Shelby Leigh Photography

Monthly Archives: May 2010

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NEW MAILING ADDRESS

May 28, 2010 – 6:43 am

I have a new mailing address, so if you are sending in any contracts, payments, etc. please send them to the new address below! The Edgewater address will no longer be active! Thank you!

Shelby Leigh Photography
PO Box 764
Silver Spring, MD 20901

By shelbyleigh | Posted in Personal, Portraits, Weddings | Comments (0)

I love these new mini 4×4 albums I’m offering! They are so cute and so great to stick in your bag and whip it out to brag to everyone about your wedding/baby/family etc. :o) Just think about this scenario “So how was your wedding?” and you say “It was great, let me SHOW you!” and BAM you have an little mini clone album to show off and make them jealous. These are also great little gift to family members or wedding party. They have a REAL leather cover (none of that fake stuff) and super thick pages just like the regular albums. Best of all these mini albums are super affordable! Right now I am only offering the mini 4×4 albums as clones of a design for a full size album, so no custom designs! So say you already had your wedding and we’ve designed your album or we will design your album these can be added on! It will be the same exact design as your full size album in miniature version. Check out some of the photos of all the albums! Albums are now available to purchase on your private online viewing and ordering galleries. The MINI’s will be on sale for the next 2 weeks!

The Mini 4×4 books are just $95 for a 20 page design (and $20 for each additional 10 pages) and come with a fabric slip cover and your chose of leather cover. The are on sale for $80 until 6/10! If you’d like to order you can do so on your gallery or contact me directly.

Full size 10×10 album in red

Thick pages, color swatches, fabric slip cover (left). 10×10 in red, 8×8 in black and mini 4×4 in brown (right)

Mini 4×4 in brown with fabric slip case

Mini 4×4 open

By shelbyleigh | Posted in Portraits, Weddings | Comments (0)

Q & A time! ANSWERED

May 24, 2010 – 10:24 am

First, since you voted for July 31st as the next Marathon Boudoir, it shall be! I will open registration up and announce details for it in a few weeks, if you’d like to be put on my mailing list for the boudoir sessions if youre not all ready, just email me at shelby@shelbyleigh.com or just keep an eye on the blog for the announcements!

And I’m pleasently surpised at those of you interested in learning. I’ve always thought about teaching photography, so I’m going to set up a little class/workshop geared towards moms with SLR’s and beginner-moderate skill level photographers this summer.

Now I want to answer some of the questions I got!

1. “What do you recommend are the steps for taking photography to a professional level? i.e. full time job! ”- Amanda

There are so many ways to do this, you can apprentice with established photographers, you can start second shooting, you can go to school or you can just dive in! If I could start over I would either start apprenticing or second shooting with other photographers, this is a good way to see how people work, build your portfolio and maybe even get paid! When you feel comfortable with your experience and when you think your skills are good enough to start charging, then you should get everything together, start charging and marketing yourself. Hone your skill and charge what your worth. Pricing is probably one of the hardest things once you go full time, really figure out what your time is worth. If you did the math on your time and products on any single sale I think most of us photographers would be really surprised on just how much our pay actually equals out to be. Unless that is, youre charging what you should … and in some cases I should practice what I preach. I know how easy it is to put something like working numbers on the bottom of your to do list. Photographer, Stacy Reeves, obviously knows a lot more about this then me and offers a really great free pricing guide on her site HERE.
2. “ What type of camera do you have and what tips would you give for choosing a lens? Is there one type of lens you use the most? - Susan
I shoot Nikon!

I use a D700, D200 and D90 and I have a variety of lenses. I made a big mistake when I first started getting into photography and bought lenses based on their focal length and paid no attention to their aperture range, thus I was stuck with some “slow” lenses, and was wondering why I wasnt getting those sharp, bright images with that nice depth of field. My favorite lens is my 50mm 1.4, I love this lens because it can be used in almost any situation and shooting wide open at 1.4 creates gorgeous creamy bokeh. I also love this lens because its inexpensive for what you get! And you can buy the 1.8 version for even cheaper… next to nothing if you get can snatch it used. One of my favorite tricks to use with my 50mm is making it into my makeshift macro! I posted about this trick a couple years ago on my blog, and if you want to know how to make your 50 (or I think most lenses will do this too) click here!

3. How did you get into the photography business?” - Susan

When I was 13 I followed in both of my sisters foot steps and tried out for my high schools Pom Squad. Following tryouts I found out that sadly, I didnt make the team! I had always played around with our point and shoot cameras at home and my mom saw my interest in photography, so she surprised me with my first film SLR in hopes of cheering me up! It worked, I still have so many random photos I took of our cat back then! A year after I had Riley, I had a thought of “how neat would it be to be a wedding photographer?!”, so after the encouragement of my family I jumped into it and started shooting weddings for cheap, and my business grew from there! I’ve been shooting professionally for 5 years now! And dont worry, my sophmore year of high school, I tried out again and I made the Pom Squad! If my scanner was working properly I would totally post pictures from those days!

3. “I got one! do you have any bridezilla stories?????” - Greg

Nope. But if I did, do you think I would be posting it here for all to see.

5. “How did you get started in boudoir photography?? I think its so awesome!!! Are there any boudoir tricks?” - Lisa Young

I’ve been shooting boudoir since I started photography 5 years ago. It was something my mom told me about and I ran with. At first, I thought she was silly (and I thought the name was so cheesy), but it is so much fun! I dont have any tricks but I do like to make sure the whole experience is relaxed and fun. I pretty much have to make sure I’m this girls best friend by the time shes in front of my camera or awkward will be written all of her face in the pictures! Thankfully I find that all my clients are not hard to warm up to.

Thanks for the questions yall! They were fun to answer!

By shelbyleigh | Posted in Personal, Portraits, Weddings | Comments (1)

Q & A time!

May 17, 2010 – 1:41 pm

First, since my Movie Session video post last week I’ve gotten a few inquiries on whether I offer them for weddings! This answer is YES… but not yet! Shooting a 2 hour portrait session is one thing, shooting an all day once in a lifetime event is another. Once I get all the logistics sorted out I will have all the info available. For now, if you’re interested in a Movie Wedding, you can contact me privately for inquiries.

I get a ton of questions from my photography business all the time. SO I want to do something fun on my blog … a Q & A! Leave a comment or shoot me an email with ANY questions. It can be about photography, weddings, motherhood/parenting or my personal life! I’ll try to answer them later this week on a blog post! I’m excited to see what you come up with.

But in return I want you to answer a few questions on my polls below!!

By shelbyleigh | Posted in Movie Sessions, Portraits, Weddings | Comments (5)

Mace Family Movie Session - Washington, DC Family Photographer

May 12, 2010 – 7:00 am

I’d like to introduce my MOVIE SESSIONS! I’m so excited about offering these sessions to you because they are just so stinking awesome!

The Mace Family, who are no strangers to my blog, were my first family to do a movie session with me! Since their beautiful baby girl AKA Baby “M” is on my Year in The Life of Baby Package, this is their third installment session with me. Isn’t she just growing into a little girl?

They took me to some of their favorite spot in DC for their Movie Session, and now they’ll be my favorite spots too. I used the video and photographs I captured during their session to make a personal family movie for them. Movie Sessions is an add-on to a premium portrait session. If you’d like to book a Movie Session I am offering a special intro price ($75 off!) until the end of May or for the first 5 families, whichever comes first. You dont need to use your session now, you can pay for your session and use it later in the year (maybe closer to the holidays? what a great gift!!).

Check out their family Movie Session, now!