I’m still here…

Just wanted to stop in a say “Hi!” and let you all know that I am, in fact, still here.

When we got orders last week [which you can read about here, if you haven’t already] everything seemed to get a wee-bit crazy. I have tons and tons of photos sitting on my computer just waiting to be edited and no time or energy most days to edit them. I’m working on the last few dozen photos from that big Coast Guard Retirement Ceremony that I shot in early October right now, and then I am hoping to have some shots to get back to my challenges. None of the ones from the ceremony or the reception are really worthy of sharing here. They are good, but not as creative as I wanted them because the gentleman I shot for didn’t want them like that. He was pretty specific on just wanting candids and lone standing family group shots. So, that’s what he got. :-)

I hope you all will bear with me just a few more days till I get caught up. Little Man’s birthday is tomorrow and then Halloween this weekend and I have an Engagement shoot on Sunday. Then hopefully, next week, everything will be back on schedule and you’ll start seeing some new photos again. Hope you are all having a phenomenal week!!

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An uh-oh from the Pumpkin Patch

I knew right when I saw this photo that if I could manage to fix it, that it would be my Before & After/Touch Up Tuesday for this week! I took Little Man to the Pumpkin patch last week to pick out a pumpkin to carve {which, we have still yet to do} and to take some more birthday pictures. When I got there, he jumped out of the car immediately and started doing all sorts of cute things. I started snapping photos right away and failed to double check my White Balance. When I stopped and looked at the first 5 shots I had taken, I realized that my WB was set to Tungsten Light instead of Auto or Daylight. So this was what I got:

 
BUT…I managed to save it. First I adjusted the layers to brighten it a bit. Then I ran The Pioneer Woman’s “Warmer” action 3 times. I then ran Pioneer Woman’s “Boost” action to brighten the colors. After that I bumped up the contrast and the brightness a tiny bit, ran PW “Define & Sharpen,” the Warming Action again and erased it from his eyes. I wanted to warm up everything around him, but I like to keep as much blue in his eyes as possible. The warming actions were pulling out more hazel. Because I had boosted up the colors and fixed the levels so much, there was a lot of noise in the green bushes behind Little Man. To fix this, I went in and ran the “Reduce Color Noise” filter in PSE 8. And voila! This is what I got:

 
Another exciting salvage for me! I love fixing my “whoops” photos! It’s so much fun taking something that should technically be considered ruined and turning it into something useable and beautiful!

This week, Faith over at Simplicity’s theme is Straight out of Camera. I don’t generally enjoy sharing SOOC shots because I really don’t enjoy people critiquing my imperfect skills when it comes to shooting in manual because I like to spruce my photos up…brighten the color, up the contrast…BUT since that’s the theme this week, I’ll share one {can you tell I’m grumbling?}

Happy Tuesday, everyone!

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Fall, Fall, Fall!!

My absolute FAVORITE season! The leaves, the colors, the temperature change, football, holidays…what’s not to love about Fall?! Here are some of my absolute favorite new photos…including a link up for The Paper Mama’s Fall Photo Challenge:

 

And my Photo Challenge Entry:

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Lock Down

I took this photo over near my parents house at an old run-down one room barn. I immediately knew what feel I was going for and was excited to get home and edit it. The warmth provided by the direct sunlight made for some pretty intense shadows, which I tried to embrace rather than hide from. :-) I was pretty pleased with the way it turned out…topped it off with 3 Kim Klaussen Textures and voila! Enjoy!

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Another Birthday Portrait Preview

I’m still way behind on my editing…but I wanted to share another sweet birthday picture preview with you guys today for Before & After! The SOOC shot was really blown out and over-exposed. The sun was freakishly bright on this particular afternoon and Little Man was running around way too much for me to accurately keep my settings in check. Thank goodness for Editing Software…I was able to salvage this one.

 
I ran a few actions on this one to get the color like I wanted it: First, Pioneer Woman’s Boost action, followed by Coffee Shops Perfect Portrait. I lowered the opacity on the Vignette  when I ran perfect portrait. I then ran a Warming Filter and lowered that opacity to 25%. I wanted to add some color to his face, but not so much that he looked orange. Then I lowered the brightness and the contrast a bit until I got the look that I was going for-enough brightness to not distort the coloring, but not so much that he looked totally washed out. And last, I ran Pioneer Woman’s Define & Sharpen. And voila!

Make sure you head over to Monica’s to link your own Before & After photos and to check out some other absolutely amazing photographers and their work! Happy Thursday!

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Lovely Black and White

This is an oldie, but goodie. One of my favorites and one of the ones I’ve chosen to enter in the Local Photo Contest in a few weeks.

I took this photo when I first got started back in late April/early May. It’s one of my absolute favorites. I  have a color version, too. And just for the sake of showing it off, I shall now present it to you as my link up for Lovely Photo Wednesday with Aspire.

Hope you guys have a GREAT day!

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Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday

I’m back, folks. I feel like I have been gone forever because I haven’t A) Posted a lot in the past week; and B) Visited/Commented on your posts this past week. But today, I am here. Be excited. :-) And with me I’ve brought a few photos…

   I’m linking this photo up with Faith @ Simplicity for her Light theme, with Darcy @ My 3 Boybarians for Sweet Shot Tuesday, and with Chelsea over at Paper Heart Camera for Touch Up Tuesday. Check these ladies out and Enjoy your Tuesday!!

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Macro Friday

I already posted a photo similar to this for Macro Friday…but in lieu of my memory card messing up and losing all of my photos, I have to improvise and shoot something…so here ya’ go.   :-)

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Before & After

I took Little Man to the park out by my parents house this weekend and started attempting to get some of his two year portraits. The leaves were falling, the weather was cool and I managed to snag a few beautiful candids! I’m really excited with how they turned out. I haven’t made it very far into my editing yet, but this is one of my favorites so far:

 
The warmth from the sunlight really made this photo seem like fall to me. Not sure why, but I loved the brightness, the warm colors and the sunshine so much. This is one of my absolute favorite photos of Little Man to date. The excitement that he is obviously feeling just makes me smile. I shot this using a Canon Rebel Xsi and a 50 mm lens. I edited in Photoshop Elements 8. Next week I promise I’ll write down the steps to how I edit so you guys can try it on your photos. :-) Head over to Monica’s for more before and after shots!

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The Challenges I am behind on…

I’m behind. I can’t help it. I’m swamped right now and I’m afraid that it’s only going to get worse when we get our orders and I start trying to track us down somewhere to live. Not to mention, my photos that I shot for all of the challenges that I knew about this week, are gone thanks to a jacked up memory card. ::Hiss:: But no matter, here are the ones that I’ve been able to round up.

A little preview of the Two-Year portraits I took of little man this weekend…many more to come.

Ok. Maybe that’s all…for now at least. Have a great day!

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When a door closes…

Another one is opened.

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Macro Friday

I’m really bummed out this morning. I have been insanely busy this week potty training and running errands. I’ve been shooting photos and snapping my heart away all week long, keeping up with my Project 365. I had intentions of editing my heart out today. Last night I went to upload all of my photos and they were gone. Don’t know how, don’t know why, but gone. Everything I shot this week…I was heartbroken. Never had that happen. Thank GOD there weren’t any session photos on there. So, instead today I’m linking up another shot, an older shot, for Macro Friday…

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