A Sweet Autumn Family {Lexington, Ky Family Photographer}
Posted on November 7, 2011
I love this time of the year.
Wait. Let me rephrase that.
I love to shoot this time of the year. I detest cold weather. But at least the dying leaves make for very pretty colors. And when I ever get the opportunity to shoot during this time, I love to shoot at Henry Clay Estate (or Ashland).
That is where I shot a little over a week ago, when I was able to shoot the Doolin Family. Ashley, Chris and Alaina. The colors were amazing, which lent itself to beautiful backgrounds, and it was great that it wasn’t really that cold. So we set up some props, let Alaina run around and play and had a blast (oh- and we got some great pictures from it!)
Here are some of my favorites from the shoot.
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Sweet girls (and amazing models too!) {Lexington, Ky Children Photographer}
Posted on October 6, 2011
So yesterday (yes, I said yesterday) I shot these two amazing girls: Mayah and Cera. Both girls are beautiful in their different but special way.
Mayah (the one with the long hair) has aspirations to be a model and by how she conducted herself yesterday at the shoot, she has seriously got the stuff. She could move her body exactly how I wanted and all I needed to do was ask her to move her face one way and she could do it just the way I was envisioning. And that bone structure? To DIE for! She is so beautiful because she conducts herself way more mature than her young nine years.
Cera is the kind of girl you gravitate towards in a room. Her personality is so wonderful. Sometimes when I shoot someone, I have to work to get them to laugh and crack a smile. Not this girl! I had to work to keep her personality in check! This girl has such a positive and upbeat personality and has got the brightest and most contagious smile the world has seen. She is so beautiful because her smile is irresistible and her personality lights up the room.
I could see Mayah being the fashion model and Cera being the actress… so watch out for these two… in about 15 years they are going to be famous.
I am so glad I got to photograph them… we went to Keeneland and between the wonderful weather and scenery and the amazing clothes their mom picked out for them to wear during our shoot, my job was super easy. That’s why I was able to shoot them yesterday and edit all their pictures today, because the pictures were almost perfect to begin with. I mostly just had to edit the white balance and call it a day.
And I can’t wait to shoot these girls again! (Hint, Hint, Wilma!)
So without any more delay, here are my favorites (and yes, there are a lot of favorites for me):
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Baby Roman and my first newborn shoot {Lexington, Ky Newborn Photographer}
Posted on October 3, 2011
So after shooting the birth of baby Roman, I decided to do my first newborn shoot. I had previously done a baby shoot, but that was restricted to some easy stuff. This time I had a lot of grand ideas of cute newborn ideas I wanted to try with a baby that was actually a newborn.
Unfortunately I’ve learned rather quickly that babies have their own ideas and they typically don’t involve the “sack of potatoes” photograph or being put in really weird positions for three hours.
Newborn photography is really hard. And I’m not complaining because I absolutely love babies and baby Roman is super cute. I’m only sharing so other aspiring photographers will understand that it is normal to feel frustrated during a newborn shoot. The photographers on the internet who do newborn photography on a regular basis honestly make it look so easy but in reality it takes lots of practices, and a new set of skills separate from shooting other types of portraits.
Nevertheless, I did have fun and although almost none of my original ideas came to fruition during the shoot, we were able to capture some super cute photos of Roman. And his expression (because he was awake almost the whole time) was picture perfect.
So I am going to share with you my favorites from the shoot, but before I do, if any photographer is looking for tips on great newborn shoots, I have to just say there are no tips I can share but trail and error and practice, practice, practice.
I loved this idea I found on the internet for a baby announcement.
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Beautiful Mama {Lexington, Ky Maternity Photographer}
Posted on September 7, 2011
So I did a maternity session in August that because of so much happening lately, I haven’t been able to finish editing. I gave you guys a sneak peek two posts ago when I showed you my editing process, and since then you (nor the family I shot) were able to see any others (and they have been pretty anxious).
The mom-to-be was really hoping I would get her pictures edited before her little girl arrived. And just tonight she went to the hospital (false alarm though)!
I usually only share about half of my images with a photo shoot, but after finally finishing this one, I love almost all of them so much I wanted to share them all, so I shared most of them.
I had a lot of fun with this photo shoot, especially shooting the ones in the field, because Crystal wanted to do some high fashion ones and not just the typical maternity shoots, so we got to play around with something I would imagine seeing in a maternity clothing catalog as opposed to a family portrait. These ones came out great!
Also, Crystal and her husband-to-be Mark recently bought a new house, so we went there and did a family portrait session in the front lawn. These came out great as well.
Hope you like them.
And for my “Hot Mama” Crystal, play this song while you check out these photographs!
I played around with some more creative ideas with these next two:
Family Portrait:
I Love this one:
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Baby Roman {Lexington, Ky Birth Photographer}
Posted on September 2, 2011
I want to start off by apologizing for not updating my blog or my Facebook page much recently. I started classes back at The University of Kentucky and started a part-time job on the same day. I’m kind of in transition with things so I had to take a brief break from editing and uploading and sharing. But I have many great photo shoots coming up, including the newborn shoot with baby Roman, who you will get to see in the post and I still have one photo shoot I haven’t edited all the way yet (the maternity shoot with Crystal).
I have already shot two births and both were Cesarean sections, but this time with Andrea and the arrival of baby Roman, she and her husband, Chase, were determined to have their baby by the good ol’ fashion way. I was glad they were determined because it meant I got to experience my first live birth.
And boy (no pun intended) was it something!
I stood mostly behind Andrea and her family while she was delivering so as to capture the moments from the best angle for the modest images Andrea wanted. So I kind of missed the gross stuff (which I was happy to oblige by) but I didn’t miss everything.
For those of you who haven’t witnessed a birth first hand, I can tell you… there is a lot of fluids and a lot of blood, before the baby even came. I know Andrea won’t mind me saying this, but at one point it honestly looked like someone was holding a super soaker underneath Andrea and squirting it up to the ceiling. It was almost comical and unreal, like a cartoon version of a birth.
But although it sounds like I’m complaining, I L-O-V-E-D every minute of it. The excitement, the frenzy, the squirting (just kidding, Andrea) and the tears! I loved it and I want to do this over and over and over again. It was amazing.
So I won’t delay this any further and go ahead and share my favorites from that day with you.
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My editing process & a sneak peek {Lexington, Ky Maternity Photographer}
Posted on August 17, 2011
The hardest part (well, once you learn how to work that darn camera) is figuring out the editing process. I have been working with Photoshop for over two years and am still figuring out my own personal editing style (Who am I kidding? It will always evolve) and I continue to learn new ways to do things.
I have also started to back light my subjects, instead of the old “rule” of always having your subject facing the sun/light source. I can’t resist back lighting when I have the light streaming through the trees behind the subject. It creates amazing bokah and colors when the light filters through the leaves. But this creates problems because it means the subject might not be as well lit as you like (thank goodness for Camera Raw).
This stuff can be fixed if you know how to, and I’m going to show you – as well as give you a look into my editing process.
I start out with a raw image without any processing. Usually my images are a lot darker than my usual bright and airy style.
This is the image I started with of my most recent shoot, a maternity shoot with a lovely and beautiful friend.
As you can see, it is pretty dark and the white balance is off some.
My first step is to open my image in camera raw. I use this as my basic editing step to fix white balance and exposure before going on to other, more experimental editing steps (i.e. actions).
After adjusting some settings in Camera Raw the image is already greatly improved, and all I fixed was the white balance by warming it up and the exposure by upping it by 1.00.
Now that I have a nice base image that is properly lighted, I can start figuring out the colors and tones I want. I do this in Photoshop.
My second step was to brighten the image and create a more airy tone. I love using the Florabella action Timeless in the Luxe II action set. This action does amazing things to that light streaming through the leaves I talked about earlier, and I love the creamy tone that this action creates on skin.
I adjust the settings to my liking. The best advice I can give for figuring out how to adjust layers is to click the eye on and off on the left of the layers one at a time to see their effect on the image. Then you can see if you like the effect and if it needs tuning up or down by adjusting the opacity of the layer.
Once I am happy with my main action I flatten the image and move on to the more basic actions I use as top coats on every image.
In the image above I applied a sharpening action.
And here I applied a edged vignette action. I prefer something more defined like an edged vignette rather than a softer round vignette. That’s just my personal preference. There is not right or wrong choice when using actions.
My next step for most of my close-up portrait shots is to open it in the wonderful (and wonderfully inexpensive) program Portrait Professional.
This program is a great time-saver for all the portrait needs, including skin smoothing and eye brightening.
This is what it looked like after I finished using this program.
And this is the finished product. Roll your mouse over the photo to see what it looked like before editing! (BTW- this one little mouse over trick took 45 minutes to figure out how to code.)
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August 17, 2011 at 6:20 pm -
i can’t wait to see the rest! even Mark is anxious! we keep checking! hurry woman
love this one! -
Conner {Lexington, Ky Child Photography
Posted on August 3, 2011
Yesterday I shared with you my favorites from the first half of my recent shoot. Today I am going to share my favorites from the second half, the one I did with Ackerley’s big brother Conner.
For Conner, we had kind of a country boy theme, but he wasn’t really having much of the country. He was hot, sweaty and getting attacked by bugs and weeds. In the end he was able to get rewarded for all his hard work by playing in the water.
These were hard to choose, because there were so many cute ones.
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My first newborn shoot with Baby Ackerley {Lexington, Ky Newborn Photographer}
Posted on August 3, 2011
I was able to do my first newborn shoot yesterday with baby Ackerley. Even though most newborn shoots are done in the first two weeks (Ackerley was eight weeks) I was still able to do a lot of the stuff I’ve been saving up to try.
After shooting baby Ackerley, I also got to shoot his almost-five-year-old brother Conner. I have shoot Conner several times (he’s my cousin’s son) so you might recognize him from the photographs on my website and in the first post from this blog.
I have finished editing the newborn pictures so I thought I would share my favorites with you until I finish editing the ones of Conner. (I’ll share those later!)
These are my favorites from the shoot with Ackerley, but I didn’t get to try everything I wanted with a newborn, so I can’t wait till I get another one (wink-wink expecting moms).
“Yo ho, Yo ho. It’s a pirate’s life for me.”
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A sweet baby shower treat {Lexington, Ky Photographer}
Posted on July 24, 2011
My friend had her baby shower this past Saturday and I wanted to give her a sweet special gift. I found these cute “onesie cupcakes” on Craftgawker and I figured while I’m not really that crafty, this was something easy to do.
Here is the process:
You can see the instructions here.
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Arrival of Laila Lee {Lexington, Ky Birth Photographer}
Posted on July 22, 2011
So I think I have found my niche and passion in photography.
I was recently able to shoot my second birth when Kristen went into labor. (Kristen is the one who I shot her maternity a couple of weeks ago.)
She had an emergency c-section, so I have yet to experience the actual birth, but still the whole experience is so rewarding for me. I love being able to witness such an amazing event and provide this service so the parents have something to show the little ones when they are all grown up.
I’m hoping to be able to grow this specialty so I can do this full time. I would love to do nothing but births for the rest of my life (well maybe some stylized shoots now and then.)
Here is my favorites from the birth of Laila Lee! (Love the name, BTW)
Oh and because you made it to the very end of the blog post you get a special treat! A slideshow!
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these are great! love them!