Spring 2010 Girly Photo Session

Jessica and Taylor's First Baby Together!

Baby Kay - Happy 1st Birthday!

Beautiful Baby Girl

The Retro Vintage Holiday Collection~ Blessings

The Retro Vintage Holiday Collection

A girly session of friends & sisters. "Sisters are different flowers from the same garden"

Impromtu Photos at Thanks giving ~ My niece

Some photos convert really well into BW images. I love color, and she is so beautiful and her hair is very colorful, but I liked the way the BW conversion softened her look. To me she is a very soft, sweet young girl, but as a teenager she sees herself differently. These photos are what I see. I see her softness and vulnerability.

My BW process. All of these photos are "scenic landscape". So instead of going with the traditional "portrait" look, I changed it to scenic landscape to get the lighter skin, to create that more soft angelic look. I then went to "Enhance".. "Color Variations" and increased RED & Decreased Blue. I would play around until I liked my result. I prefer this method to converting to sepia because I feel it give me more control and a brighter finish. I am curious to get the free actions on Coffeeshop.com to see if I get the same or better result by pressing just 1 key. I will do that once I upgrade to PSE 8.

Our First Snow ~ Original & Enhanced Images

THE ENHANCED IMAGE: THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: THE ENHANCED IMAGE: THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: THE ENHANCED IMAGE: THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: THE ENHANCED IMAGE: THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: THE ENHANCED IMAGE: THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: I feel like I am baring my soul by posting original images along with the enhanced version. I wanted to share the editing process with my readers/clients that may be interested in the process of making a good picture great. It is also a great learning tool for me to see them side by side. I can determine if I brightened it too much or added too much red tone. I think I may have, but when I look at the photo by itself, I love it, so I can't decide. I will come back to it with fresh eyes next week, and redo the original images to my satisfaction. I use Photo Shop Elements and I shoot with a Canon Rebel XS with a 50mm 1.8 lens. So if you know anything about photography you know that I am not using the fancy stuff to create my photography. Here are some of the steps I may take to improve my images. MY DIGITAL DARKROOM:Work Flow ~ Color Variations: Increase Red: Decrease Blue: Lighten ~ Color Curves or Levels (ctr-C) ~ Unsharp Image (100 to 200), (3), (5 to 12) ~ Color for skin tone * These are my main functions. I sometimes use almost all of them and other times may just do unsharp image or Color Curves to brighten the mid tones. I try and keep it simple so my image looks it's best, and not too over processed. On overcast days images tend to have a cool tone and I like the way my photos look when I decrease the blue. Warming up my images brings out the eyes and highlights the hair and skin making them look radiant! Each image takes 10 sec to 2 min to edit. Then I usually feel inspired and do BW versions and Sepia and opacity versions. I just can't help myself. All of my clients get ALL VERSIONS of an image they choose. So if they choose an image with different color variations, BW, sepia and so on, they will benefit by getting all of them. So they choose their 50 images and they may end up with 100. That's a pretty great deal!

A Snowy Photo Shoot & A Note On Post Editing

Here are some photos of my daughter enjoying a rare snow. These are a good example of the subtleties of post editing. Post editing is the digital darkroom, I apply all the same effects that I would in a darkroom. When photographing in the shade images typically have a blue color tone. I prefer warm tones so I play with the color variations to warm them up. It is truly amazing how tones impact an image! I love the high key effect I get in snow, it is really peaceful. It takes me anywhere from 10 sec to 2 minutes to edit an image. It depends how detailed I get. When photographing a child's skin I rarely retouch since children are usually flawless. I will post more photos, along with the originals so you can see what goes into the post editing process. THE ORIGINAL IMAGE: Notice how blue/cool it is. THE ENHANCED IMAGE: So much warmer! Look at those blonde highlights! THE ORIGINAL: Great Exposure, but a little cool and flat since it is in the shade. This image is cropped to bring it closer. I decreased the blue tone and did not add red. So you can see that it is warmer then the original, but not as warm as the image above. The image above I added red & decreased the blue. THE ORIGINAL: I love the original too!

New Years Photo Shoot 2010: Matt, Alyissa, Milo & Misha

Thanksgiving: Stellwags Farm NJ

I love this photo! I am so attracted to the starkness of it. I converted it to BW and used the scenic landscape option to give it a softer brighter look void of any major shadows. So sweet!

Below are just a few photos from the 2 day Thanksgiving photo shoot on Stellwags Farm in Delran New Jersey. I will be posting a few more images so all families are represented.

Thanks Giving Photo Shoot Day 1

The Monzo sisters are so funny and loving toward each other! They were constantly moving and that can be a challenging trying to get pictures in focus. But I managed to capture there pure joy. I think they were so excited to wear their matching dresses & wear flowers in their hair. It was a special day and the younger sister was bursting with energy and enthusiasm!

Carmen and her kids were wonderful. It was a very cold and windy day and everyone was freezing. Even in the freezing cold they were happy to smile pretty. Especially her older son who happened to bring his guitar along. I loved that he happened to have it in the car! He looks like a rock star!

These photo shoots concluded a total of 4 that I have done as a "professional photographer. The next day I would have 5 more photo shoots. And one of them was made up 3 families! That was great practice. And great fun!