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A Brooklyn Tale

D'mani DeVoe
Mar 10, 2017
3 min read

Hey loves!

An outfit post has been long overdue, if you've been following me on Insta you've probably already seen this fit, but I decided to share outfit deets, as well as my adventure in Brooklyn with fellow Fashion blogger, Patricia Darrabie of Darrabie.com.

I recently put my coins together to purchase a DSLR, a Nikon D50 to be exact; to my loved ones that helped me THANK YOU. I will probably be spamming every social media outlet with photos of myself and plants, but, bare with me lol. My paw paw (granddad) also does photography and owned this camera, so, this was the deciding factor for me when it came to picking my first DSLR.

With this being said, I've learned that photography is way more than just turning your camera on and pressing a button ( I of course knew this before, but it's definitely a learning process), especially when you're particular about aesthetic; so I reached out to Patricia and we decided to do meetups once a week and practice using our cameras, while creating content for out blogs. This was my first shoot using my camera in manual mode; I was able to figure out how to use my 55mm lens to achieve the bokeh (blurry background effect), played with ISO to adjust lighting and learned how critical adjusting your White Balance is. Unfortunately, while I learned a lot, my photos didn't come out EXACTLY how I wanted them, but that's what practice is for. You'll notice that the photos are a bit grainy and I recently learned that if my ISO is too high, it normally results in grainy photos. If anyone knows how to improve lighting or brightness of photos, without using flash and without increasing the ISO too much, let a sista know.

But enough of the photo geek talk lol, Patricia and I trekked through Dumbo Brooklyn, an artsy area with cute shops and eateries on every corner. We got some shots near the Brooklyn bridge and being the greedy girl I am, I got hungry like five minutes into the shoot lol. Luckily, Patricia is just as much of a foodie as me, so we stopped in Archway cafe (the food is great but the owner/manager is very rude and she's probably made out with a hotdog before,) no seriously, customer service is a priority for me when it comes to where I spend my money, but I'll give details on that on a later date. We used our dining time to learn how to set our cameras indoors and we both got great shots inside the cafe. For bloggers who aren't fond of outside photos, or just want to create in a cozy environment, I suggest searching for unique coffee shops, but make sure you ask management and let them know you'd be willing to shout out the cafe in your posts.

I hope my sharing what I'm learning on this journey towards making photography my side hustle, helps. Let me know if there are any more tips you want me to share and stay tuned for a tutorial on how I edit my iPhone photos to look professional. Enjoy the photos below, that Patricia of Darrabie.com shot of me.

XoXo,

Mani