Beauty is Truth » photography

posing practice, and much more

beautyis — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 04:25:49 +0000

so even though the summer season is picking up, i couldn’t resist the opportunity to meet up with some old photography friends for some practice shooting this past week… back in october of 2008, just a few months after i had first joined the most incredible photographic community in the world on flickr, i was able to travel up to frederick to join a bevy of photographers with much more experience (and more batteries, huh, bill?) than me, and had an amazing day trying to learn how to take better pictures of people… ideally, pretty brides in wedding dresses. i learned about reflectors, off-camera flash, composition, focusing and more – and particularly the importance of having back-up batteries, as mine ran out of juice just before the brides got into a stream to “trash the dress” – and made some good friends among a disparate group of people with one thing binding them closely together: geekhood. for cameras. i’m sure you guys are all cool in other respects!
anyway! so… i’ve missed many meetups since then, but found out that the fantastic folks at hopeland studios were putting together a meetup with some real-people models focusing on flow posing, and i thought it could be extremely helpful, as posing for portraits is an area i’ve been looking to work on. plus, as much as parenthood thrills me to the bottom of my heart, i have to admit that the luxury of an evening out, by myself, among other adults, indulging my creative side, was pretty darn tempting…
well, we absolutely lucked out, i must say: a generous and kind hostess, a dedicated and friendly group of photographers, gentle sunshine, clear skies and warm air through the evening, and – our models? two couples – one getting married in two weeks, the other having been married for 20 years – both classy, gorgeous, funny, patient, both absolutely radiating the love they felt for each other… the list goes on. kathlyn, rob, marcie and pedro – i mean, dan – i can’t thank you guys enough for letting us contort you around for hours while keeping smiles plastered on your faces it was SUCH a pleasure meeting you all and i truly hope you get as much joy out of our pictures as we did learning to take them properly
a note: the off-camera flash shots shown here of the two couples used a hotshoe flash inside a large softbox, triggered by alienbee cybersyncs, which was set up by my friend and sometimes-second-shooter, the amazing rehan bashir, and the photos of kathlyn in her gorgeous wedding dress at the end used a hotshoe flash firing through a shoot-through umbrella, triggered by pocket wizards, set up by bill millios of hopeland studios. me – i’m still working on being able to set up lights properly and get results like these… might be investing in a good softbox in the near future!

canon 85 1.8: new lens

beautyis — Wed, 05 May 2010 19:27:14 +0000

just a few shots from today, which i took soon after my new lens came in the mail! this is the canon 85mm 1.8, a portrait lens just a little more affordable than its “L” cousin, the 85 1.2, which i rented a couple of months ago and really, really enjoyed. if you know me, you know that my favorite lens for weddings is canon’s 35mm 1.4L, which is so versatile and reliable and gorgeous that i could easily just shoot a whole wedding with that alone… but for portraits, i wanted something a little closer, a little more intimate, but with similar qualities of color, clarity and background “bokeh”… if you know what i mean. so i had some fun with this today – on my everpresent subjects: musa, his toys and the flowers outside.
i also played around on a few of the images with some premade photoshop “actions” i’ve been meaning to try out for a while… i generally don’t process my pictures very heavily, but sometimes an image benefits from the effects added by a unique black-and-white conversion, or the timelessness evoked by nostalgic tinting and fading. i don’t trust myself to do it very often, but… like i said, just playing. hope you enjoy these!

cherry blossoms

beautyis — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:13:44 +0000

it’s a little late, but while i still had the 45mm 2.8 tilt-shift lens and my beloved 35mm 1.4L after yasmin and tyseer’s wedding, i had the chance to take it out to DC at the tail end of the peak of cherry blossom season, and used them to practice on one of my favorite subjects – a dear friend of mine. so, here are a few of the images i took that day – thanks, shaf, for climbing in that tree, and jumping out again

spring at the harbor

beautyis — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 06:56:19 +0000

i cannot tell you guys how thrilled i am that the season is finally turning… with a day like today, we couldn’t help but go up to baltimore harbor to spend the afternoon with family and friends, enjoying seafood and sunshine. i had rented the amazing canon 85mm 1.2L lens for a shoot this weekend and wanted to play around/practice with it, so this was the perfect opportunity. it also helped having a couple of extremely photogenic and photo-happy friends who really didn’t mind my experimenting ON them with the lens… as well as experimenting with them in photoshop… thanks humera and jawad! i really love you guys!

exciting announcements

beautyis — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:52:56 +0000

so i have a couple of exciting bits of news to share with you all… the first is a little old; i’ve been sitting on it for the blog, although i did tweet about it a while back! but, in january i received an award from one of the national wedding service websites i am associated with, WeddingWire, an endeavor that links brides and vendors to facilitate wedding planning across the country.
from their press release about the 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards:

The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.
Ayesha Ahmad Photography is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.

the other news is more recent – just this week i received my long-awaited acceptance email to the fantastic Wedding Photojournalist Association, an organization that celebrates and upholds the standard of true photojournalism in wedding photography – capturing moments, emotions and stories as they unfold during the event, without direction or interference. every wedding has a place for posed shots, formal or informal, but for me the thrill, challenge and beauty lie in the truth of the day itself – the honor that i’ve been chosen to capture it, the responsibility of capturing it purely. so i’m absolutely thrilled to be accepted into WPJA, and – as a sometimes-writing-journalist, still – proud to call myself a wedding photojournalist.
from WPJA’s press release:

[WPJA is] an International, membership-based organization representing professional photographers skilled in the documentation of weddings and events in a candid, unobtrusive style. As a WPJA member, Ayesha Ahmad joins the ranks of some of the most talented wedding photojournalists in the world as judged by their technical, creative and visual aptitude.
Ayesha Ahmad will be held to strict membership standards regarding image quality and content, technical and creative technique, website and marketing professionalism, business ethics and communication. In turn, she gains prestigious affiliation with one of the industry’s top professional organizations. Ayesha Ahmad can further gain admittance into quarterly competitions, where her work will be judged by some of the world’s most respected and accomplished award-winning photojournalists.

so, here are the little badges you’ll see going up on my site soon! i’m so excited about these – if you know me at all, you know how much of my heart is in this business, and i can’t help but be thankful for the opportunity to work toward joining so many others whose work i admire and am inspired by.

AND, because no post is complete without a photograph… and this is all about moments… here’s one of my favorite father-daughter moments from sarah and eddie’s wedding last year

tilt-shift musa

beautyis — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 18:15:53 +0000

played around with my tilt-shift lens the morning i had to return it. i still have a lot to learn with this lens, but it sure is fun….

(this first shot is actually with the 35L, not the tilt-shift…)

now, the tilt-shift pictures…

i don’t normally include two versions of the same shot, but i couldn’t decide which one i liked better…

and this one is musa’s favorite picture:

more tilt-shift: great falls, VA

beautyis — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:57:23 +0000

promise this is the last tilt-shift-only post!
but, i had a couple of hours to kill before i needed to return the lens to the fantastic folks at penn camera, and it was a beautiful day, and my friend saliha who lives not far from the place wasn’t working and loves hiking too… so we met up around midday at one of my most favorite parks in the world, great falls, on the virginia side of the potomac. with musa along, of course. i took only the 45mm ts-e lens so i could focus on trying it out a little more; found it was less of a struggle the next day, although that might have been because i was taking pictures of trees and a river, instead of people who had to wait for me i believe i might have begun to fall in love with this lens… but i still want the canon 35L first! someday!
a note: when i first began taking pictures in high school, i didn’t even like photographing people… it was always the outdoors, in the beginning, trying to capture beautiful landscapes or skyscapes or natural details, and i even hated having people IN the nature shots. so although my preference has changed quite a bit, this kind of exercise was a little bit of a return to myself…

couple shoot: tilt-shift experiment I

beautyis — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 04:27:06 +0000

the setting was sweet: georgetown, late afternoon, an unseasonably warm and sunny november day with a startlingly blue sky echoed in the potomac. the equipment was exciting: i rented a tilt-shift lens (canon 45mm 2.8 ts-e), which (from what i understand) is intended to offer advantages in architectural photography related to perspective and depth of field, but also makes for fantastically dreamy kinds of portraits and i wanted to try my hand at this after seeing many photographers i admire use it regularly, even for weddings. and the couple? perfect! well… don’t take my word for it, please adore their cuteness yourself

warming up!

beautyis — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:29:35 +0000

so i had some shots to blog of the snowy weather and never got around to it; now the weather is getting warmer! i’ve been practicing on my ever-present subject, of course; so, before my next wedding, i wanted to share some of the images i’ve been taking of my son and the weather… the “warm weather” playground and lake/geese shots are from centennial park in columbia, maryland – one of my favorite parks when i lived in columbia! and a great opportunity to work on composition and lighting… these shots are also edited using lightroom, which i finally have installed on my computer. the workflow is sooo much smoother now and i can’t wait to use this to process my next wedding… coming up this weekend!

anyway, this image below is the first time i’ve used a texture on an image of my son… just thought the mood of the picture merited it. i’m not big on textures, to be honest, but when they’re done well they’re amazing, so i do like to experiment…

saad & mahroo’s wedding

beautyis — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:39:02 +0000

at looong last i have wedding picture to post! i had the honor of being the second shooter at this wedding for S2S Photography, whose owner, saad syed, was the groom. saad’s assistant sara j. haddad was the primary photographer, and the two of us had way too much fun shooting this wedding with each other and among friends! if only all our shooting experiences could be this stress-free… well, as much as shooting a wedding can ever be!
a few notes: for the portraits, saad actually set up the lighting himself. i shot with my canon 5d and for the most part with my tamron 28-70 on, although i tried out the 85 1.2 (oh my!) that sara had rented; i had a 580ex on my hotshoe and generally bounced it either forward or backward, depending on where i was standing, and controlled flash output manually (now THAT was a learning experience!). i can’t thank sara and saad and mahroo enough for this opportunity!