I love receiving questions from photographers, because it actually makes me think about what I’m doing, why I’m doing it and how I’m doing it. So I thought I’d answer them om the blog so that more people can benefit from them, so here it goes…

Email form Jo:
I’ve been dying to ask you some questions so was very happy to see that you welcome them. I am a mother of 3 and part-time photographer from New Zealand. I was a photographers assistant for 4 years when I left school and have been just doing part-time since then (in between having children). I found the experience of being an assistant was great and I learnt heaps but always wish that I had done more photographic training. Digital photography wasn’t around then either so I am totally self taught on photoshop and would love some confirmation that I’m doing things right.

I felt like this too when I just started out. I didn’t have any formal training in photography either. Our design course at varsity stated that it had a photography section as well, but the only thing I did that was worth it was to create my own pin hole camera to understand how a photo is formed. But that’s about it, so don’t feel like you are any less a photographer than someone that has formal training in a photography school. Most photographers I know didn’t have any formal training either. So there is hope for us…just read up online, look at other people’s work and shoot as much as you can!

Can you please tell me what method you use for vignetting? Do you use the lens correction filter?

I use the vignette on lightroom under the “vignettes” toolbar. Just a slide of a bad and you have some beautiful vignettes!

What are the basic steps you use to edit an image – without getting into artistic techniques. ie.. do you crop to a certain size or leave full size and what resolution do you use? Do you use levels or curves?

After the shoot I download the photos to my external hard drive. Then I import them into lightroom. I then do all my basic editing like exposure, colour correction and clean up the light with the spot tool (If I had any dust spots). I hardly ever crop images. I try and shoot them as I want them. So cropping only happens if I want to make the shot a bit more artistic, such as a narrow landscape or a square, but mostly I don’t crop. After I edited the RAW image I export them into 300dpi Jpegs. (remember your clients will not be able to open RAW files)

I remember reading on one of your blogs that you love to use your 50mm lens. Do you use it for portrait work and do you have a favourite aperture/shutter setting?

Yes the 50mm is my absolute favourite lens! I can shoot almost anything with it! I love it, because it’s very easy to handle, very light and has great depth of field. I do most of my portrait work with it. I love 2.8F as well as taking it super wide to 1.8 or even 1.4. (But be careful with the the wide aperture, you have to keep the camera very still and any movement could make the shot totally out of focus, so it takes some practice) (see my upcoming shoot with my sister, Lydia and her best friend Marelize, everything shot with the 50mm)

Your lighting is always lovely. Do you use any kind of portable lighting?

Thanks Jo, but I hardly ever use external lighting. I prefer to shoot everything as natural as possible. I’m always on the lookout for spots with soft natural light, like placing a bride in front of a big window (which acts as the light source) or to place a couple under a shaded area. If I shoot at night I’d use a flash, but try and bounce it. I’m not a big fan or extra lighting. I recently bought pocket wizards and hope to try it out this season, but as I said natural lighting will always be my favorite.