Birmingham Photographer | Friday Freebie

I'm going on my last Summer vacation this Friday to my daddy's house. He lives West of Alabama, in the hometown of Willie Morris & Jerry Clower, the best chocolate chess pie ever invented, and the filming location for the movies "Miss Firecracker" and "O Brother Where Art Thou." Where am I going?

Be the first to comment here with the correct answer and you will receive my last Summer in the City session this year absolutely free! This would be a great time to go ahead and get your Christmas photos out of the way. Session must be held by Septebmer 30th, 2009.

Birmingham Photographer | Photo Tip Friday

This is going to be a rule in composition. Composition is like the genetetic makeup of a photograph. Its what goes where and more often than not, there is a reason why I put things in a certain place in the frame. I know some people wonder why so many of my pictures are cropped off-center, and sometimes even chop through body parts. Here's why. The rule of thirds tells us that you should place an imaginary tic-tac-toe board on top of a picture like this.



Your area of focus should fall on one of the inner or outer 1/3 of the intersecting points on the grid. In a more close up image, your area of focus (the eyes, since that is always the focus of a subject) should fall at the intersecting point, or close to it. Your image when following the rule of thirds should look something like this.



You see that this striking senior is completely in the far left column in the grid. He is off center and the area of focus is directly on him. The remaining space in the center and right of the image is called negative space. Negative space forces us to look exactly where we need to be looking. So, Caleb's image was proofed like this.


What if I hadn't followed the rule of thirds when cropping? He would have ended up with a proof that looks like this.



Unless you are being towed for not noticing that sign, you probably don't care about it and that shouldn't have been where your focus first landed. I'll bet you $100.00 that you looked at that first. That's because it was in the area that gets noticed first.

You can adjust the composition of a photo in post processing very easily. If you have Photoshop, or even Picasa or some other photo editing software, use the crop tool and play around with your images and see how you like it. Happy cropping!

Birmingham Photographer | A big thank you and a cute kid

I wanted to tell everyone thank you so much for your outpouring of love, support and encouragement recently. Your phone calls, emails and texts mean so much to me. I am really looking forward to the upcoming "busy" months, getting to see some of you and your families again.

Thanks to you, I have had a great response to the sessions with Santa. I have so many ideas in mind that I'm so excited to see become a reality! I have 4 spots left so if you are thinking about booking a session, please let me know as soon as possible.

Stay tuned to the blog. I hope you enjoyed "What to wear Wednesday". Tomorrow, I'll be posting for photo tip Friday and also, tomorrow is Freebie Friday! Some lucky winner will receive a FREE session just in time for Christmas.

Oh, I almost forgot... the cute kid part.

This is my little guy after his first day in Kindy. He loves it so much and I am eternally thankful for that. I didn't have time to go through any hoopla to do formal "First day of Kindy" pictures so I just snapped a few to document the day.
We call this his "sweet smile." Adorable right?



Then I tell him I miss him so much when he's at school so tomorrow I am going to come with him and sit at Jenna's desk and go to Kindy too. I asked him if he thought that Mrs. Black would notice that I wasn't Jenna? And he started laughing and said that I crack him up. Good thing he's an easy audience. I'm so glad I caught this. When I think about his laughter in my head, THIS is exactly what I see!

What to wear Wednesday

I'm really excited about starting What to wear Wednesdays. Everyone asks me "What should I wear?" and I'm hoping that this gives you a little inspiration when selecting your family's clothing for your family portraits. There is soooo much more than white shirts and khaki bottoms. I often tell people to coordinate rather than match. What does that mean? Every one's clothing should be interchangeable! Every one's shirt should easily be able to be paired with anyone elses bottoms, and vice verse. Avoiding too many busy patterns is best too. One pattern adds visual interest to your photographs. Too many patterns confuse the eye and leave you searching for a place to focus. Keep these tips in mind when selecting your family's wardrobe for your portraits!

Santa's making a stop!

(Double click the image for larger view)

Santa will be making a special stop on Morris Avenue just for Kristy Evans Photography this year. Can't you see it? Santa pulling your little one in a Radio Flyer down the brick paved road that is Morris Avenue or holding hands walking down the sidewalk of this historic part of Downtown Birmingham. Don't worry! We have a few tricks for the little ones who don't quite understand that awesomeness that is Santa.

Call or email today for scheduling or additional information. Sessions limited to the first 12 clients so please schedule as soon as possible. Santa is busy this year so there isn't time for an additional day of sessions with him.

205-527-0653
kristy@kristyevansphotography.com