Welcome to the blog!

Scroll down for the latest and greatest, filter by category, check out the most popular tutorials, or search for what you want to learn below!

Want to learn photography but have no clue where to begin and what to learn next??!

Steal my Photography Learning Blueprint and get the clarity, checklist and step by step game plan to help you get photos you love - quickly!

YES! GIMME THAT FREE GUIDE!
GEAR Audrey Ann GEAR Audrey Ann

Canon 50mm F1.8 vs F1.4

The Canon 50mm F1.8 s a little gem of a lens for it's price, and because of that it's one that I recommend to all beginners over the kit lens. However, there is another 50mm made by Canon which is not too mind-crushingly expensive - the Canon 50mm F1.4. I know many people with the F1.8 will have considered upgrading to the F1.4 (or wondering whether just to buy that one straight off and bypass the F1.8 version), and wondered whether it was worth the price. Well, I upgraded a couple of years ago, but before I sent my old lens off to it's new home, I did some comparison shots to see how much difference there was between the two.

Read More
USING YOUR IMAGES Audrey Ann USING YOUR IMAGES Audrey Ann

Guest Post: How I Document My Days & Record Family Memories

I'm so excited to have a wonderful photographer and friend share with us on the blog today! Estelle is a mum of 3 who loves to photograph her family and their everyday life, and creates beautiful albums with her images using Project Life.  I so love this idea as a way of recording memories and using lifestyle images, that I asked her to tell me how she does it: the result is this blog post! Over to Estelle….

Read More
PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann

Shooting For Black & White Images

I love black and white images - they are beautifully timeless and allow you to see the world in a completely different way.

However, there are many images that are just not a good candidate for a black and white conversion. If you have ever converted an image and thought it looked a bit "meh", the chances are it was just because that particular image wasn't a good fit. 

Although there are no hard and fast rules about what makes a good black and white image, here are the things that I watch out for if I am looking to convert the image into black & white. You can use this in processing, or even when you are shooting if you know you want to convert the image later. 

Ready? Let's go! 

Read More
GEAR, PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann GEAR, PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann

How I Nail White Balance in Camera

One of the best things I did in my photography journey was to start setting my white balance in camera, rather than relying on AUTO.  I was really struggling with getting the right colour in my image - in particular skin tones - and I could spend ages mucking around in Lightroom or Photoshop trying to get the image to look "right". When you can't "see' colour correctly, this is a really, really hard task! 

Read More
PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann PHOTOGRAPHY TIPS Audrey Ann

Adding Noise for Creativity

Most of the time we will want to try to use the lowest ISO setting possible to get a good "clean" image, with minimal noise and rich vibrant colors.  This type of image is generally sought after in studio and portrait photography, and many lifestyle images also require that clean, simple look - any images where we don't want the added distraction of noise and have colours that are vivid and true to life. 

Read More
EDITING TUTORIALS Audrey Ann EDITING TUTORIALS Audrey Ann

How to Add Images to a Photoshop Template

As  I've been sharing a few photoshop templates here on the blog,  I thought I'd take a moment to show you how to add images to a collage or storyboard template. It's actually very easy to do but I know that some of you may be totally unfamiliar with Photoshop or Photoshop Elements and it can take a while to learn where everything is, so this should allow you to get started. You can use this same method regardless of template type (such as cards or album pages etc) as they all use pretty much the same steps. 

Read More

BLOG CATEGORIES

Choose your topic!

A young girl with long hair lying on her stomach, resting her head on her folded arms, and smiling gently at the camera in a black and white photo.

Beginner

A happy family enjoying sunset outdoors, with a man, woman, and a young child.

Lifestyle

A smiling boy in goggles enjoying a hot tub outdoors with mountains and cloudy sky in the background.

Photography

A young girl sitting against a tree with closed eyes, enjoying a peaceful moment in a lush green park during daytime.

Editing

Five Canon camera lenses aligned on a white surface, with a green plant on the left side and a bright window in the background.

Gear

Black and white portrait of a young girl with long hair, wearing a denim jacket, sitting on the floor and leaning forward with her head tilted, looking at the camera.

Business

Check Out These Reader Favourites

A young girl with short blonde hair in a pink shirt smiling and holding a small cookie outdoors.

4 Tips to Make Your Images Look More Professional

Fresh red strawberries being rinsed in a white colander under running water.

How to Choose Your Settings in Manual Mode

Featured
10 Things You Wish You Knew About Shooting In Manual Mode
10 Things You Wish You Knew About Shooting In Manual Mode

It's been quite a few years now since I made the switch from Aperture Priority Mode to shooting in Manual Mode, and it was one of the BEST things I ever did to improve my photography skills. 

It was like a whole new world opened up to me, and I started TRULY understanding exposure, and in turn, getting the images that I wanted.

Of course, there was a lot to learn, and there are some things I wish I had known before I started!

So, here are 10 things about shooting in Manual Mode that you might just wish you knew…

Read more →
4 Reasons You Should Be Editing Your Photos (and how to do it)
4 Reasons You Should Be Editing Your Photos (and how to do it)

If there is one thing that comes up again and again when we talk about photography, it's EDITING - the steps you take AFTER you have pressed the shutter and uploaded your images.  It's a whole other world of things to learn and master and as such it can be quite overwhelming for new photographers. 

Because it's yet another thing you need to add to your "to learn" list, it can be tempting not to bother doing it, or slap a action / preset on and call it a day.  However, editing your images is an important part of the photography process and one that I believe you should at least start to learn as soon as possible. 

In this post I'm going to share exactly WHY you should edit your images, what programs you can use, and the order in which you should learn everything in. 

Ooooh, that sounds like a lot to get through! Best get started then :) 

 

Read more →
11 Things All New Photographers Should Know
11 Things All New Photographers Should Know

I’ve made more mistakes that I can count over my 11 years in photography, and I definitely took longer to get where I wanted to be because of them!

I’m going to hazard a guess that actually, you’re a lot like me back then - you want to get great photos, and you want them NOW.

Read more →
101 Things to Photograph (with examples & exercises!)
101 Things to Photograph (with examples & exercises!)

Today, I’m sharing 101 things to photograph when you feel you’ve got absolutely nothing in front of you you can take a picture of!

This post was inspired by one of my Auto to Awesome students, who wrote to me saying she didn’t feel she had anything “good” around her to take photos of.

And she’s most definitely not alone - we’ve ALL had that feeling like there is absolutely nothing around us to photograph (or that we’ve just photographed it all already) so we need to get ourselves off to an exciting location, or visit a new place just in order to find something.

The truth is, there is always something to photograph, both at home, or in your local area. It doesn’t matter where you live, what your house is like, or whether you live in a built up location like a city or near a park; there WILL be countless things worth taking a photo of….you just have to open your eyes to them!

Read more →
Example Photos With Camera Settings (& Why I chose them!)
Example Photos With Camera Settings (& Why I chose them!)

Have you ever looked at photos from other photographers and wished that they would share their camera settings as well?

I know that I certainly did!

Which is why today I'm going to share with you some example, photos, along with the aperture, shutter speed, and ISO settings that I use, but most importantly, why I chose them.

Read more →
8 Child Photography Poses For Stunning Kid Photography!
8 Child Photography Poses For Stunning Kid Photography!

Want some child photography poses that are quick, easy and downright cute?  Then I have 8 pose ideas for you, along with example photos for each one, that are tried and tested and will give you great photos of kids.

You can use these poses on your OWN kids, or if you’re business, you can use these for ideas during a paid kids photoshoot too.

You can also vary these standard poses greatly, so you’ll never run out of ideas again!

As usual, we have two ways to enjoy this - either watch the video below, or scroll down to read the blog post and see all the child photography poses in action!

Read more →