Lensbaby

I like blur. Clearly.  I like it even more than ever now that I'm beginning to age faster with every passing year. As a photographer, it's a lovely tool that slows that process down just a wee bit. The above photo was taken with a Lensbaby Velvet 56. What a beautiful portrait lens it is too. I don't shoot a lot of portrait photography and when I do, I usually shoot with my Nikkor 50mm as it's more conventional and gives the client what they usually prefer. Not everyone enjoys an art lens and that's fine. I am though, always excited to find the client who does enjoy something a little different.

For me, an art lens is my preference. I'm also not one for holding my iPhone at arm's length and snapping selfies very often. Of course I do, everyone does but if I'm going to make a self portrait, I would much rather take the time and make something that is more to my liking. The Lensbaby Velvet does just that.  I usually shoot with it wide open but you can always stop down and achieve some beautiful tack sharp imagery as well. Like all Lensbaby products, it's an incredibly well made lens that's as versatile as any you'll find. The Lensbaby websites describes it as such:

Our most popular art lens - the Velvet 56 adds ethereal mood to any scene with tack-sharp detail layered underneath edge-to-edge velvety glow effect.

This one was shot with the Lensbaby Edge 80 Optic and the website describes it as such:

The 80mm Edge 80 Optic tilts your focus into a slice, revealing smooth, round bokeh. Tell an uncommon story.

The Lensbaby Edge 80 is part of their optic system of creative effect lenses. They snap into the Lensbaby Composer Pro and are interchangeable. The Edge 80 is actually my favorite lens and what I shoot with almost exclusively these days. As a nature photographer, it's an amazing lens to capture what is in my heart as opposed to merely what I see with my eyes. It's a really amazing lens as well to capture mood and emotion in portrait photography. If this is something you are interested in, I recommend doing a Google image search to see all that this lens can create. You will be impressed with the professional and gorgeous portraits that have been shot with this beautiful lens. I promise.

I first fell in love with Lensbabies many years ago when the photo sharing site Flickr, was enjoying it's height of popularity. Many of the photographers I interacted with at the time on the site, were using them to create a lot of magic that I was immediately drawn to. The beautiful soft blur and sweet spot of focus was exactly for the kind of photography that I wanted to achieve and had struggled to create with the usual lenses available to me. My first Lensbaby was a Muse.

Since then, I have become a Lensbaby Ambassador and am always encouraging like minds to give them a try. One of the benefits of being an Ambassador is that they provide me a discount that I am able to pass along to anyone for their own purchase on Lensbaby.com - if you use the link to the left to visit the website it will automagically give you a ten percent discount at check out. Alternatively, if you are not comfortable with following links, you can use the promo code: wmcgrew at check out to receive the same discount.  If you are simply interested in learning more about these beautiful lenses or have questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I am always happy to help. 

Shoot Extraordinary.