The Beehive Blog Spends the day with Photo by Emilie

I was tickled pink to be invited by an awesome tweeter, @taunitweets, to a wonderful photography workshop by Emilie of Photo by Emilie.  We met for a four hour workshop at Emilie's lovely studio in Draper, Utah - other awesome tweeters in attendance were @twomoreseconds and @savvyveronica.

Emilie is not only an extremely talented photographer that also has an incredible sympatico with recalcitrant kiddos but she is an excellent teacher.  The workshop was on how to work from a completely manual setting on your camera and covered all of those weird and foreign settings on the camera like f-stop, aperture, iso, shutter speed, etc..  Each attendee received Emilie's workbook that is packed with hints and examples and a step by step on all of the topics covered in the workshop.  We spent a ton of time on light and all of the settings that affect how light enters your camera and affects your subject.

Armed with our newly found illumination, Emilie produced the most adorable family for us to practice on.  This was my favorite part!  I am very hands on when learning so to hear Emilie discuss the topics, look at the settings and her examples and then be able to put it into immediate practice was invaluable.

 

After working with the delightful children while Emilie coached us on poses and angles and using the light, we came back in for some more theory, this time focusing on editing the photos.  Another invaluable step.  The entire workshop progressed in a logical and enjoyable manner with great company and lots of laughs with Emilie and her sparkling personality.   

Although I have been doing amateur photography for several years, I had yet to progress to fully manual and Emilie took the trepidation out of the exercise completely!  I also tend to focus on nature photography so this was an interesting look into the world of portraits and people photography.




The Beehive Blog would like to name Photo by Emilie - THE BEE'S KNEES! 

I highly recommend the workshop for photographers of all levels.  The Beehive Blog will be alerting readers when Emilie schedules her next workshop - what a GREAT holiday gift *hint hint* - but until then ... there are tons of ways that you can take advantage of Photo by Emilie's expertise -

The Beehive Blog recommends:

• Checking out Emilie's monthly Photo Tips on her blog - See September Tip here!
• Family portraits for Halloween or Christmas!
• Photoshop Tutoring - this is one on one and the next thing that I will be scheduling!
• Action sets for Photoshop
• Texture Sets 
• Workbook by Emilie
• Pre-schedule for the next Photography Workshop with Photo by Emilie

Here is how to get ahold of the fabulous Emilie ... tell her the Beehive Blog sent you!

Photo by Emilie

801-808-3669

emilie@photobyemilie.com

Main Site: www.photobyemilie.com 

Photo by Emilie Blog  

@photobyemilie on twitter

You Can Call Me "Bug Girl"

Since starting my journey in photography, I have to admit to a fascination with bugs.  Not like any bugs and not bugs in my house or bugs touching my body but taking pictures of bugs.

It really started with the dragonflies.  While living in Florida, I had close encounters of the dragon kind every day and I love them.  OK - I am obsessed with them.  Folks in my photo groups call me the Dragonfly Whisperer although I am fairly certain that the dragonflies would concur with Dragonfly Stalker.

My obsession does not just extend to stalking dragonflies or running after bugs in the wild, but I also began to read about them, especially dragonflies.  I knew it was bad when I would wax enthusiastic at family dinners about species and experiences during my photographic journeys, adding in all the neat new facts that I had uncovered about bug behavior.  Blank stares and even my Mom asking me if I needed to see a therapist were the results.

 
The idea of going out to stalk dragonflies and other various denizens of the buggy kingdoms has gotten me out of bed at dawn, led me into standing in swamps motionless for 20 minutes to get a shot and hanging upside down the side of a canal to inspect a cocoon.  Weird, right?

In my defense, I have documented over 26 types of dragonflies, identified invasive species harmful to the Florida ecosystem, submitted to various scientific and scientific groups and  gotten a few darn cool photos along the way.  I even realized that my serious and debilitating arachnophobia could be controlled if I breathed and looked through the lens.  I do not wax poetic about spider behavior ... you are safe.

But the real reason that I am so excited about bugs ... beside the darn cool photos is that they saved my life.  Two years ago, I had just returned from London.  My husband and I had separated.  I had just been laid off.  I hated Florida.  The economy had made finding a job in my industry virtually impossible.  I was depressed and then one evening during a walk, I sat down in a field of dragonflies.  I was entranced and that was the first of months of daily walks.  Instead of going to bed and staying there (which is what I wanted to do), I went outside, took photos, did research and formed awesome networks on Flickr.  

 
I am through the bad patch now but my love of photography and capturing all the wonderful and weird things around us, no matter how small, has definitely stuck.  So, yes, you can call me Bug Girl.  or the Dragonfly Whisperer/Stalker, or as one friend dubbed me - the Reigning Queen of the Dragonfly Nerds on flickr.  But the bugs and I know ... I owe them.

   

All Photos Are Mine so Please Respect Copyright ... or the bugs will get you ... seriously.  

The Beehive Blog is looking for Utah Photographers!

As an enthusiastic amateur photographer, Flickr is one of my favorite sites.  I enjoy looking at other photographer's work and interacting with other passionate photogs!

The Beehive Blog has started a Flickr group just for Utah photographers and we hope you join us and share your work!

The Beehive Blog Utah Photo Group on Flickr

Utah has amazing natural scapes that lend to breathtaking images and I am looking forward to the great weather to get out and explore!

Do you have a Photographer from Utah that you would like to recommend?  The Beehive Blog would love to do some features - let us know if you are interested!

Do you belong to a photography group?  What are your favorite places to take the amazing shots?

Utah Lake in Provo

PhotoQuest - Framing

I picked 3 photos from this week to submit - all of different subjects (hope I got the concept right!) -
This dragonfly was zipping all over the place and I finally caught him WAY up at the top of a palm tree -

Dragonflyinsky

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This is the wild iguana and I saved this pic for the photo quest as I thought he was framed quite nicely by the leaves -

Iguana

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and this is a picture of one of my statues and I love how the flowers frame her!

Chinese Goddess Kuan Yin

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