Every year since 2011 my family has gone to Oak Island for a beach week vacation. It’s really the only solid week of vacation I ever take so I am trying harder to focus on family time and recharge my batteries! It is also the only time that I usually take lifestyle photos of my boys and Alice Jane with my big camera. Each year I try to come up with something new to try out – beach week 2012 I used only my wide angle lens, for OKI 2013 vacation I switched to only my 80-200 lens, in 2014 I used only my Petzval (and I’m just realizing I never blogged those photos…going to have to go back and do that!), and last year in 2015 we were in survival mode (Alice was only a few months old) so it’s amazing I even turned my camera ON. Ha!
My biggest challenge every year is always letting go of the standards of perfection that I apply to every client’s gallery…composition, color casts, white balance, distracting elements and so much more. If I fixed every little detail in these beach images I would only have a few to show (or be editing my entire vacation…) and miss too much of the story!
Well this year I got ambitious…I decided to shoot video. Yep, VIDEO. Not like photo slideshow. Reeeeeal video. Craaaaazytown. But ohmigoodness I think I am addicted! I recently grabbed up Alison Winterroth’s Breakout Session with Click PhotoSchool and it is FABULOUS. No way I would have ever attempted making a video without her tutorials. I really can’t recommend it enough!
Between my already shaky hands, bumpy car riding, the insane wind, waves and our speed racer children…to say it was challenging is an understatement.
I still have soooooo much to learn but love this first attempt EVER. I actually thought that I might do a video/photo mix. But in the end decided I really just wanted to put all the video clips together, separate from the photos. This is something I have been wanting to try for a long time. As much as I love the video, I hope I can look back at it next year and see all the things I have improved upon since then. I’m excited to start adding video in my upcoming client sessions too – YAY!
❤ First, here are some of my favorite photos from last week. Followed by my very first attempt at a video. Enjoy!
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