Don’t let the lack of gear stop you!

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Today I present you with #WednesdaysWordsOfWisdom – “The gear you can’t afford is not the barrier keeping you from success. Gear has very little to do with photography.” – Chase Jarvis.

I am a huge fan of Chase’s photography and his inspiration. I love this quote because it is so true! We tend to believe that just because we don’t have the latest and greatest camera or lens, we can’t put out great work.

I’ve had my camera for 7 years and just 2 years ago I began to learn & understand how to properly use it and manipulate the settings to get the proper exposure. I have a kit lens, but you can see how my work has improved little by little. There is still a lot of work to do but I won’t let the kind of gear I have stop or limit me from practicing.

My photography teacher always says “It’s not about the equipment, it’s about the person behind the equipment that makes all the difference.” – Ruben Rodriquez. You can have the top of the line camera & lens available, but if you don’t know how to use it, you won’t produce the correct exposure.

So, the point here is to go out there and create art with the tools you currently have available, make mistakes and learn from them. Don’t let the “lack” of high-end gear stop you from producing.

I hope you enjoy! Have a wonderful day.

#AL_Designs

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Firework Photography Tips

Hello world!

I really hope everyone had a wonderful and safe 4^th of July.

In this weeks photography class the topic was about fireworks and how to capture them. The instructor told us what setting to use, so I decided to try it out myself.

Here are the steps:

#1 – You need to be on a tripod and use a shutter release button (if you don’t have one use the camera self timer).

#2 – Keep your ISO as low as you can to avoided any grain.

#3 – Use manual mode and set an aperture of f11 – f16.

#4 – Set your lens to manual focus, frame your shot and focus it.

#5 – Press the shutter and let the camera do its magic.

**Please remember that if your lens has a vibration reduction switch make sure you set it to off while on a tripod**

This is what I was able to capture and let me say that It was a lot of fun 😊

My Photo settings:    F11    1/30    ISO 100     (auto white balance / focal length 80 mm)

You can view the rest in my firework photos in my photography section

You can use these settings for any night photography.

Have a blessed day and let’s go out there and get creative!

Connect with me:

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Best Regards,

A.L. Designs

Ask yourself this question

Happy Wednesday everyone!

Hope you all are having an excellent day. I want to share a question with you today that I believe everyone should start ask themselves daily and anytime you are going to make any decision.

The question is: How will this help me and how will this hurt me?

For example: If you are trying to lose weight like I am, I know I have to stay focused on working out and eating clean. So, if I am craving ice cream (which I always do) before I pull out the ice cream from the freezer I ask myself If I eat this, will this help me or will this hurt me in reaching my weight goal? As you know eating that ice cream will not help me reach my fitness goal.

Another example: If you do freelance work and you get home and have the option of starting your projects or watching the new episode on Netflix you will need to ask yourself If I watch this show will this help me or will this hurt me?

We will encounter many choices during the day that can lead us closer or push us further away from our goals. We have the power to make these decisions, and as you can see in the examples above even the simplest tasks can affect us positively or negatively.

I encourage you to start asking yourself this question so you can be more aware of what you are doing, and if you need to correct your direction you can start with the simple tasks.

Hope this helps! If it does lets connect 🙂

Have a blessed day and let’s go out there and get creative!

Find me on:

Twitter #AL_Designs  #AskAlondraLopez  #TheCreativeVlog

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email

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Best Regards,

A.L. Designs

May update

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Just wanted to update you guys with a quick post. I’ve been working on a lot of project recently and have been behind on uploading them to my designs and photography pages.

The projects have varied from graphic design, photography shoots and a lot of video projects including:

The Creative Vlog

Alondrita’s Fitness (My fitness vlog)

The solo purpose of these vlogs are to document my journey as a designer as well as my fitness transformation. Please subscribe to either or both of my channels. Thank you in advance 🙂

I hope you all have a blessed day. Now let’s go out there and get creative!

Connect with me!

Twitter #AL_Designs  #AskAlondraLopez  #TheCreativeVlog

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Facebook

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email

YouTube

Best Regards,

A.L. Designs

Sports Photography

Happy Tuesday everyone! Here is Tuesday’s photography tip.

When shooting sports, make sure you have a shutter speed of 600 and above. This will guarantee that you freeze the action. You can set your camera to shutter priority (S) on #Nikon and (TV) on #Canon

In shutter priority you dial in the shutter speed and the camera will set the corresponding aperture based on your set ISO. Remember, on a nice sunny day keep the ISO at 200.

Now go out there and practice! Play with different speeds. If this helps you, connect with me and let me know.

If you want to learn more you can visit the events page for dates, locations and times of the free photography workshop.

I hope you all have a blessed day. Now let’s go out there and get creative!

Connect with me!

Twitter #AL_Designs  #AskAlondraLopez  #TheCreativeVlog

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email

Best Regards,

A.L. Designs

Same Price For Big Dreams

Hey guys! Happy Monday and welcome to a new month! A month with 30 new days too work hard, smart and with passion.

Here is your Monday Motivation: If you dream big it won’t cost you any more than if you dream small so you might as well go big!

I like that statement because its true, dreaming costs us nothing yet we always limit our thoughts. We think we can never accomplish that or we are crazy for even think that, but guys we have to dream big! Dreaming big is the only way we are going to get anywhere in life.

Since this is a new month, it’s the perfect time for you to set your goals for the week/month. I invite you to set your goals and to increase your dream size. Get at it, dream it, set it and work at it!

These are a few of my goals for the week: daily reading, diet and workouts on check, lose 2lbs, film my fitness vlog update, finish editing my family vlog, take more photos and apply to more openings.

I hope you all have a blessed day. Now let’s go out there and get creative!

Connect with me!

Twitter #AL_Designs  #AskAlondraLopez  #TheCreativeVlog

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email

Best Regards,

A.L. Designs

How Do I Design – Thursday’s Designer Tip

Hey guy!

Here is Thursday’s designer tip 🙂

When I create graphics my main design program is Adobe Illustrator. I use Illustrator because it creates vector files (a digital graphic file that its made up of many lines and curves or better known as paths). With a vector file you can stretch out your design as big or small as you want without losing resolution quality.

When I edit photos, I use Photoshop because PS creates a raster image (an image composed of pixels).

You can design in either programs, I just prefer Illustrator for designs and Photoshop for photos.

When I open up a new Illustrator file, I create the document using the final size of the project including the bleed when required.

Creating new doc sized at: 3.75″ X 2.25″

For example, a business card is 3.5” x 2” if it does not require a bleed I make my doc size 3.5” x 2”. If my card requires a bleed my doc size will be 3.75” x 2.25” giving me a .25” bleed for trimming. Inside the card I will also keep an inner safety border of .25” all around.

Example of doc with colored safety frame.

I work with layer so my first one is my safety border, you can use the guides in AI or I prefer to make a colored frame sized at .25” so its easier on my eyes. I will align the frame to the edges of the document. Next, I make sure to lock my guide layer so nothing is moved.

Layer 1: Guides (Locked) Layer 2: Artwork

My 2^nd layer is my artwork layer, this one I will keep under my 1^st layer. Once my design is complete, I group everything in the artwork layer and delete layer 1 (guides). I will select my artwork layer and outline all of my text and save the file as a PDF or EPS making sure to keep the original (not outlined) text file for future changes.

**It is important to outline your text because if you send your file to someone and they don’t have that fonts you used in your design installed the program will substitute the missing fonts with other font causing your design to look different.**

**Outlining the text makes the font an object and it will no longer be editable as far as characteristics for future use so make sure you keep the original file.**

I hope this helps you in some way. If it does let me know 🙂

Have a blessed day and let’s go out there and get creative!

Connect with me!

Twitter (#AL_Designs  #AskAlondraLopez  #TheCreativeVlog)

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Facebook

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email

Best Regards,

A.L. Designs