An Evening With Jasmine Star || The Fix

I sat down this morning with a homemade cappuccino and started to write about my trip to Seattle, WA.  I gathered up some photos, and was about to share about my awesome adventure when I realized that the story didn't actually start in Seattle.  It started at The Fix in Nashville, TN on March 6, 2012.  Yes, it's almost been 2 years, and I never posted about that night.

This might sound cliché, but I really do remember The Fix like it happened last week.  I remember signing up for it and not knowing why, or even what I would do there.  I remember laying out my clothes the night before and making sure my camera batteries were charged.  I remember stalking the Fix's Facebook group just to keep up to date with what was going on.  I remember getting to the venue super early and asking Zach and Jody where I could kill some time in downtown Nashville.  I remember walking through different shops with my dad and hearing Eric Church's "Drink in my Hand" three times within an hour (seriously, we thought someone was playing a joke on us.)  But most of all, I remember a feeling that I got that night.

 



 



 

As I walked into the building, I saw tons of *professional* photographers and felt completely overwhelmed.  Even though I had been shooting since 2008, I had only started up my business two days before The Fix.  That's right, only *2* days.

Everyone seemed to know everyone else, so I decided to just sit down and wait for Jasmine to start talking.

I honestly can't remember much of what Jasmine said.  Maybe I was star-stuck (pun totally intended).  Maybe I was too busy being inspired.  Maybe I was laughing too hard at her jokes. No matter what, I came away that night realizing that the only thing I wanted to do at that moment was pick up my camera and start shooting like crazy.  She inspired me to go for what I wanted, and to not let the fear of mistakes get in my way.  I don't think there is a word in the dictionary to describe the feeling she gave me - it was just really amazing.  I was on fire.

 

 



 

At the end of the night I went over to get my copy of Exposed signed.   I am *such* an introvert and was really nervous about having to actually talk to someone that night, but Jasmine has the amazing ability to make anyone feel instantly comfortable around her.  I can't remember what we talked about, but I remember that we were both laughing a lot.

After I had my photo taken with Jasmine, my dad asked if she would take a photo of him and me together.  It was completely embarrassing at first, but she and I started laughing and it sure happened folks!  We had a group of people watching and laughing with us, and Jasmine was coaching my dad and I through a few shots.  It was fabulous.

 

 

 

 

I got home über late that night (Nashville was about an hour and a half away from our farm), unloaded my photos, and then curled up and read about half of Exposed.  Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like reading - so this was practically a miracle.  If you don't already have a copy of her magazine you *really* need to buy it.  I was absolutely glued to it until I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer.  (and these aren't affiliate links - I don't get anything from recommending it to you.  It's just too good not to share!)

 

Come back next week to see how on earth a night in downtown Nashville was the start to my Seattle journey. :)

 

Happy Friday!

~~le

Are You Watching?

creativeLIVE's free workshop The Art of Being a Second Shooter goes LIVE at 9:00am PST - Are you watching?

Happy Tuesday!

~~le

Get Organized Part 2 - The E-Mailbox

It's been years... 3+ years to be exact.  There was always something else to do - a session to edit, animals to take care of, laundry to wash or cupcakes to bake.  I could *always* find a good excuse to get out of it.... deleting emails has to be my worst nightmare ever.  I just can't seem to hit that delete button.  It seems like it would be really simple.  Check your emails twice a day, read the keepers, delete anything not worth reading - easy peasy lemon squeezy right?!

When you open up your emails one day and realize that there are over 19,000 of them (yes, you read that right - over nineteen THOUSAND) it's not a good feeling.  I'm pleased to say that after a couple hours, lunch, and a "don't back down" attitude that you can only get from listening to The Only Way I Know, I have narrowed down my inbox to a mere 6,295 from 2007-2013, and cleared up over 6GB of space on my hard drive.

I guess emails are just like culling and editing photo sessions - you need to take the time immediately and do it or you will have a monster to deal with later on.  I'll go into exactly how I organize and run my inbox in a later post, but for now here's a sneak peek of my mail app....that I'm now excited to open every day  :)

Catch Up:  Get Organized Part 1

Happy Tuesday,

~~laura elizabeth

Get Organized Part 1 ~ Basket Love

Being organized makes life sooo much easier - but *staying* organized can be a challenge. ;-)  Over time I've figured out my favorite ways of getting things done, and the easiest ways to keep them that way so I thought I'd share my favorite tips.

My absolute favorite way to organize is..... baskets!  It's such a simple idea, but it really works.  Baskets hide the little things that I don't want cluttering up my desk and they make everything look pretty - bonus!  I have several different baskets for different things, but this one holds all of my "extra" gear that doesn't have a proper home.

Here is all that I see from the outside.... no one would know that it's full of odds and ends!

 

This particular basket holds all of my extra business cards, card reader, extra memory cards (I only need a few in my camera bag), external hard drives, camera instruction manuals, battery chargers, extra batteries (in the orange lensbaby box), lens/camera caps, flash instruction manuals, extra speedlite, and alllll the cords that came with my cameras that I *never* use - but might need one day.  Everything is right at arms length, and easy find - definitely a step up from living in an old camera bag or hiding in a drawer!

 

 

Do you have any organizational tips to share?  Leave a comment below - I'd love to hear about them!

 

~~Happy Tuesday!

Giveaway and New Goodies ~ Part 5

I am just soooooo excited about the last item that I won from the giveaway!  If you haven't guessed already, the giveaway was from Kelly Moore!  I have been wanting one of her camera bags for oh. so. long.  I think that I can probably describe every single one of her bags - I'm *that* obsessed with them.  The main reason that I hadn't purchased one was pretty simple - I couldn't choose just one!  They all have so many different features, sizes, colors and looks.  About 2 months ago I narrowed it down to my absolute favorite 2 - so it made my decision a lot easier when I HAD to pick one!

 

Meet the 2 Sues in Raspberry!

I love how it fits my camera with a lens attached, it's tall enough to fit my 70-200mm, and it also had an extra section for an iPad!  It doesn't matter how much gear I have in it at once - I've never had a more comfortable bag/purse/camera bag EVER.

 



 

Keep an eye out for a detailed post about everything that the 2 Sues bag can do!  Also, get ready for my FAVORITE goodie of all!  No, I didn't win this amazing item in the giveaway....it's.....well, you will just have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it is!

 

 

**Catch Up On The Series!**

Giveaway and New Goodies Part 1

Giveaway and New Goodies Part 2

Giveaway and New Goodies Part 3

Giveaway and New Goodies Part 4

Tutorial || Preset Love

Don't you love it when you take "the perfect shot"(or so it seems on your camera's LCD screen), only to import it to lightroom and watch the photo "die"?  It's like all of the color is sapped from it INSTANTLY.  Well, that's one of the things that happens with RAW images.  I LOVE shooting in RAW, but there are a few extra steps that are needed in post processing...  My favorite one?  Lightroom Presets!

 I really love the clean crisp photos without all of the filters and extra editing, so I basically just add the color back into the photo through presets.  

Here is an example of how I "edit" ..... Before/After

Presets cut down on my processing time like crazy!  Just think, if it takes 1 minute to "enhance each photo", and I have 30 photos to work on.... whew... that's **at least** a half hour in itself.  With presets, I can have all of the photos done in just a few minutes, and a couple clicks of my mouse.

Here is how you can make your own presets!

First:  Edit your photo to your liking.

When you are finished editing, click on the + sign on the left under the "presets" tab

Next, name your new preset, check all of the boxes (or just the ones that apply to your photo), and click "create"

You will see your new preset on the left!

Here is the before and after again.

Now you will be able to apply your new preset to the rest of your photos from that shoot and finish your editing super quick!


First, select the photo that you just edited, then hold down the "shift" key to select the photos that you want to edit (you will see that the photo you select first will have a brighter background).  Click "sync" on the bottom right to apply the preset to all of the selected photos.

If you just want to edit a few of your photos, then select each photo, and click on your new preset!  That's it, it will be applied immediately.

Do you ever make presets?

Happy Tuesday
~~laura elizabeth

Just one of those "Duh" moments...

Last month I watched a CreativeLive course about Workflow.  Zach and Jody's course was so so helpful and I came away with SO many awesome ideas.  There were several tips that I've already started using, but one Lightroom help really stood out to me.  Like REALLLY stood out -- just one of those "DUH!!" moments.

Catalogs.

Emphasis on the "S".

Make multiple catalog"s"!

Maybe I am the only person that downloads EVERY single shoot into 1 catalog, and doesn't think anything of it when Lightroom takes 10 minutes to load.  Sure it's annoying, but if it takes that long, I guess  I'll just have to wait.  WRONG :)

Thanks to that 1 little trick, I'm now importing each shoot into a separate catalog, I can find any photo I want - and "when" I want it, and it takes **seconds** to open lightroom.  Ahhhhhh....if only I had known about this 4 years ago!!  :)

Thanks Zach and Jody!

How do YOU organize your photos?  Do you use Lightroom?  What version?

And because I just can't write a post without a photo, here is a sneak peek of "one" of my Lightroom Catalog*s* from our latest [mini]C.A.P.T.U.R.E. that I'm working on.  

Happy Tuesday
~~laura elizabeth