Tonya Peterson Photography | Utah and Destination Wedding Photographer | 801.824.7778 » photography

Only a few spots left . . .

tonyapeterson — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 17:22:43 +0000

Hi friends! I only have a few spots left for my Basic Photography Class in Roosevelt. If you are interested in signing up for this class please click HERE and fill out the form at the bottom. I hope to see you there!

xoxo!

Tonya

Paige is 2 going on 16!

tonyapeterson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 19:01:11 +0000

Paige has always been a girly girl but yesterday might have made her even more girly. (if that is possible!) She has been asking me non stop since yesterday to put some make-up on her so I finally gave in! I was curious to see how long her eye lashes were with a tiny bit of mascara, and holy crap! They are so stinking long! She though it was the coolest thing ever, and since we are just hanging out today I didn’t mind putting a little make-up on her. So she was my little model today, and surprisingly she let me take pictures of her!

Don’t worry. I am not one of those crazy moms that is going to try and make my 2 year old look like a teenager! All in fun!

random thoughts | loving mac

tonyapeterson — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 04:29:41 +0000

So I am totally freaking out because my Mom is coming to visit. Not that I am not happy about it, I totally am. But I am not the best housekeeper. At all. So I spent all day giving my house a deep clean and I started organizing the most random things . . . like my make-up. Now some people (Alex) might say that I have a slight obsession/addiction to M.A.C. make-up. I say not, but after spreading out all the make-up I own I am starting to maybe think he is right. Maybe.

You know what? After looking at this picture again it puts things into perspective. Alex is wrong! You can NEVER have too much M.A.C.! (Oh and BTW this picture was taken on my phone! I promise I can take better pics than this!)

shooting for the love of photography

tonyapeterson — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:53:06 +0000

If you have followed my blog for a while you may have seen a change in me in the past 3 months. Heaven knows I have seen one in myself. When I graduated from photography school I was ready to take the world by storm! My goal was to work my way up through different publications shooting editorial work until I landed at the dream job. Martha Stewart Living. This goal, of course would take years to fulfill but I knew it could be done, I just had to work hard. Well God has a funny way of showing you what you should be doing instead of what you want to be doing. My focus changed from Editorial to Weddings, something I knew I didn’t want to do!

It turns out I loved shooting weddings, but I got to the point where I was just going through the motions. Yes I can nail my exposures, but to me it just wasn’t good enough. My picture looked blah to me and I couldn’t figure out why. I know I have written this before on the blog, but it really did change my life. I did some serious soul searching and kind of rediscovered film. I forgot the joy that comes from shooting on the classic medium and it made me remember why I love photography so much. Photography is an art form that is really really hard to master (I am still working on it and always will be) and I feel like digital kind of lessened the value of it a little bit. Now don’t come at me with pitch forks just yet digital shooters!!! I still shoot digital at times and I know there are absolutely amazing digital photographers who are wonderful artists. What I am saying is that the phrase “I can just fix it in photoshop” makes me die a little inside. Ok, so maybe that is a bit dramatic, but it does truly bums me out.

So what is the point of this rant? I don’t believe you need to switch to film to be a great artist and love photography. You just need to love what you do and always strive to be better. Really work on understanding light and always be learning new things. Read and study books from the true masters of photography like Ansel Adams and Richard Avedon. Take a History of Photography class. You will be amazed by the humble beginnings of this amazing art form. The greatest thing about photography, digital or film, is that the principles of light never change. If you understand light and exposure you can shoot any medium.

I could go on forever but I won’t. The last thing I will say is that I really do LOVE photography. Here is a photograph that I took on Velvia 50 when I was in school. Keep shooting!

Mini Sessions in the Snow!

tonyapeterson — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 02:46:05 +0000

Alex’s mom really wanted an updated picture of Jacque and Cory for her wall, so while I am in Utah we decided to do a quick session. And when I say quick, I mean 10 minutes! That is quick! They have so much fun together so it was really easy and fun to do the session.

The snow throwing started . . . this is where we started having fun

We went sledding at my brothers this afternoon so come back tomorrow for cute overload!