Although I really specialize in child and family photography, I really enjoy shooting the occasional wedding. I adore in-love couples. I love… well, Love. Shooting weddings I get very strongly emotionally attached to the couple throughout the day. This shot is from my very first wedding, and remains one of my favorite couple photos I’ve taken to date. Everything from their body language to the gentle expression on his face reminds me of exactly how I felt at my own wedding. <3 !
I’ve been a silent fan of Lisa over at The Long Road to China for a while now. I just love her stories… and her photos… and well, pretty much everything. A little while back she started Black & White Wednesdays over there on her blog and this week I was inspired by her beautiful story about her grandmother.
There’s this incredible woman who’s blessed my life also you see… my mother. She and I have not always gotten along as well as she had dreamed we would back when the doctor told her “it’s a girl!” the day I was born. She was so excited, after 7 loud messy boys, to raise a little girl who would dance around in pigtails and wear pretty dresses… and she looked forward to a teenage daughter that she could share stories with and spend “special days” with, no boys allowed. Instead she got me. I was louder than the boys, more stubborn than a a heard of oxen, and ultimately my youth involved far more tantrums and far fewer dresses.
No matter how hard I was fighting her at any given time, there always seemed to be one bit of common ground; art. My mother is an artist. Correction: My mother is an incredible artist. If she was unable to angle anything else into my stubborn head, it was her absolute love of art. When I think back to being a kid, what I remember first, every time, is all of the paint and glitter and markers. I don’t think a week went by where she didn’t have us doing some type of project.
She’s the reason that I “ran away” to art school when I turned 18 and set the rest of my adult life in motion(including the meeting of my husband). She is the reason I’m a photographer. I’m certain.
In the last week, my mom’s gone through a bit of an unknown health crisis, the result of which has been a very rapid loss of vision in one of her eyes, and some partial loss in the other. It breaks my heart. To me, that seems unimaginably devastating for a visual artist – and is perhaps one of my greatest personal fears… I don’t know what I would do if I couldn’t see my photos… And yet, somehow, she’s been incredibly positive throughout the ordeal, showing the grace and strength and patience that that I recognize from my raging adolescence, when there was nothing she could do but ride it out and hope for the best.
Before:
I think this is a great base image. I have SO MUCH TROUBLE getting the correct exposure for people in the snow, and this is perfectly done. But, it is somewhat flat, and the background is pretty blank, which isn’t a bad thing, but it isn’t dynamic either and there isn’t quite enough pop in the foreground to make the background push away from it.
Fix 1:
The only thing that I did for this one was switch the color mode to “Lab Color” and adjusted the tones and saturation, then I used a Curves Adjustment Layer to add some contrast. That’s it. And really, it’s all this image “needs” to be fixed.
Fix 2:
The photo challenge theme this week was “texture”, and since I didn’t get a chance to participate earlier this week I wanted to do it now. I love Patti Brown’s Gallery Collection textures, I really need to find more excuses to use them because they ALWAYS make photos look phenomenal. For this one I used Dirty Watercolors(Multiply 100%), Beach Glass Bokeh 2(Screen 100%), and Mermaid(Overlay 90%) – after masking out her face and jacket and adjusting the contrast, the only other thing I did was sharpen her facial features just a touch so they didn’t get flattened by the color tones.
Program: CS4
Resources: Patti Brown’s The Gallery Collection
Ah yes, Friday again. I really look forward to the fix-it challenge because usually the ladies over at I♥faces choose photos that are very different from what I normally work with, and I think it breaks me out of my creative box and then I discover things that totally change the rest of my “real” workflow. This week feels a little more special than that.
This week’s photo comes courtesy of The Zwart Family, featuring their beautiful kids and mom and dad proudly looking on in the background. I do not know the Zwarts personally, but my heart goes out to this family, as they’re struggling with while I’m sure is a devastating terminal cancer diagnosis, but I’m inspired by their love and determination to live every moment possible.
Original:
Cropped:
After:
This week at I♥Faces the photo challenge theme is “We are Family”. I photograph a lot of families these days, but by far one of my very favorite families is the Collins Family, who fit together so beautifully, and who are so obviously loving, shooting them was like watching visual poetry.
To see more great family photos click the logo below:
Happy Birthday I♥Faces! In honor of their one year anniversary, they’re having a “best face” contest this week, and I really can’t participate in a best face contest without including Dmitri because, well, that’s just the kind of adoring mom that I am! I took this in December, on Christmas Eve in fact, just after the cookie eating had taken place(as you can tell by the sprinkles on his lips).
Click on the logo below to see the rest of this week’s entries!
Okay, we know the drill right? It’s Friday again!
So this is the original:
And this is my fix:
I changed the colors a bit and removed the lens flare spots. Then I changed the lighting slightly(deepening shadows and enhancing the candle flame) so that the focus was on that.
Program: CS4
Resources: Noise Ninja, The Gallery Collection textures, The Pioneer Woman “Seventies” action
Check out the other entries this week at I ♥ Faces:
I Heart Faces challenge this week is “outtakes” and I gotta say, one of my favorite thing about photographing children is all of the funny shots in BETWEEN the “real” shots. Kids are so unfailingly candid all the time, and when I go through my films after taking all of the photos, I often laugh out loud to myself at the expressions.
1. Erin & Ava: After a portrait studio fiasco the year before my dear friend Erin had one plea last year “PLEASE get a photo of Ava smiling for our Christmas cards!!!” and I happily obliged of course…. this wasn’t exactly what E had in mind, though you can’t deny the joy on little Ava’s face!
2. Lucas the Elf: Lucas was an incredibly well behaved little guy, whose only complaint was that my flash was too bright. Every time it went off he made this adorable face that made me laugh out loud at every other photo in his films.
3. Tasha & Brady: I love parents who can play with their kids. Photo shoots don’t have to be all business and no fun. Yes, the overly goofy shots are probably not the ultimate outcome that parents who hire me are looking for when they ask for a posed studio session… but nobody wants stone faced kids smiling through locked teeth either. Tasha’s ability to join in Brady’s fun and be a kid herself loosened him up and made him feel comfortable with me and my camera, and before you knew it we had dozens of great photos of him with sincere smiles.
4. Ryan: is quite probably one of my favorite children ever… besides my own of course. His quiet personality is at first very gentle, once he’s warmed up though he transforms into a ball of energy and excitement. “Look at me and smile Ryan!” I said, he in turn screamed silly words at my flash unit and jumped in a circle.
5. Jacob in the Middle: There’s something special about getting younger and older children together for a photo. These siblings provided me with an incredibly fun shoot, the two older ones being a little “too cool” and little Jacob who provided comic relief throughout the hour. “Go lay down by sister!” said his mom, and Jacob happily obliged.
To see more hilarious outtakes check out the other entries on I Heart Faces this week by clicking below.
We had a good holiday week with family, fueled primarily by cookies and chocolate. My parents are in town through the beginning of next week, and Dmitri really enjoys the shameless spoiling. Here are a couple of photos from our Christmas Eve.
We’re busily prepping for the holidays over here. When I was a kid my favorite tradition was making sugar cookies. Turns out, our 4 year old Dmitri is a big fan of cookie making also(okay, seriously though, who doesn’t love cookies??), don’t let his serious face fool you, he was having more fun with that rolling pin than he probably will have with his presents on Friday. An afternoon of focused “play time” where the end result is cookies? There isn’t a whole lot that is better than that.
We got our tree a little late this year. After many years of use our fake tree was looking pretty rough last year so this year we got a real one. We will probably never go back, I forgot how wonderful real ones look & smell. This was also the first year that we put glass ornaments on the tree, which I have missed… the plastic ones just aren’t the same.
Our newest tradition is the advent “calendar” that I put together an arranged in the shape of a Christmas tree. Each day there is a new bag to open featuring a game, activity, or treat. The excitement that it has created around here was well worth the several hours it took to glue on all of the numbers and decorations. Phew!
I guess our traditions are pretty traditional, though I imaging we’ll start coming up with more of our own as our young little family continues along. Whatever you celebrate, whatever your traditions are, I hope you and yours have a happy holiday season and that the coming year brings new and exciting adventures!
This is a photo of my son’s first goldfish, whom he named “Cookie”(subsequent goldfish were named “No”, “Up”, and “Fluffy”). Cookie was a pretty vain fish, he’d swim back and forth watching his reflection all the time.
For more great pet & animal photos, go check out the I ♥ Faces blog:
The Wisconsin(and much of the country) got hit with a huge snow storm this week, Madison got a huge portion of the storm(which was classified as a blizzard in our area). I love snow, but even more than that I love snow days, so I was very happy to see the city all but shut down on Wednesday. We spent the day at home playing games and eating goodies in our pajamas, as it should be.
Anyway, here are some snaps of our nearly 17″ snowfall taken over the last two days.
Before:
After:
For this fix I zoomed in on the action and decided it would pop with some color and texture. So that’s where I went with it.
And then I went in the opposite direction and made it black and white. Making up my mind is clearly not a strength!
Program: Photoshop CS4
Resources: TRA (Boutwell Magic Glasses & Cinnamon Toast), Kaleidoscope Gallery Collection Textures(Dirty Watercolor)
Click the logo below to go check out the other great fixes this week!
When I saw the theme for this week’s I ♥ Faces challenge I immediately knew which photo I was going to enter. I took this photo of my son, Dmitri, the day after his first “sleepover”. He and his little friend stayed up until 11 o’clock at night giggling at each other, and then woke up at 4 the next morning ready to play again! That afternoon after his friend had gone home I looked up from doing housework and realized that he’d fallen asleep on my bed with the skylight lighting his face perfectly.
For more great Sweet Dreams photos, go check out the I ♥ Faces blog:
