As I mentioned in my last post, this year started out earlier than I expected session wise, and to my surprise, it kept up the pace. So April found me doing a mini session for a family from church, and birthday portraits for my cousin, Mackenzie. And in the midst of a pandemic, no less! I still don’t realize how blessed I was for these opportunities, but looking back I see enough to be grateful.

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This past year was a broken record when it came to photo sessions. I finally finished high school and was able to devote more time to photography, and consequently took more sessions than ever before. I learnt so much throughout the year, and am incredibly grateful to all the families who trusted me with their moments and memories. I wouldn’t say that any session was perfect, but especially this season, I was able to let go of that expectation and simply give my best.

The year started earlier than normal with a lifestyle newborn session for my cousin and his wife. I normally stay away from anything newborn, as I don’t feel qualified for such sessions. But they always catch my fancy, and I just couldn’t say no. Especially not to family. So after much prayer, I did the session, and it went wonderfully! God answered way above and beyond what I could have asked for, and I am so grateful.

Thank you to Josh & Utje as well, for trusting me with your photos. It was such a pleasure, and this session will go down as one of my favourites of 2020.

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I actually think I’ve done this before, summing up my photo sessions in one post. And now I’m doing it again! I’m not sure what that says about me, other than I love looking back on things, especially photographs. It would be so nice to give every session its own individual post, but I simply don’t have the time for that. So here is what I’ll call a highlight reel 2019 and its clients. It was a good, challenging year. Good, because I got a new lens and it vastly improved my photography. Challenging, because I kept on saying yes to to new things. And good ultimately, because God kept on showing up strong in all my many weaknesses.

April

In April, I had the privilege of taking photos for my cousin Nelly’s bridal shower. Though I am by no means a professional at documenting events such as these, they are defiantly a favourite of mine.

May

In May I had the honour of taking photos for some youth at out church that had gotten baptized. Samuel generously lent me his 24mm lens, and it made group portraits so easy.

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June

In June I photographed Rudy & Nancy’s family. It’s always a pleasure to take their photos, even if a storm rolls in. We rushed through most of it and still got all we needed, thank God!

I also took photos for Anna in honour of her moving to Thailand. I had a delightful time taking them, but still cringe in embarressment when I think of what happened afterward. She wanted the photos sooner than normal so that she could hand them out before she left, and I completely forgot! She graciously forgave me, and since then I have endevored to always remember my client’s specific requests.

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July

This was defiantly my most challenging month of the year. I was asked to do two extended family photo sessions. My cousin Abigail helped me with the second one, which I really appreciated! Ultimately, both went well and I was grateful for the learning experience.

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August

I only had one session in August, but it was very special to me. Abigail is my cousin and also a photographer, and her family asked me to take their family photos. I was so honoured that they asked me! Also, the location was new to me, so that’s always fun!

December

I normally don’t take photos in the winter since – until this season – I was always doing school. But in 2019 I made an exception. Our church school had it’s first Christmas program, and they asked me to take photos for them. My sister and friend were both teaching, and I had actually just substituted for my friend for 6 weeks. So the school was close to my heart and I gladly documented this special time for them.

And that’s my highlight reel of the year that was 2019! It was a good one, and I’m incredibly grateful to every client who trusted me with their photos. It’s always a pleasure, no matter how challenging it was at the time. God is faithful.

It’s been a little over a year since I’ve last posted! It’s been a good year, and nothing crazy has happened to warrant such a long absence.

However, my previous blog plan was outdated and unable to upload any more photos. Since that was my main source of content, and I was no longer able to post it, I simply stopped blogging. Ultimately, that didn’t solve the problem, so I finally upgraded, and justified the price by promising myself to make use of all the extra perks. The main one being the ability to post photos again. So while I won’t publicly commit to anything, I will say that you might be seeing more blog posts again, hopefully showing some of the work I have done in the years past.

This last year has left me with little time to miss blogging, but now that I’m tentatively re-entering this world, I must say that I am excited. It’s good to be back.

These photos were so spur of the moment and so incredibly much fun! Cousins are seriously the best, and it’s so much fun to reward them with photos that they’re blow away by. And then they weren’t even edited yet! Haley and Leslie, especially, felt so special and proud of their photos and I had a blast taking them. Of course there’s only a few, and they’re slightly blurry because that’s just been my fate this past season. But I still love them and am excited to share them with you!

Oh, and fun fact, the portraits coming up were all taken in 5 minutes or less! That’s what happens at impulsive, unplanned photography moments.

What are ways you like to spoil your friends?

 

 

 

 

The topic of organizing personal photos can be so complicated and overwhelming that most of us avoid it altogether. It seems that digital files are even worse to work with than the photos we print out, at least for me. This is why, for months, all of my photos lay strewn out in my Lightroom catalogue, unseen and unprinted.

There was information out there to guide me, but it was so varied and abundant that I didn’t have the patience to sort through it all. I had this idea that I should set aside a day or week and only spend it on organizing my photos, including backing them up to a safe place and printing them all out. But I had over 4,000 photos to sort and edit, I didn’t have a hard drive, or a clue on to how to print all of my photos. Neither did I have the time to research any of the last two options. 

I don’t remember making a conscious decision about my situation, but eventually I made up my mind to at least organize my digital files. Here’s how I did it.

Organize

Once I actually began to sort in Lightroom, it was pretty simple. Figuring out the catalogue and folder system wasn’t but after several articles I understood the concept and began to work. What I did was make folders according to year, then to months, then to event’s, and finally to days. Each successive folder was a subfolder of the one above it, and was actually very simple to make. For example, in 2017 we had a family gathering at our place, and my folders looked something like this.

2017

 July

  07-(07-09) || Unger Campout

   07 || Day 1

   08 || Day 2

   09 || Day 3

Each intended title was a subfolder of the previous one, and I have found this system works very good for me. I use it in Lightroom, but I think other photo apps might be able to use a similar strategy. I also edit all my photos, so I further utilize this system by naming only the folders of photos I have edited. In Lightroom, the photos are automatically put into folders according to their dates, but all the ones that I have named I know I also edited. For instance, I know that 02-04 is a folder with unedited photos, but in the folder 02-04 || Of Snow and Light, all the photos have now been sorted and edited.

Store

This was a much more complicated matter. My laptop was filling up with thousands and thousands of photos that were taking up all the storage and making everything run slow. These were my photos that meant a lot to me, but were on a family device. It was as if I had all my personal clutter in a family room that meant to be shared and worked in. However, because of all my things, people found it hard to even enter the room, much less work in or enjoy it. But I wasn’t about trash all my things! I simply did not know what to do, and was desperate. I thought of buying myself another laptop, or numerous hard drives. Both were expensive options, and I didn’t even want to think of the researching involved. Finally, in desperation, I checked to see what my favourite youtuber at the time did with his photos. I discovered he used Lacie hard drives, and he even showed how he organized his footage on them. Normally I wouldn’t make such a hasty decision, but several days later I had ordered my own from Amazon. (Here’s a link if you’re interested.) I think it was one of the best pieces of equipment I ever bought. I have been so happy with it, and have no complaints! It gives me such peace of mind to know that, not only my photos but also those of my clients, are in a safe spot. This was one of the biggest and most relieving steps in cleaning up my photo mess.

Print

Ahh, the thing we are always told to do, but never actually get around to do it. I always knew I should do it, but it seemed so overwhelming that I didn’t even look into it. What really inspired me to change this was one of my clients. Several weeks after their photo session, I came to their house and saw their photos displayed all over their house in such creative ways. And I loved it! There is nothing more rewarding than seeing clients who appreciate your work enough to display it all over their homes. And that’s when I decided I should do at least a little something with my photos.

My first thought was photo albums. The printed out kind. But not only were they expensive, there were so many of different companies, and most of them outside of Canada. (It’s in these situations when you realize how rural you are) Again, YouTube came to my rescue. I discovered The Photo Book Guru , and, after a few videos, decided to give Mixbook a try. Again, it was slightly a hasty decision for me, but one I do not regret. Yes, they are pricy, but they have tons of sales, and every order I have made from them I was able to get 50% off or more. Plus, the quality is so good, and the service and set up of the actual book as well, that I gladly pay for it.

My plan is to print a photo book per year, including the best photos from that time. So far I have only done one (2017), but the only reason I haven’t done more is because I’m that far behind in sorting photos. But, as a gift for my aunt, I ordered her album of photos from our recent family gatherings. I know the company has fast shipping, but it was supposed to get to her house nearly a week after we left her place. (We visited them for the new year.) So I prayed that it would get there early, while we were still there. And, as God would have it, it did! I was so happy to be able to see her open on and witness her delight. She carried it with her everywhere she went, and the first evening she had it, all the aunts and cousins were booking turns to see it. I was not expecting the cousins to be so interested too, and I could have cried to see them all pouring over the book with such enthusiasm. It made it so worth it. I came home more convinced than ever to continue printing photos.

Well, that turned out to be way longer than I intended, so if most of you didn’t make it this far, I don’t blame you! I’m not sure how interested most of you were in this topic, but I know I would have loved something like this in times past, so I hope it is helpful to some of you.

Bianca

Hi everyone! After such a long absence (and honestly, it was a longer break that I expected) it might be thought that I should give you all an update with nicely, ordered paragraphs and satisfyingly structured sentences and perfectly curated photos. And while I agree that that is a wonderful idea and would gladly do so, that expectation is what has kept me from posting for so long. So I decided to drop that pressure and instead post some random photos that I really like. At least that way I’m actually blogging instead of sitting in silence out of a fear for not delivering something perfect.

These following photos were taken at a family gathering with my aunt’s phone. Simple, but special, and I think I really like that.

Until next time,

Bianca

Hi everyone! I’m not sure if any of you noticed, but for the past year and a half or so, it has been my goal to post every other Saturday. I have obviously missed a few dates, but if I may say so myself, I did quite well. Until the last few months, that is. It’s not that I did much worse than usual, but it still was disappointing to only eke out one post per month. Looking ahead, I don’t see much changing to improve the situation. And since I’m an all-or-nothing type of person, I decided to take a break for awhile. At least from scheduled, regular posts. I know, it does sound reactionary and rash, but I’ve thought of it for awhile, and found it to be the best path. I myself find a lot of comfort in structure, and it’s so amazing to check a blog every Thursday, knowing that there will be a fresh post. And I really want to give that to you. But as you all have experienced, summers are just hectic. Between, camping, VBS, family trips, photo sessions, and more, I would rather feel free from any obligation to post than hurriedly throw one together twice a month, and thereby give you low quality content. I know that you all don’t need, or even necessarily want, to hear my plans excuses, but there is little that I find more frustrating than when a blog is deserted with no reason or explanation. So while I may not be able to give you periodic, polished posts, I am able to give you a reason as to why not, so that is what I will do. I’m not sure when I’ll be back but I definitely want to return to this space. So in the meantime, enjoy your summer! You all are my inspiration and I can’t wait to be back!

Bianca Unger