little depressed over how much more talented they are than me.  But the truth is they are more talented than me at being them…I am more talented at being me.

If for a minute or a week I forget to be myself I pull out this list of words, reintroduce myself to myself and maybe even buy myself a drink and get to know me better:)

*if you want to talk to, hang out with or book Fyrefly visit our website or email us.

As I said in an earlier post, I recently attended a great photography conference in New Orleans. During each day of the conference they had several different classes to choose from… Some were designed to help improve the business side of your… er… business. Others were more focussed on technique. And they had others that were focussed on creativity and inspiration.

One of the classes I was able to attend was led by a fantastic photographer from Cleaveland, Mississippi, Will Jacks. Besides obviously being a very talented photographer, he seemed to be a pretty cool guy. You know, one of those people that you think, “Hmm… I don’t really know them, but I think we could be friends.”

Anyways, one of the things he talked about was making time to be creative. Deliberately going out and tracking down inspiration and creative shots. He said that he regularly will go out with only his iPhone, stopping by places he has never been, or going the long way home, seeking for new inspiration.

That has stuck with me. I think there is a misconception (that I am working to overcome) that creativity is something that just happens… I am sure that it is easier for some than it is for others. But, the thing that I am learning is that, no matter who you are, if creativity is something you want to develop, you have to work at it… You have to practice it. Someone once told me that Stevie Wonder writes a song every day… At first I think, that’s crazy!! But then it hits me… What if he hadn’t worked that hard at song writing? Would we have songs like Isn’t She Lovely? Or My Cherie Amour? Maybe…

But maybe not.

So I have been putting that into practice. Ever since that class I have been purposefully looking for creative shots, but using only my iPhone… Trying to further develop my eye for amazing photography. Here is one that I took this week:

Hanging on

Hanging on

I am excited to see how I improve over time, as I keep up this habit!

P.S. Occasionally I may decide to post a picture on Twitter. You can follow us here: FyreflyPhoto

P.S.S. I am following Will on Twitter and he regularly posts pictures from his creativity hunting expeditions. You can check him out here: WilJax

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