2010~365-327 *Portrait - DW Senior Portraits

Our pastor's wife asked me to take her son's senior portraits and I agreed. (What was I thinking?) I made lots of mistakes with lighting and trees coming out of his head! She didn't ask for many shots so I didn't take that many. I hope I got some she could use. At the end of the day, I just don't feel comfortable posing people just yet. It's different when it's my own kids. But he's a giant! I can't remember how tall he is but it's something like 6 foot, 9 inches which is way taller than me at 5 foot, 2 inches.

My favorite shot

Family portraits

While the kids were already dressed for the cousin portraits, I thought we would try to take some family ones as well. Thanks to Aunt Lauren for taking the pictures, because my remote wouldn't work.

Cousin portraits

While we were all in Monroe together, I wanted to try to take some portraits of the Lindsays cousins. It's going to be rare that we're all there together. And of course with me loving a theme, they were dressed in their patriotic colors because it was Memorial Day.

First I started out with just the girls, because Luke was lollygaggin' inside

I thought these turned out great!

I knew it was going to be hard taking these pictures. 7 kids...7 and under. Paw has had a grandchild born every year since 2003 (Luke-2003, Cameron-2004, Carolyn-2005, Miriam-2006, Levi-2007, Micah-2008, Grace-2009, and one coming soon in 2010). As far as the whole group, you know somebody has to be in a bad mood or uncooperative. The baby did great...it was the oldest who was whining and crying...go figure! So I think the ones where the other ones are looking at Luke and laughing are funny!

My 1st Attempt at Portraits

Update:
Overall I was still concerned that my background wasn’t white enough.  Well today, MCP Actions had a blog post about getting white background using actions. I decided to purchase it and try it out.  It did make the background whiter, but I still have more to learn about the actions and other editing.  His skin still looks a little off to me.  In the first edit, he looked too pale (also probably because it’s winter).  I gave him a tan using MCP Touch of Dark action, but I just realized that I forgot to adjust the opacity so that may have helped some.  It’s definitely a trial and error kind of learning curve.
Original:

I decided a while back that I was going to start taking my own kids birthday portraits.  In the past, I’ve only taken them to Sears, Walmart, and Portrait Innovations anyway.  I figured I could do as well as these places.  I ordered the white backdrop and number prop back in October.  I finally decided to give it a try on Friday since Cameron still has his 4-year old picture hanging up, Miriam just had her birthday, and the other ones have birthdays coming up.  I set up the backdrop outside on a north facing wall of our barn, based on this article.  I knew the color wouldn’t be exactly right.  I used some work lights that Craig had in the barn, but I don’t know how much they helped.  All my flash did was cast shadows on the backdrop.  I probably need to work some more on the editing of it, but this was my first stab at it.

Original

Edited

2nd edit

Photography Sites

• Digital Photography School
• Erin Oswalt Photography
• Erin Oswalt Photography Blog
• Fountainhead Foto
• I ♥ Faces
• Kelly Moore Blog
• Kelly Moore Bag Store
• Kelly Moore Photography
• Life Studios
• MCP Actions
• MCP Actions Blog
• Millie Holloman Photography Blog
• Photofocus
• REM Pics
• Shaun Blue Photography
• Shots from the Heart Blog
• Shots from the Heart Photography
• Smiles & Such Photography
• Uno by Lauren Clark

365 Fieldtrip

Yesterday you would have been scared if you were here...the mamarazzi were out in full force

The first thing we did when we got there was to change our white balance to cloudy or shade
I took this picture of Amy to test my setting...

(but Tracy should have given her a spanking for not wearing her strap around her neck!)

Then we tried getting some bokeh on a flower shot

Before we started shooting too much, Tracy asked a girl off the street to take our picture before we worked up too much of a sweat.

Jenn, Tracy, Kimber, Tammy, Amy & Me

Then we took a picture of this to set custom white balance

Amy was trying to set her custom white balance...I took her picture to test mine

Here we're learning how to use the lines on the bricks to draw your eye to Kimber

Kimber was so nice to volunteer to be our model

Tracy showing us how to use the lines

Next we went to the courtyard to take pictures of this gorgeous setting. Some of us took pictures for our perspective assignment and we also learned how to shoot on manual.

Here Jenn is getting a good perspective in this shot..."Whatever it takes!"

Another reason for the fieldtrip was to take headshots for Tracy...

She taught us some pointers for taking portraits and helped us learn how to look for a person's better side. FYI...she said I didn't have a "bad" side but don't ask my husband or other family members about that though!

I took a couple of pictures of her with her nice Nikon camera that she let me try out

Here's my 2 favorite that I took with her camera

...these were the best ones that I took with mine

We changed locations for the headshots so she was explaining where to stand and what settings to use

Here's Tracy and some of the other mamarazzi taking headshots of either Amy or Jenn

We finally went to dinner at Kona Grill where we tested some of our indoor/low lighting settings.

Is that a little better?

(By the end of the night, I was having camera/lens envy!)

This was the best one I got inside...but it's so grainy because I had to set my ISO so high

Trying different settings

More changes

However if you have an external lens like Tracy it's not so bad using a flash in low lighting because the light gets diffused better and people don't get washed out

After dinner, we went outside to learn to shoot in the dark...

however ironically I had problems finding

to take many of mine...but I just used the flash so I wouldn't miss this sign

I thought it described our fieldtrip perfectly.

It was great time and we learned so much...Thanks Tracy!

I got alot of great shots that I will be posting in my 365 project soon.

Too bad Tracy is moving soon...but I'm thinking another fieldtrip is in order...

Ladies Beach Trip...what do you think?...sounds like a good "teaching" experience to me

I ♥ Faces Beginners - Week 8 Entry - Messy

Another messy Levi shot

Over at I ♥ Faces, they're having a contest for beginner photographers to post their photos.

They consider you a beginner if you can answer yes to 3 or more of these questions...

• Have you recently started taking photos or taking photography more seriously? I have started taking photography more seriously especially after taking the Mommytography class from Tracy at Shots from the Heart
• Do you have NO idea how your camera works yet? Well I know how most things work after reading my manual finally...LOL!
• Are your skills average or below average? I would consider them average
• Are you clueless when we talk about Aperture? I learned about aperture at the class, but I'm still clueless about it...LOL!
• You don't even know what editing means.... let alone have an editing program for your photos? I know what editing means and I have Photoshop, but I don't know how to actually use it...I'm waiting for Tracy's Photoshop class :)
• Are you willing to be open for constructive criticism from the other participants? Yes, help me improve

Click here to see other messy faces from beginner photographers

If you want to see all of the messy faces, click here

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentines Day!

These are cookies that "we" made the other night with my family. It was a collaborative effort.

Sara rolled out the dough and cut out the cookies, Adam was in charge of putting them in and taking them out of the oven, Laura iced them and Eric sprinkled them.

Then how did I help? I supplied the island, oven, cookie sheets, spatula, aluminum foil, wax paper, cookie cutter, rolling pin, sprinkles and dish washing!

Amy, here's your cookies!

365-43

365-42

I wanted to take one of Miriam with her pig tails. Of course, I would have liked her to be smiling (guess I'm traditional in that sense)

but then I did catch this one of her smiling...you just couldn't see the pig tails as well

I love that her hair has some curl to it...except when I have to brush it and she whines ;)

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I couldn't resist this smile...not sure what Emma is doing

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Here's one of those photos that Tracy was talking about...the quality may not be the best but it was just too funny...


the pants that Levi had on today were too big so they kept sliding down...so I looked out the window to see this

Do you see his pants on the ground in the back?

Here's the picture after my sister fixed the colors in Photoshop.

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Pink Assignment



So obviously I didn't think outside the box on this one...but who knows it might be one of those weeks where I get addicted to pink...LOL!

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Obviously I didn't take very many pictures this day if I had to post this picture...but I wanted to post it because how many husbands iron, besides Amy's...Does this show he's a good husband or that I'm a bad wife?