Getting to Know You: The Answers

Woweeee!  Look how many of you were hiding… dorks!!  Well, I was going to wait a week after posting to answer, but my post is getting quite long.  So, I’m going to post the answers to the questions I’ve received so far, and if anyone else joins in, I’ll answer those questions next week!  This has been fun! So… here we go!

If you could pick one place to vacation year in and year out…only one place…where would you go?

Definitely the Iberostar Paraiso Beach resort in the Riviera Maya, Mexico.  DEFINITELY.

How did you and your husband meet?
We met in highschool… highschool sweethearts.  Awww… (HAHA!) I was 15 and Ryan was 16, and we had an English class together. We started dating just before I turned 16.  We dated for a little over 2 years, broke up for almost a year, and then started dating again.   Not counting the "breakup" we dated for about 6 years before we got engaged.  This past November was our 3rd wedding anniversary and December was our 9 year "dating anniversary" (we don’t celebrate it… we aren’t sweet like that HAHA!).

Do you ever want to move out of the Jackson/Napoleon area?
Every. Single. Day.  I can’t stand this town. 

Where in the world do you have the patience and time to keep them
organized and/or keep all of these pics in order?? Or are they all just
stored on discs somewhere??
I love pictures.  I’m obsessed with them, and thats probably why/how I have the patience and make the time to deal with them. You’re right… there are THOUSANDS of them, and thats probably why my poor old computer is slowly dying…. I have too many pictures on my computer! 

Right now my method is this… each day I upload pictures to a dated folder… such as 5.15/07.  Inside that folder I have another folder called "proofs" and then in that folder one called "4×6" and then one called "web".  So, each day that I have taken pictures has its own "home folder" labeled with the date.  I have an external harddrive now so I do a full backup every week.  I also back up pictures by month… but it usually takes 2 or more disks to backup each month. Sickening, huh?  Client images I put on their own disk, they go into their own folder labeled "Client Name & Date".

You have probably stated this in one of your posts, but I was curious as to what your husband does for a living?
Hmmm… what is his actual title?  I’m not sure, exactly.  He works in the FAB department at Alro Plastics… in the warehouse.  He runs a router machine, he makes different plastic parts for companies.  He’s going to college now (FINALLY after 6 years of me trying to persuade him!) to get his CAD (computer aided drafting) degree so that eventually he can move up the ladder in either this company or some other company.   

What site did you make your photography website from and would you recommend it?
My photography site is a Winklet Web Design.  I like it, so far.  There are many photographers who turn their noses up at them because they’re so "cookie cutter" (they like the more pricey BluDomain sites, which are very nice, but pricey).  I like my Winklet, so far. Its easy to use once you get used to it.

What is your dream job (the answer can’t include anything you have previously done or are doing now).
Hmm… I don’t know. I’ve always thought I’d like some kind of office job… where I could dress up every day and look all important. As far as an office job doing what…. uhm… I have no idea.  I also always thought I’d LOVE to be an interior designer… I almost went to school for that (along with the 57 other things I "thought" I’d do…). 

What’s your favorite cereal?  If you eat cereal that is. I don’t have a "favorite"… it kind of goes in shifts… I love Lucky Charms, Coco Puffs, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Captain Crunch and Cheerios (coated with about 7tsp of sugar, of course!).  I am such a "kid cereal" person.

How did you learn all you know about photography and how much photo editing do you use? Most of what I know is from help from photographer mentors and a great deal of practice and experimenting, and reading reading reading!  As far as photo editing, I don’t do a ton… usually a basic s-curve to boost the contrast, some brightness/contrast/levels to make colors and contrast pop.  I like to burn the edges of photos lately.  At the end, I do a little defogging and voila!  Now, sometimes I do crazy things like switch heads or clone out big objects… but I rarely do that. 

Have you ever shot a wedding and what is your willingness to travel across Michigan to do one? I have never shot a wedding, although when Jess thought they’d be moving to Michigan, we were in deep discussion about starting to do wedding photography together.  I honestly don’t know if I’d be willing to do a wedding… they are a lot more work than portraits, as well as a once-in-a-lifetime thing.  I think I’d be too afraid I’d mess it up!  Now, if I could get Jess to drag her chicken scared arse up here to MI to be a second shooter… I might consider it!

If you could come to St. Louis this summer and see Ryan and Heather’s new house (and to meet me) 🙂 When would you come??? IF I could come… um heck yeah I’m coming to see their new house!!  🙂  I hope that we can find time sometime later this summer or maybe early fall to come visit for a long weekend.  I can’t wait!  And of course we may have to come in spring….. to get out of this depressing-dead-and-dreary-forever-Michigan.

If you had to pick one thing, what would be your very favorite thing about your husband? My VERY favorite thing?  Hmm…. this is hard!  How can I narrow it down?  I love that he is a great husband and an amazing father.  He, 97% of the time, is so incredibly helpful and involved.  I love that about him.  I love that we know eachother so well… I love our inside jokes, I love that we can laugh together and bicker and argue and we still love eachother. I love that he’s a hard worker and he always looks out for his family.  He’s honest, loving, kind, stubborn, helpful.      

And what is your absolute favorite thing about being a mom? MAMA!  I love when he calls me mama and smiles and runs to me with his grubby little hands!  I love watching him grow, seeing all the new things he’s learning, watching him make connections and put two and two together, watching him play with Ryan, his laughter and smiles, snuggling with him in the mornings when he wakes up and before he goes to bed.  Oh man, thats more than one thing… there are lots of absolute favorites for me.

How do you get some many great pics for you son? For my son or of my son? *wink*.  Hmm… honestly I don’t think that I have many "great" pictures of him.  I have lots that I like, but none that I LOVE.  Not like my clients pictures.  How… well, that took lots of practice and experimenting and learning.

How did you get started with your photography? I got started with photography about hmm… 4 years ago. I bought an old manual Canon AE-1 off ebay, as my mom had had one when I was younger.  It came with three lenses (pretty much "the" lenses to have!) and I paid a whole $165 or something for it!  I started with that camera, and BOY is that a sink or swim type of thing… it was film and totally manual… manual metering, manual exposure, manual focus EVERYTHING.  So, that camera basically taught me a lot of the basics. Then, when we got married, I bought a Nikon N55 film SLR and really for awhile I kept the darn thing in auto (NOT a good thing).  Eventually I got that spark back to want to try to learn and improve, so I started putting it back in manual mode and aperture priority mode.  Eventually, my lens bombed on me… a bearing broke loose or something, and instead of buying a new lens, I just bought my digital rebel.  From there, my photography bloomed…. the ability to see the results of everything I’d learned and been taught, to be able to see that instantaneously and see what I did wrong, to see what I needed to fix or change, well that helped a ton.  I spent another year and a half practicing and reading and learning, and then I started my business.

What is your favorite thing to do for YOU??? Shop.  I love to shop. 

When did you know what you wanted to be when you "grew up"? Well, probably about my third year of college I knew I wanted to be a teacher.  And I still truly do.  I don’t remember my "wow" moment, sadly.  After graduating and seeing that the teaching field in Michigan doesn’t have much promise for a full time position for me, I started to follow my other passion, photography.

I am thinking of buying a new camera because im so jealous of all your
great pics for someone like me who wants good photos but not a
professional like yourself what would be a good starting one for me?  A good starting point would be to start learning the manual features of your camera… most point and shoots have the same manual features that fancy schmancy SLR cameras have.  It doesn’t matter what kind of camera you have, its all about how you use it.  You could buy a $7,000 camera and if you kept it in auto and didn’t learn how to use it, you’d get the same outcome as you would with a $200 point and shoot. Once you get the basics down (aperture, shutter speed, ISO, focus, exposure etc…) then I’d suggest moving on to a digital SLR like the Canon Digital Rebel XT.  or the Nikon D40 . 

Now, point and shoots do limit you somewhat in creative modes… my point and shoot only goes up to 400 ISO, so trying to do indoor, natural light pictures without a TON of natural light just won’t happen with my point and shoot (I remember trying this with Heather’s point and shoot at the cabin.. it was frustrating!), And, point and shoots have a greater shutter lag than SLR’s (well, SLR’s really have virtually NO shutter lag whatsoever).  However, outside in good lighting, you can get great pictures with a point and shoot if you mess with the manual settings (now, the final quality probably won’t be glamorous enough to want to blow up to a 16×20 or anything like that… point and shoots tend to be a lot grainier than SLR’s, but for the everyday user, there isn’t a need to have large prints from snapshots).

How do you like to decorate your house? I totally love Pottery Barn, Pier 1, World Market and styles along those lines… I get a lot of ideas out of the Pottery Barn catalogs, and just copy it with cheaper styles from Target or World Market.  I like earthy colors, simple, sophisticated, neutral, kind of classic but modern. Does that make any sense HAHA!

Have you
always lived in jackson?
Pretty much.  I was born in Texas, and moved here when I was about 5ish.  I’ve never lived "in Jackson" always in the outskirts…. Pleasant Lake, Spring Arbor, Vandercook Lake.  But, well, pretty much… Jackson.

What is your favorite type of
flower?  Tulips or Gerber Daisys, I guess.  I like lots of flowers.