Blog facelift & Quick Photoshoot without a lot of light!

I changed the look of my blog...I hope I didn't confuse anyone. :)

Just after the time changed in November I got to take some pictures of this gorgeous gal, Tristyn. I mention the time change because when I scheduled her shoot I didn't take into account the time difference. So we STARTED taking pictures just as the sun was setting. Needless to say, I had to turn my ISO up quite a bit in order to get a fast enough shutter speed. So if you're thinking...hummm, those pictures look really grainy...they are. My ISO was way up. :)

But nonetheless, I like how they turned out, grainy and all...

Before I go on to give you some helpful tips in case you find yourself in a similar low-light situation, let me tell you a bit about Tristyn...

Not only is is beautiful, kind and extremely nice but she is an incredible singer/songwriter! My husband, Jon, had the pleasure of producing and recording Tristyn's latest ep album. So go ahead listen to some of her music on her site, you'll be glad you did!

Photography Tip

When I only had just a tiny bit of daylight left to get the above pictures, the first thing I did was look for something that would help to increase my light like that white shed beside her and behind her. This will help to reflect more light. I also had her stand on a white sheet (which you can't see) to also reflect as much light on to her as possible.

After I tried to squeeze every last drop of daylight I could find, I dropped my aperture way down to f/2.0. Then I increased my ISO up to 1000. This gave me a shutter speed of about 1/60th of a second for most of my pictures, which isn't really fast but fast enough. 

And last because my shutter speed was on the slower end I made sure to hold VERY still while squeezing the shutter button.

So as you can see, even if the conditions aren't optimal, you can still create a beautiful natural light photograph.