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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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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Macro Friday and Lovely Bokeh

I took several shots of these cute little red flowers this past week [or was it last week?] for my Project 365. I used one photo for yesterdays’ Before and After, but I have another today for Macro Friday with Laura. I was unbelievably surprised with how this turned out. Even SOOC. Of course, me being the junkie that I am, I had to add some fun textures and I’m really pleased with the outcome. I shot this using my Canon Rebel Xsi and my 18-55 Kit Lens.

 

And this week I’m joining in for Shoot and Tell with Natalie. This weeks theme is bokeh, so I went digging through the archives for one of my favorite bokeh photos. I took this in a Garden at a shoot I did back in May.This was before I learned how to use textures, so the only editing that’s been done to this [beside the watermark] is a slight bump in color.

 

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Project 365-Days 1 and 2

As promised, I am linking up my Project 365 Images today! I started this project on Thursday, August 26, 2010 and I will finish it on August 25, 2011. I am super excited to see where this journey takes me. I am seeing things in a whole different perspective…forcing myself to think outside of the box and view the world for what it is. So here are my first days of shots. You can look forward to these every Saturday for the next 52 weeks. :)

 

Day One:

Day Two:

 
This photo was instantly my favorite when I started reviewing my shots from Friday. I took this over at the pond near my parents house. I have seen photos where people were able to capture reflections perfectly, and never understood how they managed it. But I got it today. Never have I ever seen the water so smooth and so calm.It was like glass. It had just rained and the rain undoubtedly stirred the water to the point of murkiness.  And the murkiness added to the hazy effect that was already in the air. It was so beautiful. This is probably one of my favorite shots I have ever captured.

I [naturally] took more than one shot each day, so you can head over to my Flickr and check out the rest of the Day 1 and Day 2 shots. And don’t forget to head over to some of the other blogs that are participating in this project and offer some encouragement! 2 days down…363 to go.

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Green

  
This weeks theme for Two Moms Made a Photo Challenge is green. As in the color. Color challenges are always fun because it’s interesting to see what kind of things people come up with to represent their color. Or what they photograph with the color in it.

 

 

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a little bit of an update

I haven’t written much lately, so I thought I would use what little bit of spare time I’ve got on my hands right now to update everyone on what's been going on. The husband left on April 17 for California, I did a photo shoot that afternoon, and have since booked 4 or 5 sessions. I’m meeting with a client Thursday Evening to look over some ideas she has and discuss some shot locations. I have a possible shoot this weekend for a friend of ours who wants to have some photos made of her boys for a Father’s Day present. I’ve got a possible Maternity/Newborn package shoot in May/June and July that I’m really excited about. I have a definite Maternity Shoot in July and a Newborn shoot in August right before we move again. And I have two couples shoots and a sisters shoot in June [same family, same day.] Things are picking up, and I’m really grateful.

 

I’m hoping to launch my website and get my business cards ordered the first of the month. I’ve been playing around with some designs but haven’t settled on one particular one that I like yet. The husband is buying me a new computer, most likely for my birthday and some editing software. I think I’m going to purchase Lightroom first a) cause it’s a wee bit cheaper and b) because that’s what I’ve been using for the past several weeks and I absolutely l love it. I am going to splurge on Photoshop CS5 before the summer is over. Glad I hadn’t purchased CS4 yet since the one is being released in May. The working with the wedding photographer may have fallen through. I’m not entirely sure yet, but it’s possible. I’ve had so many inquiries about photo sessions, most of which are going to be on weekends, that I don’t know if I am going to be able to. Between my scheduled photoshoots, trips to California to visit the husband [our first one is most likely going to be in June], and then house hunting [which will start in either June or July-depending on when hubby’s orders get cut.] That really doesn’t leave me a lot of time for much else. And he doesn’t do a lot of shoots during the week.

 

Which if I worked with him during the week, I would have to have someone to keep little man. Not that it’s a big deal because my parents live a few minutes from where we are, but it would involve a lot of driving. I know that it would be a great benefit to work with him because his work is absolutely phenomenal. But I learn by doing which means that I’m going to improve the more that I shoot. And shooting still life objects will only improve my abilities so much. I know that down the road I want to get into photographing weddings. And when the time is right for that, the good Lord will present that opportunity to me. Right now, I’m happy shooting portraits.

 

On that note, here are a few shots that I’ve been meaning to post and haven’t yet. Some are from a shoot we did at the Covered Bridge before Hubby left. Some are from other random days since he’s been gone. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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My favorite week day…

It’s Thursday! Which means that it’s time for another “Before/After” Blog Hop with Monica over at Pixel Perfect Blog. Link up your before and after photos and head over to see what everyone else has been up to this week! I took this one the other day standing out in the front yard. I wanted to try to capture the sun coming through the trees without getting too much color from the tree itself.

 

 

Here is another that I re-edited from a few weeks ago. I took this photo several weeks and I’ve done a couple of different edits; some subtle and others like this one, not so subtle.

Ya’ like? Hope you guys have had a great Thursday!

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I’m all about post-production

I’m learning very, very quickly that i am going to be one of those ‘post-production’ photographers. I truly believe that you can capture a great photo just using your camera. But I also believe that truly phenomenal photos are created during post-production. Right now, I’m only using Paint.net and I am amazed at what I can do using only this free software. I can not wait to see what kind of doors and possibilities open up when I finally purchase some good software. I guess I just never really realized what a BIG difference post-production made.

  

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