Interview with Anni Graham
10 Questions with Anni Graham, the artist behind our Lumine Effects
Scroll down to find out more about Anni!
1. Congratulations on the birth of your little boy! Such exciting times are ahead for you and your family. How are you feeling?
“Thank you! These last few months of transition to a family of three has been life changing to say the least. I didn’t expect motherhood to feel so normal, as if Joey has always been here and I’ve always been his mother. I can’t even remember what life was like before him and it’s only been 3 months.
I’m making the slow transition back to working and shooting and figuring out how to plan my days to get through my workload while being present with my family. It’s definitely a new challenge that I know so many others have been through and I think it just takes time to figure out this new flow of life. ”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
2. How did Joey’s first beach trip go?
“Other than the actual trip to the beach it was amazing! Joey has a hard time falling asleep alone in his car seat even when I sit back there with him so we had to make a lot of stops. It was heartbreaking seeing him sweat through his clothes from crying so much. I empathize so much with any other parent who has a kid who hates the car seat too, it’s terrible!
But he loved the beach if he even knew we were there. It’s been fun traveling with him because travel feels like such a normal part of our lives. It’ll be fun to go back to the Oregon Coast next year when he is a bit older and can actually enjoy playing in the sand. ”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
3. How did you get the idea to create the lights & shadows for your Lumine presets?
“The pack was inspired by my love for all the beautiful light and shadows that pour into our house at different times of the day. Last year when we had to cancel all of our travel and spent more time at home than we had in years, I discovered things about my house that I hadn’t seen before. I would wake up early to open the curtains because the light made a perfect beam into our bedroom.
I’d wait in the living room in the afternoon for the sun to pour through the trees making shadows on our floor. It was beautiful. I started noticing light and shadows in my work and realized how the effect of them transformed an image from ordinary to extraordinary.
The light and shadows I collected for the presets are beautiful pictures in themselves, they hold so much emotion and depth. Combining that with a beautiful moment or an important detail shot adds that element of emotion for me and is why I love these presets so much.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
4. Which features of your new preset do you love the most?
“Right now I’m really loving the light effects and finding new ways to use them in my work. I’ll add one of the light effects and crop into my image to use it more was a light flare or blur in the photo. Because they are so realistic, I can bring so much creativity to an image in post and have it feel like a true and natural moment.
It’s so helpful when editing because sometimes you don’t have light or you forget to get some different creative shots of a moment and having the option to play and create that in post is so relieving. Sometimes after a shoot I think back and feel like I totally missed the mark and probably didn’t really get any good images (I’m really hard on myself like I know so many others are), but then I get into editing and use the light effects and feel so filled with confidence again.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
5. How do the Lumine presets change your pictures artistically?
“The lightest part of your image is where your eye is naturally drawn to. A white dress, a light beam, a waterfall. I used to use gradients and radial filters to bring light and focus to my image, but felt so restricted by their perfect shape and unrealistic lines. What I love so much about the Lumine presets is they bring light and shadows into your images in a natural way. They are created from real sources, from real light and shadows.
I can use them in my images to bring focus to someone’s face, a specific detail, a hand. They take an otherwise basic photo and transform it into something unique and different in a realistic way. I love and need to feel creative with my work, but stay far away from effects that feel unrealistic, edited, and fake. I still want the moments to feel real and these presets allow me to do that.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
6. What inspired you to create your new venture „immersed education“?
“Immersed Educated started as an experience based photography workshop that Manda from Maeandco and I hosted every year. We had such transformative experiences with our students that we started dreaming up other ways that we could bring the type of education we loved to a wider group of photographers all around the world. We felt like there was this gap in education and workshops in general.
It was all about how to make more money and be “successful,” teaching students to hustle, work non-stop, charge 10k and travel the world. But there was this gap – what about your work, the creativity of your photography, the connection and relationships to yourself, your work and your clients. What if a photographer only photographed 10 couples a year, but did it in a beautiful, creative, intentional way, would they consider themselves successful when attending workshops that only teach about how to get 50+ weddings a year?
We want to change the conversation, redefine success and bring photographers back to what they love about what they do because we believe that’s what is most important. So with Immersed, we want to create and host education that connects photographers back to themselves, their work and their clients.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
7. In which way do the immersed education courses help other photographers?
“Our goal is to create foundational courses for photographers that addresses topics from a holistic perspective. Holistic in the sense that we don’t just want to give you a list of 10 things to do and promise it will change your business, but ask questions, discover your why, find the intent behind everything you do, continue to refine who you are as an artist and who you are in the wedding industry.
Right now we have 3 courses, composition + storytelling taught by me (two of the most important topics I believe every photographer should learn) and an intro to film course taught by Hannah Shea. We have more courses in the works that we will be publishing in the next few months.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
8. Why do you feel it was the right time to release a new preset pack?
“Lumine was something we started creating months ago while I was still pregnant and as life went on hold this summer for the birth of Joey, we waited until I felt completely back to release the new pack.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
9. What inspires you the most photography-wise?
“When I first decided I wanted to become a photographer, I wanted to be a photojournalist. I wanted to be covered in dirt in the back of a jeep traveling through somewhere in Africa photographing people in cultures that have stood the test of time. But it wasn’t in the cards for me.
That love of photojournalism, of telling stories, of discovering what makes a person or relationship unique, or the story of a place, still inspires my work today. Coming back to a moment through small details or a unique perspective is what I strive for in my work. I want to feel what I see over and over again.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
10. How would you describe Lumine Presets to anyone that never worked with this new generation of effects/presets?
“Lumine presets are not your traditional set of presets. They are brushes that you can overlay on top of your already edited images. These brushes are light and shadows that have been created from real sources so they look and feel natural. These brushes can be manipulated within the brush effect tool in Lightroom, adjusting exposure, color, etc and they can also be transformed into bigger versions of themselves, flipped vertically, applied multiple times, etc using the Meridian Plug-In which comes with the preset.
These effects give you the ability to add in light and shadows in images that didn’t previously have them or enhance the ones that did without changing the color or tone of your editing settings. They work on top of any other color presets you use and can completely transform an ordinary image into something unique and different.”
Anni GrahaM – Lumine Presets
Thank you again for answering all our questions, Anni!
If you are now feeling inspired and want to check out Anni´s latest presets – the Lumine Effects – then head over to our Meridian Presets website.
