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!

Photography Starter Guide and Checklist booklet surrounded by photography tips, sample images, and learning worksheets

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!

Audrey Murray 7/21/15 Audrey Murray 7/21/15

6 Ways to Shoot in Cluttered Locations

Whilst my home isn't exactly an rubbish tip, it's a normal family home with lots of clutter from day to day life. Many times I find myself wishing I had a home that was a bit more camera friendly (imagine, large windows, white walls, crisp clean furniture, with no lego pieces in sight and no drawing on the walls....) but you just have to learn to work with what you've got! Although for sure I sometimes love to incorporate our usual home life into my images - when I'm documenting - for other image types I usually crave simplicity, so I try to find areas that give me that "clean" uncluttered look.

The best way to show you that is to show you some images, and pullbacks on where I have taken them.

Audrey Murray 7/14/15 Audrey Murray 7/14/15

Being Ready to Capture Everyday Moments

Even before I started a Project 365, most days I would pick up my camera – not necessarily to get a great shot, but simply to snap the candid moments that happened throughout the day. I've lost count of the number of times I missed a "kodak moment" because I was either fumbling with my settings, trying to find a memory card, or wondering where the heck I'd left my camera bag!

That's why I now have a little bit of a system in place that helps me be prepared and ready to capture anything that pops up. Once you get into the groove of doing this, you'll find that you can quickly pick up your camera and snap away at any time!

Audrey Murray 7/9/15 Audrey Murray 7/9/15

How to use Triangles for Photography Composition

One way to make your compositions more interesting is to try to create triangles within your composition - they help divide the frame, guide the eye, and just add visual interest. Although it sounds hard, these are actually very easy to find once you remember to look for them!

Here are some examples:

Audrey Murray 7/8/15 Audrey Murray 7/8/15

How to Use a Gray Card

I've spoken before about using a grey card to either set your white balance or exposure, and today I thought I'd go one step further and explain the steps you take to do that! First off, a gray card is just a piece of card that represents 18% gray - in other words the middle gray that your camera tries to expose for (See this post on understanding your light meter for more information on that) Before I got my Expodisc, I used this one - CPM Delta 1 8 inch x 10 inch Gray Card which costs around $10 - but you can get lots of different ones which are pretty inexpensive. (I don't have it but this Pocket-sized one looks good for being a bit more portable). It doesn't really matter which one you choose, as long as they are non-reflective.

Audrey Murray 6/24/15 Audrey Murray 6/24/15

10 Tips for a Portrait Close Up

I love a simple classic portrait shot from time to time - having your subjects face as the centre of attention allows to really concentrate on their features and expressions, and can feel much more intimate than other portrait types.

And since it's been a while since I've done one, here's a classic "10 tips" post on them for you!

Audrey Murray 6/23/15 Audrey Murray 6/23/15

How Your Camera's Light Meter Works

When you are shooting in Manual Mode (or any other mode for that matter) you are probably using your camera's in-built light meter to "read" the light available in the scene and tell you when you have reached the correct exposure. When the little bar on your meter is at 0, that is your camera telling you that your image will be correctly exposed....in theory at least. However, sometimes, our camera's light meter can get it wrong. Here's why, and how to deal with it:

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.

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

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…

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 :)

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.

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!

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.

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!