What is the Best Time of Day for Photos?

Recently, I had a sweet mom of a senior ask why I limit my session timeframes to the morning and the evening – right after the sun rises, or before it sets. I love this question, because I can see how it might seem counter intuitive to schedule a session during the not-so-bright times of the day – but there is a great reason for doing so!

When taking photos outside, the sun is the main light source. When the sun is rising and setting, it’s at it’s lowest point in the sky (hang with me here!). In the middle of the day, the sun is at it’s highest in the sky – typically, right overhead, which is known as the toughest time to take photos. But why?

When the sun is right overhead, the light is very harsh. The light often creates big, shadowy circles under the eyes (which is very unflattering) and is harder to control because it’s just so bright! But in the morning and evening – the sun is lower, and the light is softer, which makes it easier to control the light and eliminates the dark shadowy circles that will often appear under the eyes in bright light! In addition to being lower and easier to manage, the light typically has a warmer temperature to it, which flatters the skin!

However – there is an exception to this rule. On a cloudy day, the sun is still the main light source, but the clouds act as a diffuser, diffusing the light to make it soft, manageable, and more flattering to facial features.

So what it comes down to is this: scheduling my sessions in the morning and late afternoon/evening makes it easier to manage my main light source (the sun) and flatters my clients (no dark circles and warmer light).

Breaking the "Rules" of Creativity

Did you know that there is no [natural] blue pigment in plants and flowers? When I was in second grade, I was doing what most second graders do (prior to iPads and cell phones, maybe?): coloring! I used to love drawing, painting, and coloring, and on this particular occasion, I was coloring in a black and white line drawing of a bouquet of flowers, when all of a sudden, one of my classmates came up from behind me, looked over my shoulder and said: "Hey! There are no such things as blue flowers! Those flowers aren't real, they're fake!" To which I immediately took offense, considering the majority of the colored in flowers in my picture were blue (my favorite color at the time).

Me, being a shy, sensitive second grader, didn't know how to respond. I immediately put down my blue crayon, folded up my drawing, and stuffed it in my backpack - embarrassed that I, Jenna, had created something that didn't fit within the laws and rules of nature (I should mention, I've always been a big rule follower).

Somehow, that seemingly small event put a lock on my creativity. I began believing the lie that creativity has to follow a certain set of rules and guidelines, and even worse, that criticism of my work rendered it useless and unimportant - that critique equates to quitting. Somewhere between that event and today, I allowed those unrealistic rules to penetrate my own creativity, and have found myself creating from a place of fear and rigid rules instead of a place of joy and curiosity. So my goal for this year is simple: to start deconstructing the rules I've made up in my own mind and to create for the joy of creating, to become more curious - and to draw more blue flowers.🌻 What lies have you believed that have kept you from doing what you were called to do?

Gorgeous flowers by: @darlingtonflowerco

Easy Desktop Project File Organization

Whether you're a copywriter, blogger, videographer, photographer, graphic designer, or web designer, staying organized as a creative with a gazillion projects floating around can be a challenge, and knowing where you are in each project at any given time can be even more of a challenge. 

Towards the beginning of my photography business, I was booking, culling, editing, exporting, backing up, and packaging up sessions without a true rhyme, reason, or rhythm to my madness. One session would be in the editing phase, another couple in the exporting phase, a few others in the packaging stage, and for the life of me, I couldn't remember which one was in what step! After a few days of researching, I finally came up with a system that worked for me: a visual way to organize my laptop desktop where my "open" session files could be accessed easily at any time:

I broke my process down into 5 easy stages/action steps: working files (including culling, editing, an exporting), put in a gallery (I use and love the PASS gallery system), burn to USB (love my Flashbay drives!), back up to hard drive (or, in my case, since I'm extremely paranoid, to TWO hard drives), and finished files, which means the files can be discarded from my laptop safely. Then, once I exported the Photoshop file as a JPEG, I set the JPEG as my desktop and organized my projects into each category. Using these five stages, I know where every single one of my active sessions is at any given time in the process.

I'm sure there are much more intricate programs, software, and apps that can do this exact same thing - but this easy to implement system has been my go-to for the last 4 years and was an easy way for me to get organized and change the way I work. If you're interested in trying out this easy desktop organization system, click here to download your free PSD desktop organization template! Customize your categories, add a photo, export the file as a JPEG, set it as your desktop screensaver - and voila! You're ready to start organizing!