#5 Monkey Moon Photo Session

Yes folks you read that correctly a FREE photo session with the talented (and extremely sweet) Gina from Monkey Moon Photography!
She is offering photo session AND up to 10 high-res images free to print as you choose!
Oh how I wish I could win this one!!
*****MUST be a Southern California Resident or willing to travel to Orange County, CA for the shoot!!!*****
Here is how you can win…
Main entry (mandatory): Leave a comment here with why you want photos taken.
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In addition to the main entry you can get loads of extra entries if you…
~Follow Gina on twitter HERE! Leave your Twitter ID in the comment or let me know you already do (3 entries)
~Subscribe to Monkey Moon Photography’s RSS Feed. Click ‘subscribe’ on the top right of her menu bar. (3 entries)
~Tweet about the giveaway, can be done daily. Copy and paste this for the tweet: “So Cal residents!! Enter to win a free photo session from @ElisLids w/ Monkey Moon Photography here http://bit.ly/3NPuPh Pls RT!” If you don’t have twitter you can FB for this one. (3 entries per day)
~Add the “Eli’s Lids Giveaway” button in our sidebar to your blog or let me know you already did (2 entries per blog)
~Subscribe to the Eli’s Lids RSS Feed or let me know you already do (2 entries)
~Follow Eli’s Lids on Twitter, leave your Twitter ID in the comment or let me know you already do (1 entry)
For every extra entry, be sure to leave a separate comment on this post! i.e. If you add our giveaway button to your blog leave 2 separate comments.
***Giveaway open one week! Ends Friday September 18th 9:00pm PST***
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If you read Eli’s Lids you have already met Gina (click here to read her last feature) and you know how fabulous she is. If you are new to our blog then read on and fall in love!!
Tell us a bit about your family.
I am originally from South Carolina and met and married my English sweetheart, Rob, 9 years ago. We have been richly blessed with three kiddos and my photography started with the birth of my first. My husband encouraged me to begin photographing clients professionally and we’ve recently made the decision for me to concentrate on engaged couples and weddings (although I can’t resist taking pictures of my sweet friends and their families and will probably always make time for them!)
Your favorite shoot to date?
That was probably my engagement shoot of Alejandra and Benny. They were up for anything and I got some interesting shots of them on railroad tracks and a tractor. The shoot was part of a shootout so I also got to meet some amazing photographers.
For those of us who want to bump up our own photography skills, any tips?
The best advice I can give someone who wants to bump up their own skills would be, as simple as it may seem, take as many photos as possible in manual mode. The single most important thing you can do is to learn through experience. Take your camera with you everywhere. Don’t be afraid to pull it out. Don’t worry that others might think you take too many. If you want to be truly great I would give the same advice a great photographer once gave me. It is this one instruction: Take 100,000 photos in manual mode. By the time you get to 100,000 photos you will be an absolute pro. If I could give any more advice it would be to develop your own style. You are uniquely you and that will come out in your photography. If you copy someone else it won’t be genuine and the world wants to see beautiful you! Lastly, hang out with other photographers. There is a relatively new movement in the photography industry that involves photographers helping each other out. I’ve been amazed at the generosity and friendliness of this industry and if I wasn’t a photographer, after meeting these people, I’d want to be one just so I could hang around them. So get out there and meet folks. Facebook. Twitter. Blog.

What is the best lighting?
For me, it’s gotta be natural, baby. I resist using my flash if at ALL possible. Give me natural sunlight in the form of evening haze and I swoon.
Flash or no flash?
Opps, I think I answered that in 4.
Any photography sites that might help us learn?
I get 99.8 percent of my inspiration from other photographers. To name a few: Mike Colon, Parker J. Pfister, Anna Kuperberg, David Jay. Right now Richard and Amy McDowell of Red Leaf Studios in Canada are my heroes. I adore the photography in Anthropologie magazine and I rent old movies because the cinematography gives me a huge inspirational boost.