Hi! My name is Carrie Carpunky and I have been a full-time family and newborn photographer for almost six years now. I live in Alton, Illinois with my wonderful hubby who is a light photographer. My studio is housed inside of a 100-year-old schoolhouse that has been rehabbed. The classrooms have all been transformed into business space. My studio has 12 foot ceilings and 10-foot-high windows that allow gorgeous light in at all times of day, but sometimes I prefer using my studio lights instead of the natural light. I am going to show you both situations and how I use both. In April, I decided to do some Sparkle Mini Sessions. I had made the decision to not do any minis in 2016, but in order to help pay for a new studio with higher rent, Sparkle Minis were announced. I had planned on maybe taking six or so appointments, but once I announced them, I had booked 17 (and had so many more interested) that one day became two days. The mess was already going to be there, why not make the best of it, right?
Day one was a gorgeous sunny day, so I decided that I was shooting them with natural light. I was able to get movement from the girls dancing and not worry about movement blur. Sometimes I don’t mind it, but for these sessions, not what I wanted. I have included SOOC images and the final images I gave clients for you to see!
ISO 800 1/320 f3.5 Nikon 50mm 1.8
ISO 800 1/250 f3.5 Nikon 50mm 1.8
Now these are SPARKLE minis, right? So we need LOTS of glitter! I added some glitter in post to really give the photos a fairy tale, whimsical feel. Some needed no extra glitter! Shooting in natural light did tend to make the background a little lighter than what I had planned, but the girls had a BLAST and that was what I wanted to capture!
ISO 800 1/200 f3.5 Nikon 50mm 1.8
Don’t be afraid to get all the angles and the little details as well. Their little gold encrusted feet and hands were absolutely too precious to pass up! They made for some of my favorite shots of the whole day. When I woke up on day two of sparkle minis, I immediately threw open the blinds to find rain and heavy dreary skies. Natural light, even with 10 foot windows was not going to be an option. So I mentally prepared myself and hoped for the best! Little did I know, I was in for a treat. The studio lights allowed me more control over how the light hit the backdrop, and therefore, I could get that dark and rich gray that I had envisioned!
ISO 250 1/200 f2.8 Nikon 50mm 1.8
Notice that I lose control over the motion blur since the synch speed with my Alien Bee is just too low to capture that motion clearly.
ISO 500 1/160 f2.8 Nikon 50mm 1.8
Right as I was getting started with the session above, a storm blew in and it was literally as dark as night. It ended up being one of my favorites just because of the lovely rich color of the colors! To capture the glitter blowing, I would count the girls down and right before I said 3, I started shooting and pretty much kept shooting until there was no more glitter in their hands. The older girls I stressed not blowing so much puffing their cheeks, and keeping those fingers as flat as possible. Once their fingers curled, the glitter had more of a chance of blowing back in to their eyes.
ISO 400 1/160 f3.2 Nikon 50mm 1.8
These were such fun shots! I had the girls hold out their hands and pretend they were kissing something. I told them I was going to put a surprise in their hands. This little girl thought I had snuck a real frog into her hands while her eyes were closed! I LOVED her kissy face! *Frog by Captured by Carrie
The one issue that I had on pretty much all of these photos was banding on the dark background. There are a lot of technical ways to remove it, none of which I will claim to be a pro at. I found that turning off the vignette and the spot light layers of the actions I used diminished the banding on the photos without losing the style of the photos.
ISO 400 1/160 f3.2 Nikon 50mm 1.8
When I asked the girls to throw the glitter, I asked them to not lookup, again, to keep the glitter out of their eyes. And then I would count down, much like blowing the glitter. Start shooting right before they throw it and keep on shooting. I asked the older girls to throw it and then bring their arms down in a rainbow shape. In the picture above, mom was just off camera and threw it up over her head.
If you decide to have glitter sessions of your own, have fun with them! By the end of day 2, I had 4 ½ pounds of glitter on my backdrop and throughout the studio. A month later and there is still glitter everywhere, but everyone loved them and the girls had so much fun and so to me, it was worth it. I used a 107- inch Savage seamless paper in Thunder Gray and a few different types of glitter. The chunkier the glitter, the better it photographs. If you can find stars or hearts that would be super cute too! Be colorful! Don’t feel like you need to use gold only! Be creative and make them your own! Watch out for next month! All of those boy moms wanted a mini too, so all I am saying is there is mud involved!
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