Life As I Know It

Santa Ryan

For his work's white elephant gift exchange, Ryan had me take a "festive" portrait and put it in a nice silver frame.  I mean who wouldn't want a lovely portrait of their boss sitting on their desk everyday? (of course, for the lucky one who ends up with his joyful framed portrait, he does give a nice gift card condolence gift. Ha ha.)

Altering life by holding it still.

Eek! Amost another whole month has blown by since I have ventured into my little corner of the internet and shared some words, thoughts, etc here.  As you can imagine, I am a bit behind.  If you are reading this on my actual page, you will notice that I am still stuck in Halloween mode.  (Thankfully if you stop by our home, we have managed to get into Christmas mode - although it is still a work in progress)

Been burning the candles at both ends these days.  Been shooting a lot (pix) and when I haven't been shooting, I have been at my computer.  And when I am not doing either of those, I am super mom taxi extraordinaire and when I am not a taxi, I am trying to enjoy any moments with my family that I can get.  

Because I need to be winding down this post (I need to be working on a couple of storyboards right now),  I will just leave you with a few cool pictures from things I've worked on.

First off (this is for Grandma Jenkins), this is my other inlaw's family . . .

 

Next up, is a before and after.  This is from one of my first few sessions back in October.  This was shot at Floyd Lamb State Park.  The grassy hill was not looking too great but I figured I would try for the shot anyway and resolve my grass issues in post-processing.

Here is the before straight out of camera shot:

The grass was dead and dug up everywhere.  Plus because my subjects were backlit, it is a little hazy and you can't see them all that well.

Here is the after:

I fixed the grass.  I also played with the toning and saturation.  A friend of mine pointed out that the sun peeking around the house structure looks like an angel.  I think that makes me love this image even more. 

Next up, is a sneak peek of a family session.  I shot two families at the two locations shown here.  It is not an easy location to shoot due to the light.  I shot one session in the late afternoon.  The issue with that is that since the sun is behind me, I cast a long shadow into the shot.  The only way to avoid that is to stand in the middle of the road, but there is a lot of traffic and cars drive into your shot, plus you could get ran over.  The other issue is that since the building sits on the corner of an intersection, there is a huge ugly traffic light fixture in the way. Let's just say I planked it with my legs hanging slightly into the road.  Also, your clients are looking directly into the sun.  The building does not look as cool without the light to reflect.  Now in the morning, you can shoot the building way way early  before the sun gets too high, but very few clients are willing to do a 7am session. Also, you have to stay on the sidewalk. We shot this is at 9am. 

and lastly, a cool creative shot that I talked my clients into.  This is inspired by a famous album cover.

Hope you are all having a Happy Holidays!