A little Natural Light love...

Ah, natural light. How do I love thee...it's like a favorite blanket, or a cup of hot cocoa on a winter's day.

When I first started out, I shot in natural light, period. I purchased a speedlite last year for a small wedding that I did, and I have had a love-hate relationship with it ever since. Don't get me wrong, using external flash devices can provide some amazing creative lighting concepts, it can truly is an art form, but I have yet to master this on-camera, I'm not afraid to admit it. After months of practicing and countless classes, manuals, and so forth, I still refer to my EX 580II as my nemesis. I have done some off-camera flash work and have been happy with the results, and have time to time used it as a fill flash, but I prefer to shoot in natural light whenever possible.

Case in point, my dear friend, Regina of Cloud Nove Events, was in need of updated portraits for her website. She wanted a certain look for the pictures and was able to secure the Crescent Lounge in Astoria, NY for the location.

Walking into the lounge, it was a photographer's dream. Vintage furniture, dark wood, an exposed brick wall, and huge floor-to-ceiling windows with velvet curtains. While I squealed like a tween girl at a Justin Bieber concert, I felt this panic in me that I was going to have to do a little more than fill flashing to properly light the place.

Getting my settings right proved to be challenging. I tried bouncing it, angling it, turning down the flash exposure compensation, and even tried using my Gary Fong Collapsible Lightsphere diffuser to no avail. It just wasn't working, I wasn't getting the results I wanted. Regina was patient as ever, maybe because she's worked with me so many times and she knows how crazy I get with getting my in-camera settings. Finally after about 20 minutes of tinkering, I finally just detached my flash and threw it down in my camera bag in exasperation {well, not really threw it, it is a $500 piece of equipment! Yikes}.

I decided to go all natural light with this one, we drew open the curtains, and in retrospect, if I did manage to get my flash working the way I wanted, I don't think I would have been as happy with the outcome of the photos. Let's face it, the lounge was meant to be dark! There was so much mystery lurking in the shadows and perhaps if I had illuminated it with the flash, it would have lost some of that character that Regina wanted in her photos. Perhaps if I get another opportunity to shoot there, I can play around and experiment, maybe with off-camera lighting.

Some of my favorites from the session::

{Product Spotlight} 6 x 6 Boudoir Album

I finally took the time to create a sample album from the boudoir collaboration and I'm so excited to share this in our product offerings!

This is a product spotlight of a 6 x 6 square flush mount album, similar to wedding albums, which is a perfect size for my boudoir session. Other sizes and options are also available::

Every album comes gift wrapped in a brown box with a natural tie, ready for giving. :-)

A perfect touch for boudoirs, each album comes in it's own "lingerie" style boutique bag. Hot. Okay, moving on... ;-)

The bag featured is called Bordeaux, which has a deep red fabric and raised black velvet floral design. There are six (6) bag options available, from classic black to fun prints such as damask. Bags are only available with albums, not coffee table books, sorry!

Some bags have the option of a Satin liner with ribbon closure, or a velvet liner with knot or grommet tie closure. It's all about the details, love it!

Albums have many options so they can truly be customized to your personal tastes, or even the feel or theme of the session, from the type of cover material right down to the type of paper used. Because I was doing a sample album for the boudoir collaboration, I wanted to keep with the vintage feel of the session, so I chose a padded vintage leather cover in charcoal. Other cover options include fabrics, floral fabrics, suede, leather and even custom photo covers.

Album closed

Album pages are adhered to heavy card stock with lay-flat pages and no middle gutter.

Album design can be simple or complex, with the ability to use panoramic styles.

Close up of the texture of the paper used. For this sample album, I upgraded the paper to Pearl paper, which gives iridescent sheen to the pages and has UV Coating for further protection.

And there you have it, a beautiful album ready to give and cherish for years to come! I'm so excited to introduce this into my product line up, I'm all about personalizing, and this product completely exceeded all my expectations!