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“I love this!,” said Janna Evans as she was posing for a night time photo shoot. “I could do this all the time!,” she said.

As easy as it was for Janna to pose and make lots of quick movements, it was not as easy for me, the photographer, at night.

Nighttime photography is rather difficult, but can produce the most dramatic pictures. There are many elements I had to consider before shooting. One of the elements was the location. Because I wouldn’t be using flash, I had to make sure the location had a good bit of lighting. There were few places in Lakeland, Florida that could provide lighting as well as scenery at 11 o’clock at night, but thankfully we got both when I chose Lake Mirror in the downtown area.

“This is such a beautiful place,” said Janna as I took her to the different locations around Lake Mirror. She wore a black and white strapless Marc and Cleo dress that was trimmed with black lace at the empire waist line. The bottom of the dress flowed freely against the backdrops I chose, with the wind blowing in all directions. It was perfect conditions.

Many of the pictures I took were close to the lake’s lights. I did this because I was not using flash and we needed a good amount of lighting. The lighting from the lights worked well as long as I was not more that five or six feet from Janna.

A recommendation I have with nighttime photography is to bring a tripod! It is a must! Pictures can get blurry if you decide to take them “free hand”, even with a high ISO setting. A tripod helps you balance the camera completely still and allows the exposure to take without movement. This will make the picture clear and concise.

“But…I want the pictures to look different,” said Janna, spring break visitor to Florida and model for the nighttime shoot. Defining the “different” was what I set out to do. The first few shots we did were casual. As I began to learn her style of posing, I learned the type of pictures she was looking for: something dramatic and fierce.

From that point on, I was able to tell her exactly how to pose and where to go to get the effects she was going for. Because she was looking for a dramatic style of photography, nighttime was perfect!

I changed the ISO settings and contrasted the colors immensely, as you can see in the picture directly left. I posed Janna so the light from the lake light would fall directly on her. This caused a black out in the picture and made for a great shot!

“I feel so pretty!,”said Janna as I was letting her review some of the shots we got. “They are all so different! How do you do it?” she said.

We captured many different styles in this nighttime photography shoot. Janna walked away with the type of pictures she was looking for and I walked away with a better understanding of nighttime photography.

One great thing about photography is there are always new techniques and new things to learn, whether it is about a camera, a style of photography, or the time you do photography, which in this case, was nighttime.

Below I have included a list of quick tips!

1. If there is not enough lighting, make your ISO higher. For this shoot I chose 800.

2. Bring a tripod! This allows for the picture to develop completely without you shaking the camera.

3. Know your location. Working at nighttime can be challenging enough, so it is important to pick a  place you have scoped out.

Darren Rowse has compiled a list of amazing photography tips!

*photo by rougerouge*

Imagine flowers, nature, a clear sky and four students from Southeastern University, ready to be models for the next two hours. That was the scene a few weeks ago when we were inspired by the Gucci ad seen above.

The girls wore boho/hippie style clothing, heavy makeup and LOTS of accessories. The colors I tried to capture weren’t in the scene- it was in their makeup and their clothing.

We shot at a small place in Lakeland, Florida called the “Dunes.” The Dunes was a quiet place that had a woodsy  feel and places that had not been explored. It was perfect place for a rugged, natural look. ”It was less structured than a studio shoot. It felt incredibly natural and organic, ” said Elizabeth Stoutimore, who was a model at shoot. (more…)

How do you live in city for a summer and possibly capture everything there is? Is it even possible? I was completely overwhelmed by the city of Calcutta: the beauty, the colors, the culture. Everything about it was intriguing. A sense of adventure surrounded me and other photographers as we explored the city, homes and even the rivers where normal people carried out their  day to day tasks.

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While I was in India I had the privelege of meeting three amazing photographers: Blair Waltman, Luke Cypert and Jarrod Doyal. On a journalism/photography trip from East Central University in Oklahoma, they came to India ready to do work and returned with amazing pictures that have already been published! We’ve talked about various things with our photography in India compared to the photography in the States and I think you will be amazed at some of their responses. Their tips will really help you out!

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 Abhay pictured above

India is the seventh largest country in the world and second most populated country. Consistingof 28 different states and founding 5 major religions, India is known for its bright colors, textures and beautiful people, which is why India is a perfect place for photography. Getting off the plane in India was an event in itself. The sights, sounds and smells were overwhelming, and thankfully I had my Nikon by my side.

Wandering through the city and back alley ways, capturing every moment I could on film, my favorite memory of photography always goes back to visiting a school in Calcutta, India, sponsored by www.childrenneedlove.org. I don’t know what I expected, but when I arrived at the school I was overwhelmed by all the beautiful bright colors, the animals, and the nature.

Walking into the school’s courtyard, I heard singing. I asked, through a translator, who was singing so beautifully. She directed me over to a balcony where a 7 year old boy was standing. He was leaning over the balcony hanging clothes one-by-one after he washed them. He reached into the bucket, getting more clothes out, seeming so adamant about scrubbing each spot out of the dirty laundry.  I was fascinated with his persistency and kept snapping shots of the soap splashing on the ground.

The sun was setting when this little boy finished his laundry. He turned to approach the steps and was bracing himself on the way down.

He was blind.  

The young Indian woman began explaining to me how he lost his sight..

In India there is a festival that is held once every year called the Holi Festival.(The Festival of Colors)This festival is celebrated by Hindu’s and traditionally welcomes in the spring season by people on the streets throwing colored power on each other.You can see children and adults running to each other to trying to get someone in the face, and usually this is not a problem.
Once the people have the powder on them, their skin is stained for days.

This little boy, whom I later renamed Abhay, was welcoming the spring in like any other little child at the Holi Festival when some “bad” powder was thrown in his eyes …and that was the last time he saw color. The powder blinded him and he was left on the street alone, confused, and helpless.
In India, when you cannot work or bring in income, you become a burden.  Abhay became a burden out of his blindness and that is when Children Need Love found him. They brought him to the school they had built specifically for blind children where they teach them how to create things and live a normal life without sight. They teach them important things like Echolocation, how to wash their clothes, sweeping, mopping… etc.

I was able to follow the children around for an entire day and talk with them, watch how they live, and take pictures for the people who live in the States that send support to them. It was amazing. When I was there, no one knew of Abhay’s story, so I volunteered to write it.I took many pictures of him and wrote about how adventurous he was.

In order to protect the children, we change their names when writing their stories. That is why I changed his name to “Abhay.” It means fearless. Never before have I seen such an adventurous, strong, determined, fearless little boy as Abhay was. There were times he did fall, since he had not been blind for long, but the important thing was, he got back up and never stayed down. Being strong doesn’t mean we never feel weak. It just means we don’t give up in those weak times.

*** All pictures in this blog were taken by Danielle Valimont***