Upping the aperture...

Canon 400D 50mm @ 2.8 1/250 ISO 200

Today's "Pout" picture cropped

The perfect pout...

No doubt about it, Teagan has the pout perfected!

Canon 400D 50mm @ 1.8 1/320 ISO 200

Snuggling with Grandpa...

Beautiful newborn!

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/60 ISO 400 Natural Lighting (hospital lights - yuck! and positioned next to window)

Canon 400D 50mm @ 1.8 1/60 ISO 400 Natural Lighting (hospital lights - yuck! and positioned next to window)

I visited a friend in the hospital this past weekend and took some pictures of her precious little boy. He's a beautiful newborn and is so peaceful! I'm going to be taking some more formal shots of him when they come visit and I'd love some tips on newborn shots! What do you like? I ordered some newborn angel wings so I'll have those and I'd like to get some with this little guy and his older brother too (his brother is 18 months). I'll be using natural light...

Finally a portrait of my son!

Canon 400D 28mm @ 4.5 1/80 ISO 800 defog and levels in PS

One of the only times I could get my son to sit on the backdrop. Normally he's moving too fast to slow down for even a few minutes. Natural light here. I upped the ISO on this one to get the aperture stopped down enough. Too much noise? I have to download noiseware one of these days. I'm not seeing any improvement in the reduction of noise just using PS alone. Is it distracting to have him looking off the picture? CC welcome!

Focusing on Focus...

I've been getting a little frustrated lately at how hard it is to get a good sharp focus in low light (which is mostly what I shoot in.) I would make sure the focal point was on the eye, snap the shot and was getting disappointed at how many OOF shots I had (even at fast SS). Some keepers, but many cute unuseable shots because of slightly OOF eyes in my close-ups. But it made me determined to grow. I found back button focusing (aka BBF) and spent about 3 hours reading about focus the other night. I told you I was determined. So I figured it out and LOVE it! That combined with a better awareness of focal points (I'm now manually choosing them in low light to make sure I get the shot every time) and I'm getting SO many more keepers! LOVE this! It's a joy to download my pictures again! Here's a few examples of shots that would have been slightly OOF before... If anyone wants to see 100% crops (and if I can figure out how to do it) I'll post them too... As always, CC welcomed with open arms! :) I hope these look as sharp uploaded to the web as they do on my screen!


(Ok, so this one wouldn' have been seriously OOF because it was in sun light - but I love how sharp it is!! You can see every one of her ultra-light red eyelashes!) I did nothing to these shots except a tiny bit of defog in PS.

The Birthday Party...

You knew I would have to post pics from the party last night right? :) Here they are! Not the most technically perfect pictures ever, but I like them. CC welcome as always!! I know the lighting here isn't the best. I told my husband that the house we build will have to be lit up like times square! He rolled his eyes and mentioned how expensive the electric bill would be! LOL!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TEAGAN & MEGHAN!

Our girls turn 1 today and in honor of them I wanted to post some more of their birthday pictures. A few of you wanted to see pictures from the shoot with cake all over. So here you go! If you have tips about how to shoot with white backgrounds and a speedlite I'd be thrilled to hear it!

Natural Light take 2...

So I took some of the CC from the morning and redid the shot. What do you think?

Working with Natural Light...

Canon 400D 28mm @ 1.8 1/60 ISO 200

Keeping Vigil...

Just like Daddy

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/80 ISO 1600

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/40 ISO 1600

Love those baby blues...

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/100 ISO 200 with PP in PS

The Lonely Swing...

Canon 400D Sigma 70-300mm @ f5.6 1/500 ISO200

A different perspective

Sammie Dog the great hunter...

My take on a storyboard...

So this is my first attempt at a storyboard. It's coming up blurry on my screen, but it's really not. I wish I had gotten some of their feet, hands, etc for the center pictures, but live and learn right? :) I love these photos though. I used another Jinky action - Color Whisper - to bring out their eyes and their bright pink shirts. I'm going to use them for their first birthday pictures. I love how much energy they have!

New Life

Canon 400D 28mm 1.8 @ 1/20 ISO 1600 with vingetting & Jinky's Action "Dark BW"

Urban Intensity...

After:

Jinky's action "Urban Intensity"

Before:

Playing with actions...

Photo with Jinky's actions applied (New color 3 then Peach Vintage & Crack)

This was a photo I posted a little bit ago. It was one that I loved, but it just seemed to be missing that pop! This morning I purchased Jinky's 52 Action Set and I love them! I think it really gives this photo some life. Like they are little ballerinas under the hot lights of the stage! This is one of those pictures that the internet doesn't do justice to, so please click on it to view it bigger!

Like looking in a mirror...

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/200 ISO 200

Teyas Eye Pop

Both images Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ f4 1/200 ISO 200 & Speedlite 430EX

Let it snow!

Canon 400D w/ Sigma 70-300mm @ 300mm f5.6 1/400 ISO 200

We've got SNOW!!

Canon 400D Sigma 70-300mm @ 149mm f4.5 1/500 ISO 200

Canon 400D Sigma 70-300mm @ 168mm f5 1/400 ISO 200

Just a cute picture...

How would you crop this?

So here's the original picture...

And here's how I cropped it...

The Orton technique

Canon 400D 50mm 1.4 @ 1/25 ISO 1600