Kari Campos Photography | Chicago, IL

To say that offering free sessions to gain experience in photographing subjects other than my husband and dog was a good idea would be an understatement.

I’ve come to find that it was a great idea.

When I posted my offer a little over a month ago, I wasn’t sure if I’d have any takers. But I thought to myself, “Heck—what do I have to lose?” And so I put myself out there. Through some very appreciated word of mouth and a little Facebook advertising, people began to check out my website and take me up on the offer.

So far, I’ve had four sessions. I have two lined up for this weekend and one the following weekend. If all goes as planned, I will have at least seven sessions under my belt by the end of the year. Have all of them gone as planned so far? Heck no! But hey, that’s the beauty of what I’m doing.

To be completely honest, I’ve been terrified along the way. At one of the shoots my hands were shaking uncontrollably as I took the first photographs. My mind has gone blank when it comes to ideas for posing. I’ve had my camera on the wrong settings. I’ve second guessed myself.

But the beauty of it all is that I’m learning. Sure, I’m making mistakes along the way–lots and lots of them in fact. And yes, I’m experimenting. But with those mistakes, experiments, and all that goes along with learning a new craft, I’m getting more comfortable with what I’m doing, and I’m getting better at it too! I’m surprising myself. I’m having fun.

The feeling of pride I had when I pressed publish to share the photos from my last session with the W family was pride I haven’t felt in a long time.

For those of you who don’t know me personally, or even for some of you that do, you probably don’t know that putting myself out there like I’ve been doing by offering free sessions isn’t exactly in character for me. I’m very much one who likes to play it safe, to hide behind a veil and not be exposed. I’m very much a perfectionist, a people pleaser, and someone who’s afraid of failure. But I decided when I started this blog that I was rather tired of living in fear, tired of being miserable in some aspects of my life, and only I could be the one to change things. And so I went for it. And I’m still going for it. Where this journey will lead, I don’t know.

But for now, I’m here. And I’m having fun.

For those of you that may be interested in taking advantage of my free offer session, please see my Pricing/Availability page for updated information.

I’m back again to share a photo from my session this past weekend. It was such an awesome photo shoot with an amazing family–I can’t wait to share it with you as soon as I’ve finished up with the editing, which has seemed to take over a good portion of my evenings.  My hope is that with the more experience I get, the happier I’ll be with my SOOC images which will cut down on editing time.

Here’s one I edited last night. It was actually a very simple edit. I adjusted the brightness, contrast, and vibrance slightly in Camera Raw then ran the Coffeeshop’s Perfect Portrait 2 action to my liking in Photoshop Elements. My goal when editing is to keep the images from looking overly edited. I’m not a fan of textures or images that blatantly scream that they used an action. I want my images to be timeless, not trendy. As I’m building my portfolio, I’m also trying to edit the pictures so that they have a consistent look. I want people to have an idea of who I am as a photographer and be able to expect consistency from me, even as I grow and evolve.

Anyway, on to the photo of the week. Check out this beyond adorable baby!

Can’t wait to share the rest!

Yes, the title of this post is “Photo of the Week”, and yes, I am fully aware that my last “Photo of the Week” was several weeks ago making this more of a “Photo of the Month”. But I’m back and determined to share at least one photo per week. Pinky promise.

So to get “Photo of the Week” started again, I bring you none other than Marty. If you haven’t read previous posts featuring him, this is what you should know…

Marty is our 3 and a half year old dog. We got Marty on a whim. My husband Raul had his own place in Indianapolis while I was in grad school living with my parents in the suburbs.  Raul grew up with dogs, and I had a yellow lab growing up, so we both knew that one day we’d have a dog of our own. We just didn’t know when.

And then one day I discovered PetFinder.com. And I decided to enter an Indianapolis zip code. And before I knew it, a picture of three cute little puppies (Larry, Curly, and Mo) were staring at me on my computer screen. I was smitten. I needed one of them. Raul needed one of them. I immediately emailed the link to Raul. I still remember his response. It was something along the lines of, “Why did you do that? Now you know I want this dog.” He and his two brothers were too cute to resist.

A quick phone call to Raul’s landlord for the a-okay for a dog and a 45 minute drive later, Marty (formally known as Larry) became part of our family. We were told he’s a Beagle/Pointer mix. He’s definitely got the Beagle ears, and he sure does love to point. But most people would swear that he’s part lab. In fact, most think that he’s a seven month old black lab puppy.  And he acts like one too! He’s full of energy, always jumping on people/counters/who knows what, running away when he has the chance, and always on the hunt for birds or squirrels. And on the lookout for birds or squirrels is precisely what he was doing in this “Photo of the Week”…

There’s no doubt that he loves our new house with about 15 times the number of windows we had in our old apartment. I imagine our house as his new Disneyland.

He’s one lucky pup!

And we love him.

Photo shot with the 50mm f/1.8 lens. I used this lens rather than the 50mm f/1.4 because he has supersonic Beagle ears and he’s scared to death of the sounds of the f/1.4.

It’s been just about a month since I shot my first session with my adorable little cousins. I can’t even tell you the mix of emotions I had leading up to the shoot. I want so badly to be a photographer, and a good one at that, but I’m very much aware that I have a ways to go before I’m truly happy with the images I produce. I can picture in my head what I want my photos to look like, but my lack of experience, coupled with the knowledge I still need to grow (it truly seems never ending) and the limitations of my current camera and lens make it a bit of a challenge.

In that last sentence I listed experience first, and there was a reason for that. I believe that knowledge and equipment will only get me so far, but you have to practice and build experience to really grow as a photographer, especially as an aspiring professional. So, while I was beyond nervous for my first session at how the shoot itself would go and, more importantly, how the images would turn out, I was excited. I was excited because I knew it was the start of me building experiences.

And from that first session, I learned. A lot.

1. Be yourself. If you are comfortable behind the camera, your clients will be too. At the beginning of the session I had a million things going on in my mind. So much so that I couldn’t think clearly and actually let my little cousins start calling the shots! Hah! I took a deep breath, relaxed, and took control. It seemed to flow from there.

2. I was so very very worried about posing. I feel pretty comfortable about the technical aspects of photography, but I doubt my “eye” for poses and composition. I studied photographer blogs for ideas and inspirations and tried to figure out what in the world I would have the kids do. Well, during the session all those ideas were lost in the mush that was my brain. But then I realized that kids will be kids and produce some great natural poses without any instructions. From there, things just flowed. No cheesy poses. Just me capturing candid, natural, real photos which is precisely what I want to do. So, I learned not to get caught up in memorizing poses and composition. It’s great to have some ideas and inspiration, but more likely than not, ideas will flow once you get underway.

3. Have confidence. I told myself going into the session that even if I wasn’t a “professional”, I was going to play pretend and act like I was (and that I knew what I was doing). And you know what, when you start acting, you sort of take on the character and amazing things can happen. I acted confident, even though I may not have been feeling it. The longer I acted, the more that confidence became part of my reality that day.

4. Developing a workflow post-shoot takes time and patience. When you have 400 images to cull and edit, an efficient workflow is a must. I sure didn’t have one following this session, but I hope that with more experience, I can develop one that works for me.

5. Batch editing is awesome.

6. And some random lessons…

• Always bring a comb and hairspray, especially on a windy day because editing flyaway hairs is a pain in the you know what
• Auto White Balance is not so good on my T1i
• Make sure you get at least a handful of good shots of all of your subjects together; I got so many great individual shots, but so few with all three kids
• Two year olds can be a challenge and stubborn
• Two year olds can also be amazing and be the subject of some of your favorite photos

I also learned that I have a long ways to go and a lot more sessions to shoot and business “stuff” to figure out. But I also learned that I’m capable of producing some great images that I’m so very proud of, and my family was too.

I can’t wait for my next session this weekend. I know I’ll be nervous (heck, I already am), but I just keep telling myself that I need to be confident and remind myself that if I want my dream to become a reality, it doesn’t come overnight. I have to build experience. And build experience is what I’m determined to do. (No matter how scary the journey may be.)