Photo shoot from May

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So, I’ve been busy. REALLY busy. Not only am I wrapped up in the newest addition to our family, but I have turned my sometimes-photography-gigs into a business. Lot’s of work and lot’s of fun. Here’s a very whimsy shoot from back in May. I loved playing with different colors while editing to lend variety to the session’s ambiance.

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Kathleen 8th grade promotion session

Redheaded girl on hill

Redheaded girl on hill


Here’s a session I did with my step daughter Kathleen when she was up for a visit. We were celebrating her promotion from 8th grade to High School (Howdidthathappen?!?!?) and many of the photos were taken wearing the special dress she bought just for that occasion. Anyways, she’s got the most lovely red hair so I really tried to play it up. Here are some of my favorites from that session.
Freckled shoulders

Freckled shoulders


red headed girl pink sky

red headed girl pink sky


Red headed girl waterfall

Red headed girl waterfall


Red headed girl green dress

Red headed girl green dress


Red headed girl picnic table

Red headed girl picnic table

red headed girl on location portrait

red headed girl on location portrait


Red headed girl blue sweater

Red headed girl blue sweater


Red headed girl hill

Red headed girl hill

Mägical June Shoot – ‘Magination Images ( maginationimages.com )

Magic Powers and some smoke bombs

Magic Powers

Here are some favorites from the June shoot with Magic – I’ll try to go back and share more of my recent sessions with y’all…you can find our business on Facebook or our homepage.

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Fun “background” for some baby photos

The handsome Sprout

The handsome Sprout


About every mom goes camera-crazy with their kiddos and I am no exception. I wanted a fun, bright, portable ‘background’ for some photos of The Sprout – something that would add the dimension that his fuzzy blankets just weren’t living up to. I scored this rug at Ross for $18. It is apparently made of recycled tee shirt strips in variegated colors. Neat-o!
Love the texture and rich colors of this rug

Love the texture and rich colors of this rug


My oldest sneaked his ukulele into his little brother's shot and it worked great!

My oldest sneaked his ukulele into his little brother’s shot and it worked great!


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ShaBAM! Digital Art ***texturize***

Texture Blend....

Texture Blend….


So, I love pretty much ALL mediums of art – photography and digital editing not excluded. I’ve been playing around with blending textures in Photoshop and have been having SOOOOO much fun! I picked out a photo I recently took of The Bean (that I LOVE) and opened it in photoshop.
I Love this photo!

I Love this photo!


The I went to this site – an amazing resource for FREE, high resolution textures – and chose this texture…I think it’s some rust….
Rust, I think...

Rust, I think…


I paste the texture into the open photoshop file where it shows up as a new layer.
Selecting the background layer – original photo of Beans – I use the quick select tool to select the area of his face, smoothing and feathering the edge of the selection. Keeping the ants marching, I jump to the layer of my texture and blur the still-open selection with a gaussian blur @ 33 pixels. This allows The Bean’s face to match the color of the texture when blending the layers without compromising his features. I blend the layers in the overlay mode and there you have it…
The texture really brings some magic to the table...

The texture really brings some magic to the table…

Living Room Wall Photo Project

Wall Photo Project

Wall Photo Project

So, I have some empty wall space in my living room that is just begging to become something more exciting. I really try to decorate with personalized art. I LOVE taking photos,so I felt the best way to fill the space was to collage some of my favorite family photos.
Here is a relatively easy, fun and inexpensive way to decorate a large wall area. I chose a few dozen of my favorite family photos and had them printed in B&W from Costco (I think they do the best affordable printing around here). Next, I went to the Dollar Store and bought an appropriate number of frames in various sizes and variegated shades of gold and silver. After framing the photos, I ripped the back stand off of the frame back and applied about a square inch of mounting tape on the corners of the frames’ backside. After laying out all my photos and finding the best looking “pattern” for my wall, I mounted them using a level, measuring tape and pencil for spacing. I intentionally left some blank spaces in my pattern so that I’ll have room for pictures of the new baby when he’s born. I’d like to find some oval frames for the Sprout’s photos to further the variety of the frames. All in all, this project cost me about $40. Not bad considering the size and personalization of final product.
I have done this project before using black frames of uniform size and it looks fantastic as well – though it definitely lends a more modern look.