sun flare

PhotographyThe Story

Sunlit Clovers and Dumb Luck

by Jill
written by Jill

She zig zagged through the strip of dead grass alongside our house as the sun was setting behind her, looking for dandelions. I was squinting, trying to keep her in my sight and make sure she didn’t run into the neighbor’s yard and mess with some tools they had stacked against their house.

Ugh. The sun was SO blinding.

And it was then that my photographer brain turned on. I grabbed the only camera I had with me- my iPhone, squatted low, and took a picture of her hovering over a single patch of green… some perfectly sunlit clovers.

It was dumb luck. I had no idea if I even captured anything because the sun made it hard to see my screen.

Next time you’re out playing with your kids and you have to squint because the sun is right behind them, get low, snap a pic, test your luck.

I edited this in Snapseed to up the contrast and saturation, warm the white balance, and then I applied the Low-Fi filter in Instagram. If you want to follow me over there, I’m @BabyRabies.

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Photography

Fall Fields, Photographing Friends, And Do You Believe In Orbs?

by Jill
written by Jill

I’ve been terrible with taking pictures of us and our life lately. I keep meaning to make it a priority (and I’m actually hoping to take our holiday pictures today), but I’ve felt so blah about it all. In such a rut.

I’ve had the opportunity to take pictures for several friends in the last month, though, which has been wonderful practice for me. I take them all to my little hill, the one we took bluebonnet pictures on. It’s surrounded by tall grass now and looks about as Fall-ish as it can get in North Texas.

This weekend I had the joy of photographing Valerie from Charmed Valerie and her gorgeous family. It was a (amateur) photographer’s dream!

Here are a few of my faves.

I mean… yeah. So gorgeous. AND? Her children are like angels. I would hate her if I didn’t like her so much.

I’ve really struggled with sun flare, and hitting focus when I’m photographing more than one person, but this session seemed to just click for me. Of course, there’s always room for improvement, but I’m really happy with my growth over the last couple months.

For those interested in settings, I kept my ISO at 400 for all of these, which my mk ii handled well. My f/stop was between 4.0 and 5.6 for most, and I mostly fidgeted with my shutter speed (taking it no less than 300) to get the right exposure. 

OH! And do you see all those green orbs around her? I’ve shot in that same spot, same time with the same lens 4 times in the last month. I haven’t seen all these green orbs in any of the other pictures, that I can remember (the purple ones show up in a few pictures with other friends, though).

I don’t know how much I believe in that sort of thing, but find it interesting how they show up so close to Valerie in the pictures she’s in, especially in the one where it’s right on her boot. That doesn’t seem to be a product of sun flare to me. You can also see a tiny green and purple orb near her toddler Rocco’s feet in the picture where he’s sitting in the chair.

What do you think? Another “presence” or just a random photographic occurrence?

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