PRACTICE!

I've decided that I don't practice enough. When I first got my camera, I took pictures of every move my children made. I would ask people if I could take pictures of their kids. Now, I'm just too busy to practice. I'm too busy editing the photos I take instead of going out there, shooting a bunch of pictures and then saying, They're good enough! I need to get out more. That's the fun part about photography anyway, right? Well, tomorrow I've got a fun photo shoot with some young women in my church and then after that I've got a senior shoot I'm looking forward to. I am going to practice more, because this stuff is fun!

Color Casts

I have started editing the second set of my friend's pictures. This time it's her son, and he is so cheesy and fun, I just loved it. I have been having a problem, though. Because my computer screen has some coloring issues, it's made my color correction process a bit stressful, especially in times like the photo below. My friend suggested a picture of her son climbing through the big red tube at the park. Such a cute idea...but I quickly realized that I would have to spend a bit more time editing the color. The red from the tube was reflecting on his face and making it look like he had been out in the sun too long, and his hair resembles a bad dye job. In this picture he is a bit farther out of the tube, so it isn't as bad, but I still had to edit out some of the red. Now, skin tone is SO hard to get right, and with my computer issues, I'm not sure how it really looks. Does the second picture look weird to you, or am I on the right track? I'm buying a way too expensive monitor calibrator which should correct the problem, but until then, please let me know if anything looks...weird.

Before edit

After the edit

Colorful, Urban Photo Shoots

I have been wanting to do some fun, funky, urban photo shoots for quite a while. I want to go out into a big grassy field with my retro couch and do a family portrait or go to an alley with some beautiful, old, red brick and place my ugly orange chair right in the middle and snap away. I want to go to a street downtown and just play. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me! Today I took some pics in my garage of my little girl, just for practice. It's not the setting that I wanted, it's not necessarily urban and you can't see the furniture vey well, but I love the colors and it's heading in the right direction. I love it.

Family Pictures

While I was in Utah I got to take a couple of pictures for my family. We all decided to wear white shirts and blue jeans, which at the time sounded good, but it's hard to keep white shirts from blowing out. On some of the pictures it made kind of a glow effect. That's okay, it makes us all look more angelic ;-) Here's one of my cute parents.

the ring

I've been practicing some of the shots that I want to do for this upcoming wedding. Here is an option for one of the ring shots. What do you think? Should I crop it or do something differently? I liked how the ring made the heart shadow, so that's why I did it this way. Pay no attention to the actual scripture that is in focus, or that fact hat I used a CTR ring. I randomly opened it up to this scripture, and did not purposely want it do be about murder and punishment. Probably not the best scripture for a ring shoot, eh? ;-)

My Sister

I've had these pictures on my camera for a little while and kind of forgot about them. They are of a fun, random shoot I did with my sister, Whitney. She had her hair all pinned up because she had just taken a shower and was getting washed up for the night. I grabbed her and said, "Let's go take some pictures!" I had a lot of fun!

Another picture to add to the bunch

I've just been asked to do a wedding in a couple of weeks and I'm really excited but nervous, since it's my first one. I'm needing to get in all the practice I can! So a few minutes before Jayden's bedtime I went outside with her and took maybe 2 or 3 pictures of a pose that I want to do with the bride. I want to shoot down on her while she holds her bouquet in her lap. I think it will turn out alright. Now I just need to practice the million other poses I have in mind!

I'VE GOT AN IDEA....

I was playing around with my black backdrop today and trying to use the natural light from outside. I set it up in my garage with the garage door open. I didn't get many pictures, and this is the only one I've edited at all. I thought it looked funny like she's trying to say, "I''ve got an idea!"

The only models that I have to work with!

So, I am wish I had some more people who were willing to let me take pictures of them, but alas, I only have my two models here to play with. Here are 2 from today.

Random Picture

So I haven't been taking many pictures lately. I've been reading a lot about photography, and thinking about it, but haven't had a ton of opportunity. The girls will only let me take so many pictures of them before they scream and cry and tell me no! So today I've been thinking about what to do in our bathroom that we're remodeling. I've always loved those B&W photos of the really crisp looking flowers and I thought one of those might look nice on the wall. Here is my try at it. The flower is not the prettiest, and it's not as clear as I want it to be. In fact, it's quite grainy and fuzzy, but it's my first try at it! Hopefully I can try again and get something better.

Tried something new

So I'm going to be buying some fleece fabric for backdrops in a couple of weeks. I decided to try a white sheet today and see what it looked like. It was all wrinkly, and so I had to blow out the exposure on it. The coloring is a bit off, but it turned out alright. Jayden had fun!

Ryleigh Pics

Well, since I posted some of Jayden I figured I had better post some of Ryleigh as well. Some of these aren't that great because I took them of Ryleigh looking into the sun and so she's all squinty. I also tried combing her hair straight after her bath today and it ended up looking a bit flat. I love the curls, so I won't be trying to straighten it out again. The pics are fun anyway, just not exactly what I wanted. I added my copyright logo on some of them just to see what it looks like. What do you think? Also, I put up some previous ones of Ryleigh from my family blog, just like with Jayden's. I think my favotire picture of Ryleigh is the black and white one on the bottom.

Jayden Pictures

I've been taking random pictures of Jayden while she is outside playing. These are just for fun and they capture some good moments (like this first one where she is completely fascinated with the bugs) . I also added some that I took a while ago and posted on my family blog. I figured they were appropriate here as well!