Christmas Family Photos!

Yes, this is my first Christmas season shooting.
I believed I was prepared, but alas the cold temps and bright Florida sun kind of beat me down!
I am trying to step out of my comfort zone of shooting in the "golden hours" but I need more practice.
Shadows and highlights really bug me, I need more work with a reflector.
Here are a few shots from this Christmas season.  I can't wait until I can compare these photos to the ones I shoot next year and the years after that!  Enjoy!

All the world is happy when Santa Claus comes......

All the world is happy when Santa Claus comes......
or NOT!

 

But think about it for a second.  This is some scary stuff for a child.  Mom hands me off to some weird guy covered with white puffy fuzz??  What is this about??  Heck, mom, I cry when you hand me to another pretty mom, yet you want me to sit on this strangers lap and smile?  haha

But some did better then others.  Seems the magic age is between 3 and 6, when they really understand you need to be nice to this weird guy in red, he is the ticket to your toys!

Moms seems to love Santa too?  Us moms realize that sometimes telling "Santa" what we want under that tree is really the only way to avoid getting a steam mop or blender.... We have to tell Santa we like sparkly glittery gems!

Taylor

A few weeks ago, I offered to help shoot some lifestyle photos for a local modeling and talent agency.  Obviously the model is gorgeous, but this was so much fun for me!
First, I love shooting in natural light.
Second, anytime you have a person who understands positions and posing, and doesn't ping all over from one end of a park to another with no regard or care of getting a good shot, is wonderful!

Trip to nowhere....

My husband and I own a home in Jacksonville, NC (Lejeune) and I was able to take a working vacation up to North Carolina to do the walk out inspection and also turn over the home to a new tenant.

I left on a Tuesday morning.  It was a wonderful week!  I had no real plans, no real time frame, only to get to NC by Wednesday at 2pm.  I was lucky to rent the house to the first couple we showed it to and so I had several more free days.

My mother joined me in NC on Wednesday and we relaxed in high style!  The first night we went out to eat and to a movie and returned home to a vacant, empty house with nothing more then a blow up mattress and a few blankets.

The next day we woke up, went to get coffee and then decided to take in some shopping.  We again went out for dinner, but this night decided to stay in a hotel.

I was also able to meet up with an old girlfriend from the area!

My time in Jacksonville was wonderful, but my journey was just beginning.

I left Jacksonville and went to Charleston, SC to visit my step father.  I arrived in Charleston pretty late in the evening.  I was able to enjoy my night at a local tavern type restaurant.

The next morning we went to visit one of my step father liquor stores.  Along the way we stopped at this 1500 year old oak tree.  It was really an amazing tree!  And just think of all this tree has seen and been through, 1500 years of southern history!  wow.

Then off to downtown Charleston for some lunch and a carriage ride through the city.  It was a tiny bit chilly, but overall the weather was nice for the carriage ride, very seasonal.  I learned more about history and culture of the south on this hour long carriage ride then I learned my entire high school years and into my HISTORY MINOR college degree!  yes, it was that interesting...  If you ever get the chance to take a carriage tour in downtown Charleston, DO IT!

Some of the prettiest, most amazing houses and gardens were on the path of the carriage ride.  These photos do nothing for the amazing detail and glamor that was to be found downtown.

After leaving Charleston I was driving through Savannah and heard that was the home of the bench from the movie Forrest Gump.  I pulled over at a McDonalds and took advantage of their free Wi-Fi and learned the bench no longer sits in its location for the movie, they moved the bench into the Savannah History Museum.  The museum was 5 dollars so I decided to go and take a look for myself.

I also took a trolley tour of downtown Savannah, learned many interesting things as well, but it was not as fun or as exciting as the carriage tour of South Carolina.

All in all I had an excellent time, being alone, with my thoughts and myself.  I was so very happy to get home and see my babies and my husband.  It is a trip I will always remember, funny how the best moments are those which nothing really happens.

Bonding back home.

As you know by now my husband returned from his deployment to Afghanistan a few weeks ago.  It has been wonderful to have him back home here, the kids are really loving it!
Isabelle and Rodrigo really bonded this past week and now are pretty much inseparable.
Just wanted to share these special moments that make deployments worth it!

160000 Seconds...

As many of you may know, my husband has been deployed to Afghanistan for the better part of this year.  He is coming home in a few short days and we are busy preparing and planning for his return.  I've only two more nights of being alone! 
I was searching through google for homecoming quotes for military deployments and I found one that really fits for my family "Other things may change us, but we start and end with Family"  I love it.  It really works well with this deployment.
Today we made signs for the airport, this deployment return is a bit different then others in the past, before we'd wait for the entire unit to return, greyhound buses full of them, hundreds of teary eyes and confused faces, standing, waiting.... but this time, he returned to California first and now is coming solo on a regular airplane. 
I also pulled out the banners from deployments past.  I'm used to marine unit homecomings, where fences outside the base are covered with banners, sheets, paper cups, with cute sayings and warm messages.  I don't see that around here, or any other base we've been but the marine based units.
So I'm going to banner my home, my garage, my front door with my creative energy.  Now if only I had a chain link fence to spell out Welcome Home! in red plastic cups, that would make for a perfect reunion....

Enjoy!

Babies! Babies! Babies!

I honestly have fallen in love with all things newborn.  I am setting up an indoor studio, a portable studio, so that I can photograph more of these gifts from God.  At first I was terrified, I've always been afraid of babies, they are so small, so fragile, so tender, but now as I study others work, I am just in love and hope to one day create images that I love so much!  It takes a ton of practice, getting your settings right, the newborn to cooperate, all the wonderful things that can not be controlled, but when these uncontrollable things come together some of the most beautiful images I've ever seen are captured.  I am a member of an online group of other photographers, some of these women are knock your socks off great with babies.  Here is my 3rd baby, she was a preemie, 5 weeks old, yet still only 5lbs.  It was wonderful!  I can't wait to be able to get my lens on another baby in the future!

Fort Pickens...Family Exploration

I have lived in Pensacola now for 2.5 years and I have  yet to visit Fort Pickens.  This past Saturday I grabbed the kids and we went on over the bridge!  We arrived pretty late in the day, around 4pm, so the tours were closed (good because the kids and tours don't mix anyways) so we got our pamphlet and did the self tour.
The fort itself is pretty amazing, you can just feel the history.
I am really happy I got this whim late in the day, because I was able to watch the sun set on top of on of the cliffs of the Fort.  It was gorgeous, bright blues, oranges, grays, yellows, and reds.  If you have yet to visit this area, I would suggest going.  There is an 8 dollar park fee, but the pass is good for 7 days, so I'm hoping to head back over there another evening this week for some more photos.
There were what appeared to be abandoned houses on the grounds that I could not get a close look due to the sun setting.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Newborns. (Cont.)

I've written about Newborns before, you can read that post here.

Yesterday I was given another amazing opportunity to photography the most precious 5 week old baby girl.  :)
Ok, I admit I was scared, but fear is not an emotion in which I wish to ever want to prevent me from doing anything ever again.  So I took my fear and used it.
I actually enjoyed every second of my session yesterday.  From setting up, from planning, all the way to the editing.  Babies are really amazing people.  They can sense your emotions.  I knew she felt my tense emotion in the beginning, so I took a minute, gave myself a mind lashing, and relaxed, seriously the second I pushed fear out of my vocabulary, the baby relaxed.  It could have been just because she was tired, she was full, but I like to believe it is because I opened up my love emotion and embraced her.
I hope to get the chance to shoot another newborn soon.  Doing so really pushed my photoshop knowledge to the max.  Editing skintones is not my thing.  In older children and adults you have a give area, because you are usually shooting more then just their skin, you are shooting the scene, the entire clothed child, only a bit of skin is usually showing, well with newborns most of the photo is going to be skin.  It is going to be the main focus of the photo.
I want to give my babies a dream like appearance, doing so, you get real close to plastic doll looking edits and there is a fine line I'm trying not to cross.
I wanted to share a few SOOC shots and their edits.  (SOOC=Straight Out Of Camera)
So enjoy and if you know anyone with a newborn, let me know!  I need more practice!

Wedding Editing. Say that three times fast!

So I took close to 900 photos at the wedding.  I really think that is probably too few, as others I've spoken with take 2 or 3 thousand per wedding.  I just can not image sorting through and editing all those photos.
I actually have been working very  hard editing a storyboard for this wedding, starting from the getting ready photos, up to the ceremony, dad give away, bride/groom kiss, and into the reception, from the first dance to the end of the night cake service.
I'm on the cake service.  Whew.
And then I've got the other just random shots of the guests to go through.  I've been searching and tweaking how I organize the photos.
So this is my lesson 2. ORGANIZE.  Most likely you can view your photos and put them in order by date/time.  Group like items together.  make a folder.  Then open all RAW files and do a mass edit.  That will save a ton of time, you can go and tweak each additional one later.
Enjoy a few more photos from Melissa and Byran's Big day!