Artisan Photographics Blog

I am changing blogs!

misfoto — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:42:36 +0000

For those of you following on a RSS feed, you are probably very confused by the multiple postings, but this the link you need to follow to get to our new blog!!

When I started blogging, I was using Blogger and then I switched to WordPress because I post larger images. Now I am switching back to blogger because my friend Bethany explained you can make pictures bigger in blogger too. That is fine and I guess that alone wouldn’t cause me to make the effort of switching back until I realized how much more control I have using the Blogger HTML code. Sorry for any inconvenience, but I am officially moving back home to Blogger. Here is the new blog address:

http://www.missy-cochran.com/

Our Image Transition

misfoto — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:42:46 +0000

Okay, so I have some explaining to do. If any of you have seen our website in the last little bit, you will notice that we are making some changes. Melanie is deciding not to book any weddings or portrait sessions this year of for the next few years. You can still follow her blog which I have a link to on the right side of my blog, but it will be mostly personal work. “Why is Melanie slowing down?” You might ask. Well, it’s because she has two babies that want her attention and she wants to be an awesome mom. She is thinking about getting back into it all in a few years when her kids are in school. In the meantime, she is still planning to second shoot with me this summer whenever she can. It doesn’t look like they will be moving to Texas this year either so that means that she will probably be with me for most of my weddings–wah hoo!!

And now for some more explanation, When Mel and I were first starting artisan we spend a good little while trying to think of the perfect name. We thought we had the absolute best name ever, “Artisan Photographics.” Artisan because we consider ourselves to be very artistic and photographics because it isn’t just photography, we pride ourselves in our ability to process our work with photoshop and the best editing software to make it really stand out. It was a total bonus that it began with an A and would be at the top of every alphabetical directory. Life was perfect until…we realized that Artisan Photographics is about one of the most generic photography business names on the planet. We saw Artistique Photographie (nice people, bytheway), Artistic Photography, and even A Artistic Photography just to name a few–in Oregon alone!!

Inspired by photographers who personalize their online presence, I decided I wanted to do the same. Not only are we changing our name and our logo, but I intent to post a lot more blog entries that are personal. I know you all want to know what I eat when I am camping, but seriously, that is the stuff I may share. Everyone should know that I am not afraid to make silly faces, so you will probably see more of that as well. I want to post video and pics from my point and shoot–yes, I too use one of these amazing little devices.

We will be phasing out the old brand very slowly, it will probably take about a year before we have the logo completely swapped out, but it will be obsolete soon enough.

Mike and Becca

misfoto — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 20:21:58 +0000

I just have to share these. Mel took them while she was in Utah of Mike (our brother) and his fiance, Becca. Mel said they just wandered around for about 4 hours and stopped anywhere that looked interesting. Isn’t that cool? Mel took control of what they wore and everything. It’s a very Artisan style photoshoot.

i just have to share!

misfoto — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:01:40 +0000

This post is for photographers and it’s all free. Who can beat free info about photography? Any photographers out there who want some guidance I have some realy cool stuff to throw your way! It’s maybe not the best way, but it’s worked for me so far and it’s what I value. Click below to read the rest of the story.

I started making a series off assignments to help other photographers get going and have some direction. I am just going to post them as I think of them. It’s all very flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants!

Assignment 1:

is designed to help you create direction for your style. It is also designed to find out how compatable our styles are with respect to shooting together. There are no wrong answers so focus on what you love no matter what anyone else thinks!

Your mission should you choose to accept it is to create a google reader account to track the blogs of your favorite photographers. If you make it your homepage, you will see updates for your favorite photographers every time you log onto the internet. Once it is created, I would love to look at who you found and I will share with you mine, so that we can get ideas from each others selections. This will help me to get to know you artistically and appreciate your vision for yourself as you incorporate many elements into the style you want to develop.

Good sources for finding photographers are:

google
mywedding.com
theknot.com
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Digital Wedding Forum (DWF)
wpja.com (wedding photojornalism association)
WPPI

Here is the link to make a google reader account: http://googlereader

The next part of this assignment is to familiarize yourself with my favorate photographers. When I communicate about photography, I reference my favorites a lot and it is helpful when we converse about the subject to reference the same people. Melanie and I often say something like, “I was totally inspired by the light is was so whitebox!” Whitebox is one of my top three favorites! Along with Jose Villa and Fred Egan. Whitebox epitimizes what I love in photography about light and color and fun, I love Jose Villas film look and timeless classical images, my favorite kind of fine art. Fred Egan’s photographs are infused with free spiritedness. I like to think of myself a combination of the three when it comes to weddings. I draw from different inspirational sources for families, kids, babies, etc. I hope that my assistant will not try to shoot like I do, but try to lean toward the inspirations that I draw from, does that make sense? I am always trying to grow and stretch myself this way!

Here is the link to my favorite photographers: http://delicious.com/misphotographics
To make this part of the assignment quantitative, I would like you to make a folder of your favorites from these websites and email them to my when you have looked through everything. Tell me who you loved and who stood out to you and why.
Assignment 2:reader.google.com

Read your camera manual and try out everything in it. Read it twice if you have to. Figure out what features you will use on a regular basis and which ones you don’t care for. At least you will know they are there. Pay special attention to ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, and manual mode, you will probably always be using your knowledge of these.

Assignment 3:

Buy Lightroom and read the manual. I feel this program is more inportant than photoshop itself!

Assigment 4:

Go to Becker School! This is a free education use it!

There, that ottah keep you busy for a while. Like I said, it may not be for everyone, but if I could go back to day one and tell myself what to do to progess quickly, that is what I would say to myself. Actually the Becker School is pretty much cooler than anything I can do for you, so watch everything for a wealth of info. I am very much in agreement with Becker’s philosophy of helping out and giving back and networking with other photographers.

The Obsession Continues

misfoto — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:58:57 +0000

I can’t get the fine art feel of “A Year of Mornings” out of my head! It’s a slow January, as it always is. I love this time of the year because I am caught up with the bulk of my work and I actually have time to read books. I go crazy this time of year because there aren’t enough pictures to take of people. Taking pictures of people is the best, but I am using some of this extra time to practice some more abstract concepts like those I found on New Years. Below are some pictures I took this morning around my house. It was so fun to experiment with photoshop and try some things I haven’t done before. I want to do a little mini shoot every morning to keep my creative juices flowing and hopefully it will help me to add a bit more of a fine art flair to each photo session too.

A Little New Years Exploring

misfoto — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 20:07:54 +0000

It’s been a lovely New Years morning. Jeff and I slept in, which was a great contrast to our 5:45am jaunts to the gym. Although I went to bed early forgoing any festivies, Jeff stayed up past midnight ushering in the new year with Heroes V one of his favorite games. While I let him sleep in even later than I did, I jumped online and ignored work for a little while to feed my intellect the substance of my motivation. I have an account with google reader that allows me to blogstalk all my favorite people. The past couple months I have been browsing quickly through and moving on as if it were a chore to be completed–not the mentality to have when looking for inspiration. This slow, raining morning I took my time and read every blog. One photographer I really like, had a link to some really cool fine art photography pieces and I fell in love with the concept. Check it out! Fine Art Story boards. Anyway, I created one! It’s very abstract but tells the story of a couple I took engagement pictures of buying salt water taffy at the Oregon Coast. Here it is…

Cool, huh! So, they are a custom print size and if you want one from your photo session, they will be the same price as the print that matches the width. For example, a 14×7 (which is the correct aspect ratio for this print) would cost the same as a 11×14 print.

Brett and Jen

misfoto — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:25:32 +0000

So, this is my brother-in-law’s wedding and I suppose that now I should say it’s my sister-in-law’s wedding as well. These are just a few quick ones that I liked. Mel and I took pictures throughout the day, but we tried to enjoy the wedding and we took lots of breaks from our cameras.

Sarah

misfoto — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 05:45:59 +0000

BR

misfoto — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:41:27 +0000

I have often shyed away from family portrait session because I am not a traditional gal. I was so excited to take pictures of Brenda’s family on a wet Saturday after in their lovely home. Brenda was game for anything, and I mean anything!! Her kids got to jump on the bed having pillow fights, race around the living room on each other’s shoulders, and have tickling wars on the couch. Now THAT is what I am talkin about! It was so much fun and I love what we got.
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Jen’s Girls

misfoto — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 05:14:23 +0000

I was so happy that my friend Jen let me try some fun new things with her and her girls. Mostly, they just did fun things for themselves and I got to take pictures of all the good times.

Baby surgery is a delicate process. It was a total success!