Instax 365 Challenge Week 3

Alright everyone,

We’ve successfully made it through another week. I’ve been getting some good feedback from the daily instagram posts of these photos. Let me know if there is anything you guys want to see more of. Without further ado, below are the result from our endeavor this week.

Day 15 (1/15/19)

Amanda and I went out to Luxmore Grande where RW Events was hosting an event showcasing the work of Flowers by Lesley. Lesley is a local florist in Orlando, and she does some of the most incredible work we have ever seen. This event definitely showcased Lesley’s profound talent. There were flowers and greenery EVERYWHERE. It was breathtaking. It was great seeing other friends, vendors, and even one of our future brides there! Michelle, our future bride, is getting married at Luxmore Grande in just a couple weeks, and was invited to this event to get to see her venue decked out. It was a really unique opportunity, and I’m sure she walked away inspired. There were model brides throughout the room showcasing beautiful gowns and of course unbelievable bouquets made by Lesley. I had to take a picture of one of the models. I loved how she had a backdrop of cascading greens and windows with the train of her dress stretching out beside her. It was definitely the perfect picture of the day.

Day 16 (1/16/19)

I’m not incredibly big into art despite being a photographer. I find it beautiful and inspiring, but I’ve never been one to seek out art, and truthfully there are plenty of pieces of art that are truly lost on me. This piece, on the other hand, has me captivated. It is hands down my favorite artwork I’ve ever seen, and I’m proud to say that it was made by someone in my family. The picture I’ve taken does it no justice. It is a copper wasp resting on top of a copper honeycomb. The honeycomb structure is lifted off its backing of wood. The wasp and honeycomb are all made from one solid piece of copper except for the wings of the wasp. Those are made from a second piece of copper and welded onto the wasp. Amanda and I received it as a wedding gift from my cousin who made it herself while she was living in Cuba. She made it using her own handmade tools, and it hangs in the entry to our home.

Day 17 (1/17/19)

I’ve mentioned it before that macro photography is one of my favorite types of photography. I enjoy finding something beautiful and filling my image frame with it. I also find that almost anything looks great in macro photography. Life is made up of many small beautiful parts, and we miss that when we are too busy looking at a bigger picture.

Day 18 (1/18/19)

I noticed that I haven’t really showcased many designs or patterns. I saw this one design and thought that it would look really neat on a picture. It has an almost Pop art meets Yayoi Kusama feel. I’m sure there is an actual name for this style, but I don’t know it.

Day 19 (1/19/19)

One thing I have found difficult using the Instax Neo 90 Classic is that it does not have a true manual mode. We shoot in the manual setting because it gives us the most control over how our images will turn out. With DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras, the camera can take a light reading and indicate an exposure level. These cameras do not do that. I took this picture during twilight, so I knew I’d need some flash. Unfortunately, the camera was trying to account for lighting the whole image and created a hard glare and washed out a bit of the light.

Day 20 (1/20/19)

This image was taken in the parking garage of a AdventHealth Orlando (formerly Florida Hospital South). It has the sky bridge connecting the parking garage to the hospital itself. It was my first time at this hospital, as I was visiting a friend who was there (thankfully everything is okay and they have since been discharged), and boy are the hospitals nice in Central Florida. I’ve been to Florida Hospital Celebration, and it was also very nice, but I expected that as Celebration, FL is a very nice and upscale town. I’m now just convinced that everything in Orlando need to resemble a resort as much as possible to fit in with the Orlando = Disney stereotype.

Day 21 (1/21/19)

I’m so upset with this image! We had incense burning in the house (we had just finished doing a thorough cleaning), and I thought this would make a great picture of the day. When I was looking through the viewfinder on the camera, the incense smoke was blowing towards the camera and making a cool effect. I was really excited. Again, the lack of a true manual mode was my downfall. The camera tried to focus on the smoke, which then led it to leaving the subject blurry and to believe it needed to trigger the flash (it didn’t). The countertop is granite, so it bounced the light really harshly and washed out the whole image. It would have been a cool image if I would have been allowed to choose my focal point. *SIGH* That’s why this is a challenge though I guess. You have no idea how hard it was for me to not say “this doesn’t count. REDO!” But as I’ve said: 1 picture per day no matter what.

Favorite photo of the week:

Day 16 is my favorite subject, and as I’ve said, I absolutely love the piece, but my favorite photo is Day 15. I love the overall look and feel of the image. It is so beautiful and elegant. It looks like a picture that would fall out of an old book you found. Although it was taken at a staged event, it looks like it has its own story to tell, and I love that.

If you want to see our Instax 365 Challenge as the pictures are published, check out my Instagram at @Miguel.Mejias.FloraBloom. I post each day’s Instax photo there first as well as other behind the scenes of our photography there. If you want to see more of our photography, check our Instagram @FloraBloomPhotography. We publish a weekly recap of our Instax 365 Challenge here on the blog. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Instax 365 Challenge Week 2

This week was full of work! Amanda and I were running around all week networking and preparing for a wedding show we had on Sunday. If you want to read more about the wedding show check out our blog post about it here! With that being said let’s jump right into the photos.

Day 8 (1/8/19)

We attended a networking event hosted by the Central Florida Wedding Association (CFWA). We have been members of the CFWA for a few years now, and each month they host a networking event at a different wedding venue in Central Florida. January’s event was hosted at the Central Florida Zoo in Sanford. I LOVE animals. It is actually how I got my start in photography. I wanted a way to capture all the neat animals I would find when I was out hiking in the forest. Needless to say I was at home at the zoo. There were animal ambassadors rotating throughout the night. This picture is of “Dill Prickles”, an African Pygmy Hedgehog. He was really calm and I was able to snap a quick photo.

Day 9 (1/9/19)

As I mentioned above, we had a wedding show on Sunday, so we were shopping for some supplies for our booth. Amanda wanted to try another double exposure, and while in the fake flower aisle we figured why not give it a shot. We took a picture of some of the flowers first, and then snapped one of a pineapple decoration. I think this one came out much better than the last one as you can make out both images. Double exposures are proving to be a bit more challenging than either of us thought.

Day 10 (1/10/19)

Since my last macro shot on Day 6 I was excited to try it again. I cut open a kiwi and thought that it would be perfect for another macro photo. You can tell that I got too close to the image as the image is a bit out of focus, and again the offset viewfinder did me in. It will still take some time getting used to the fact that this viewfinder is so different. Not only is it offset, but it is a direct view of your eye and not the lens. On DSLRs you are seeing through the lens with the help of mirrors to bounce that image to your eye, and with mirrorless cameras you have a processor transferring the image the lens sees to a digital screen in the viewfinder. So in both examples if the lens isn’t focused you are going to see that. With the Instax Mini line of cameras the viewfinder is not transferring the lens information. It is just an approximation of the frame the lens is capturing.

Day 11 (1/11/19)

We had been so busy all week that our boys hadn’t had a chance to just play. They were either stuck inside playing while we worked, or they were tagging along with us to knock out all our errands. Since they had been so good, and to help burn off some of that seemingly bottomless energy, Amanda took them to the park. She saw a tree growing some kind of fruit. She switched into macro mode and got this awesome photo. All in all, it was a good day. The boys got out and burned off some energy, and we got another really beautiful macro shot.

Day 12 (1/12/19)

The day before our wedding show and we realized we still needed a few more things, so back out to the store we went. While getting back into the car during sunset, I looked up noticed a plane. It was perfect with the colors in the sky. Unfortunately, I was trying to frame out all the light posts in the parking lot, and so I wasn’t able to capture as much of the pink sky in the photo. But, I loved how clean the image looks and the beautiful gradient from pink to blue.

Day 13 (1/13/19)

Finally, the day that had us running around and prepping like crazy was here. I took a cell phone picture of our booth and posted that to my instagram (@miguel.mejias.florabloom), but then I realized I should have taken an Instax photo too. So there are two very similar pictures on there. The lighting was dim in the convention hall, and there was a lot of uplighting from different booths around us. I used the Light+ mode on the camera to hopefully combat all the color casting and strange shadows being cast. A couple of our prints on our backdrop were glared out, and objectively it isn’t the best photo, but with what it had to work with, I think it came out alright.

Day 14 (1/14/19)

Amanda and I were out for a stroll and we came across a uniquely shaped house. The sun was setting, and I thought that with the house being backlit by the sun and with the tree right next to it I would catch a really neat photo. I hadn’t really tried out the landscape mode on the Neo90 yet, so I switched into that and took my shot. Landscape mode shadowed out a lot of the foreground and created a really cool vignetting. In the words of Bob Ross, “We don’t make mistakes. We just have happy accidents.” This was definitely one of those moments where I didn’t intend for the image to come out this way, but by accident, we made what I would consider a better image. I like this one more because it preserves privacy, while also making great art.

Favorite photo of the week:

Day 11 and Day 14 were close runners-up, but this would have to go to Day 12. I’m a sucker for nature shots and macro photography so Day 11 appealed a lot to me there, and I love that I stumbled into some really cool vignetting and silhouetting on Day 14, but ultimately Day 12 combines beautiful colors, captures motion, and just overall is an image that really just speaks to me with how beautifully simple and clean it is.

If you want to see our Instax 365 Challenge as the pictures are published, check out my Instagram at @Miguel.Mejias.FloraBloom. I post each day’s Instax photo there first as well as other behind the scenes of our photography there. If you want to see more of our photography check our Instagram @FloraBloomPhotography. We publish a weekly recap of our Instax 365 Challenge here on the blog. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Instax 365 Challenge Week 1

Hey Guys,

It has been 1 week since we started this 1 instant film picture a day challenge we are calling our Instax 365 Challenge. The first week has come with a couple upload challenges, as we were on a cruise for the first half of the week, but hopefully those of you that are following my (Miguel’s) instagram (@miguel.mejias.florabloom) have seen that I’m posting each day’s picture there first. If you want to see the pictures on the day they are taken, check out the Instagram, but if you want to read more about each picture, the adventure behind it, and the inspiration, you’ll want to read the weekly recaps I’ll be putting out.

Without further ado, below are the pictures from the week (plus 1 bonus picture).

Day 0 (1/1/19 @ 12:00AM)

Boy, this picture really took the wind out of my sails. As you saw in the announcement blog, we have been taking some pictures with the camera for our own albums, and I think they had come out pretty good. No real hiccups or blunders, and I was really starting to think that this “challenge” wouldn’t pose much of one other than staying committed. Then this picture processed, and I remembered every camera is different and has its nuances. I wanted to get this picture as kind of a “kick-off” picture to celebrate the new year. This was taken at exactly midnight on 1/1/19. We were outdoors in the middle of the ocean, and it is a picture of a large screen from many yards away.

Day 1 (1/1/19)

I LOVE this picture. I’m an outdoorsy person, and while touring on Jamaica, we came across these rafts and beautiful blue river. I was captivated by the moment and was extremely excited to capture that moment. I fawned over that image for the rest of the day. The wind that had been blown out of my sails at the turn of the new year was definitely back in.

Day 2 (1/2/19)

This was a shop sign on the ship. I liked the message and wanted to see if we could capture the details of the bokeh. While converting the image to digital, I think we lost a small bit of the detail, but it is mostly still there. Amanda is actually the one who snapped this picture. We were confused when the image first processed because we swore that the image was framed perfectly, but mistakes can happen right? More about that below.

Day 3 (1/3/19)

We had finally arrived back home and unpacked. It was late in the day and we had lost a lot of light. That was okay though because I had been wanting to capture a picture of my Panama hat. Again, the low light got me a little bit more than I would have liked. It’s nothing we couldn’t fix with a small edit, but as promised we aren’t editing any of these pictures. I still think the image came out looking really cool. I wanted this picture because I feel like every picture that comes out of this camera has a neat vintage look to it, and I thought this hat has a vintage look too. This picture really concerned me after it developed. I KNOW my hat was centered in the frame, but it came out quite off centered. I started to worry that the camera was defective or that the viewfinder was not properly aligned. I looked into the issue and had to slap myself in the forehead. The viewfinder on the Instax Neo 90 Classic is located in the top left of the camera (from the back), while the lens is located directly in the middle. There is going to be a natural slight difference. I read that and felt do dumb for having overlooked something that I could have easily figured out if I didn’t just jump to being worried. That is why Amanda’s medium format film camera looks so funny with the different shape due to having to fit the viewfinder directly above the lens!

Day 4 (1/4/19)

I saw this sign above a drink station. I loved the vintage tin sign look, and despite the wall behind the sign being painted, it even looks like old metal paneling. I snapped the picture and I think it came out looking really neat! It has that vintage polaroid look I mentioned above. I was quite pleased.

Day 5 (1/5/19)

I think I just realized that I took pictures of signs two days in a row. Whoops. This is the sign for a local microbrewery that I visited while my brother was in town. We went to a couple different breweries along what is called the Central Florida Ale trail. It sounds like it would be a bar crawl, but it is far from it. It is a partnership of 26 microbreweries located in Central Florida. They work together to promote the local craft beer. There is a map that you can grab at any of the locations and stamps to collect to keep track of which ones you’ve visited. I snapped this picture to remember the night.

Day 6 (1/6/19)

We went out to grab breakfast the morning of the 6th. Just outside was this awesome tree. In Florida we don’t get much of an autumn or winter season, so the trees are always green. Finding leaves that have turned to the classic autumn colors, or (in the case of this tree) finding trees that just have naturally reddish-brown leaves is a pretty rare sighting here. I had the camera in “macro” mode for this shot. I love the color pop. The shadows really bring out the highlights of the pictures, and the flat blue sky is a perfect backdrop.

Day 7 (1/7/19)

The Instax Neo 90 Classic has a mode called a double exposure. You are able to take two images and expose them on the same piece of film. This is a totally new concept to me that I have never tried. We decided to give it a shot on this photo. We took a picture of a beautifully clouded sky and of a young oak tree. The shadows of one image should show through with bright parts of the other image.

Favorite image of the week: It’s a tie between.... Day 1 and Day 7. I love the colors in both pictures and couldn’t have been happier with how they turned out!

Comment below and tell us what your favorite image of the week is. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Instax 365 Challenge

Hey Everyone,

So Amanda and I are embarking on an exciting and new challenge for 2019. As many of you know, we are hybrid photographers. This means that we shoot digital and film. We love film because it inspires our digital photography a ton. Because film is finite and you can’t usually see the result right away, film forces us to slow down and really thing about every picture, which in turn makes us better photographers. We wanted to really challenge ourselves in 2019 with our art and skills, so we have invested in an Instax Neo 90, which is an instant film camera. Instant film cameras are essentially what you think of when you think of a “polaroid.” You snap a picture and out pops out a white paper with a black film. In a couple minutes, that black film turns into the picture you just captured! You’ve probably seen these cameras around as they have gotten really popular thanks to the Instax Mini 9 series. These cameras come in really bright colors, and the bodies are a bit bulkier. They are easier to hold and harder to break, making them perfect for little kids’ hands.

Now, on towards explaining this challenge. Amanda and I will take 1 picture every day using our new camera. At the end of every week, we will post our pictures and the adventures that inspired them in a blog post. We will also post the images as we go on my Instagram. The rules are that we will only take 1 photo. No retakes, no edits, no fibbing. If we take a photo and it is blurry, well, it’s called a challenge for a reason. We know it is going to be difficult to take a perfect picture every time, but we will do our best and learn from our mistakes.

We are taking this challenge because because of just that, the challenge. It will challenge our composition, it will challenge our lighting, it will challenge our writing, it will challenge our creativity, it will challenge our commitment, it will challenge our photography. It will challenge us, and ultimately make us better photographers. Our goal is to use what we learn to better serve our brides and grooms with everything we learn. Throughout that, we want to share our journey with you. We believe that this will let you guys see a bit more of the behind the scenes in our lives and our creative process, and we want to share that with you. We hope that it inspires you and brings you to getting to know us just a little bit more.

Please follow along with us on this journey. Be sure to check out my instagram, as I will be posting the photos on there, and check back to our blog regularly to see our weekly (that’s our tentative plan as of now) updates to what I’m calling our #Instax365Challenge.

On Tuesday, we’ll post our first weekly roundup, but for now, please check out the photos we took before the ball dropped on January 1st!

If you like our photography and want to reach out to us please do so here. We would love to discuss how we can help capture your special day either on film or digital :)