Sweet baby girl, sneak peak.

I got to spend the afternoon with my favorite kindergarten teacher and her beautiful girls. 

Sweet baby {E} was born just a few days before Christmas. I always thought it would be fun to have a Christmas baby...I only experienced being pregnant during Christmas, which is also fun...no guilt while eating, eating and more eating. 

Big sister was such a big help and loved being able to hold her baby sister. 

Once this little precious one fell asleep she was perfect throughout the whole session and we got some beautiful images of her. 

We are going to miss our favorite teacher while she takes her maternity leave...but we are so happy her new baby is here and they are both doing so well!
Thanks for letting me capture your beautiful baby girl for you, Mrs. B! We love you!!!! 

Merry/Happy Everything...

From our home to yours. 

Using a little Pinterest inspiration...

So many fantastic holiday photo ideas floating around on pinterest. 

I loved this idea and decided to give it a try for our Christmas cards this year. 

Here are some straight out of camera images that I am not using for our card, but that doesn't mean I don't love them :) I didn't edit them so you could see what they look like without any editing. 

Head on over to Prop Insanity for a step by step tutorial for this set up. 

I used my 50mm 1.4 lens for all of the shots I took. I also had to use my studio lighting since I didn't have great natural light in my house today. To get the nice blur, I had to shoot at 1.4  and the kids were about 7 feet in front of the lights. I had to place them that far in front so the green strands wouldn't show from the lights. I was too cheap to go buy lights with white strands instead of the green. When shooting at that wide open aperture (f 1.4) it is absolutely necessary to keep all of your subjects on the exact same plane or they won't all be in focus. Placing a subject even slightly behind another will result in creepy stalker images like this one....

Although, I don't mind creepy stalker when they are this cute.
Have fun shooting your holiday pictures using twinkly lights and creating some beautiful bokeh!
In photography, bokeh is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image, or the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light.


Which by the way is pronounced like this....

Time to give...

The season of giving is approaching quickly and I wanted to share something that a beautiful photographer friend of mine is doing this year to help out a very worthy cause! 

Click on her blog header above to read what she is doing! I love that she is using her talents as a way of service. I know many of you that read my blog are either professional photographers or very experienced amateurs. Think of all the good we could do it we all did something like this, THIS holiday season. 

She has a beautiful blog. Head over there and spend some time reading her beautiful words and and I am sure you will be captivated by her gift of life style photography. 

Happy Halloween!

Hope you took LOTS of pictures and ate LOTS of candy! 

Editing flow...

One thing that I have changed over and over again through my journey learning photography is my editing process and styles. I think it is fairly common for most people to go through the phases I experienced. I first learned everything I could about photography and tried to get proper exposure. Then, I ventured into the editing world. I purchased CS3 and had my fair share of oompa loompa outcomes before I discovered the phenomenal world of layer masks and opacity. Those two things changed my life and I felt like that is when I truly started to get a grip on my editing. Over the years I have tried to make my photos POP with color and do all the funky, hazy, seventies looks...until I realized it wasn't my style and I needed to figure out exactly what my 'own' style was. I soon realized that I really wanted my images to just be clean, simple edits with a classic feel to them. This is when I really got down and dirty with CS3 and learned how to use it to my advantage. I learned curves and color correcting tools that worked for me. I have a good friend (Hi Larissa!) that is currently going through the beginning stages of learning her new DSLR and she is reminding me so much of myself. She is fully invested and wants to get her hands on anything and everything to help her along her own journey. She asked me to share with her my editing flow. Honestly, I don't really have one that fits all pictures that I take. Every lighting situation is different, producing different color temperatures. I thought I would just simply show how little editing I actually do to my images. 

Since I shoot in RAW format, I open my images in camera raw and do a few edits there first. I make sure my exposure looks good and depending on the individual picture and what it needs, I may do a few other things in camera raw, such as fixing white balance if needed and anything else that might be needed to the overall image I am going to edit. Next, I bring it into photoshop and decide what the picture needs. When you shoot in RAW, things are going to look flat and a bit dull. This is where I usually brighten things up and do a new layer and bump things up.

A good one to start with when you are first leaning is to create a new layer. (Ctrl-J for pc and Command-J for mac). Once you have chosen a new layer, there is a drop down menu that you can choose different blend modes. "Normal" is selected for you. Go to the drop down menu and choose "soft light". It is a great one to bump the contrast and give your picture a nice boost. I cannot stress how important the next step is when you use these features.  Next to the blending modes there is another feature called "opacity". It is NECESSARY to use this function when you are editing. It will automatically set your new layer at 100% and this is when you get images that are way over edited and makes skin tones look horrible. I usually bring the opacity down to about 25-30% on most features I choose.
This is a great place to start. Practice this method and next up on my editing flow is color correction.
We will save that for another post :)

Have fun! And remember...if you have a good, properly exposed image, there won't be a lot you need to do to it to accomplish a nice, clean, simple edit. 

Picture clean-up...

I have been trying really hard to clean up my photo files lately. I have SO, SO many pictures on my computer that need to be deleted. The problem is that I start looking at pictures and then I can't focus on the ones that need to be deleted...

All I can focus on is all the pictures that never got edited! Never got edited because I was being just WAY too picky and considered them crap. 

I found an entire session of my kids in April of 2009 that I didn't edit one picture from. Not one! I remember coming home from that photo shoot so sad with the results because my kids didn't all look at the camera and smile. So when I started looking through them (2 1/2 years later) I couldn't believe I didn't edit them! They were so cute and helped me remember what my kids looked like at that time. I am sure I didn't like this one because she wasn't smiling...but now I see this picture and remember this look that she gave me so often. Plus there is a stick coming out of her head and I probably didn't know how to edit it out at the time. Now I don't even care about the stick and could easily remove it. But those are the silly things that I used to consider a bad image. 

That is the beautiful thing about having digital images....over two years later I can go back and realize that I actually did capture a beautiful moment that I will be able to look back and treasure always. 

Have you backed up your computer yet? Make sure your images are backed up on a hard drive and also an online backup system as well. I go through Carbonite but may switch to Mozy. Mozy is a local company for me and I love supporting local businesses. Also, they back up external hard drives from what I hear...Carbonite does not. Don't wait until your hard drive crashes to learn the hard way that pictures need to be backed up! :) 

Sneak Peak for my bestie...

Amazing weather. Gorgeous light. And an incredibly Beautiful little lady. 

Fall...

Fall is my favorite time of year. I dread going into fall because that means my summer is over and I know the cold and snow are just waiting at my door. But...once the beautiful smells and visions of Autumn arrive I can't help but feel so happy and blessed. Each day feels like a gift and a renewed passion for life.
How can it not feel that way? Everything is in full harvest, the weather is perfect and 

my favorite shows are finally back on TV! 

Life is good. So, so good! 

I spent yesterday reaping the benefits of a beautiful skill my Nana taught me. Canning peaches and making peach jam. I am not really a domestic one...but this is a yearly tradition I just love. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing beautiful canned peaches sitting on my counter. 

(photo taken by my husband who also helped me for the first time!)

There is also nothing more beautiful than passing along this skill to my daughter.
She is finally old enough to help me out and she was so amazing.
We put on our aprons (makes us feel more official that way) and got to work.

She stayed and helped me the entire time. She was committed to the end.

Oh the joy...Seeing her tiny little hands peeling the peaches so 

delicately and measuring each cup of sugar to perfection.
Here is to many, many more years of this tradition with my favorite little side kick.

Now for some photo tips....
When taking pictures indoors...I often find it is so hard to get the colors to look right. You have a mix of ambient light, natural light and who knows what else. A lot of times they look very yellow and dark.
(Since it is hard to get good exposure indoors without a flash.)
It is important to fix your white balance to get correct color...but sometimes the photos you want to get don't allow you the time to set a custom white balance and spend a lot of time figuring out the best color options.
My solution?? Turn those pictures to black and white. Black and white images are timeless and, in my opinion, tell a beautiful story. I always mess with my black and white photos to get good contrast. I do this by going into levels in photoshop (control L) and changing the different output levels. This is how you brighten your mid-tones and darken your blacks. I also sharpen my black and white images more than I usually do on color images. I think it just adds beautiful texture and more contrast.

Happy Fall!!!! 

HAVE YOU?????

Have you taken that camera out of Auto yet? No? What?!?!?! 

Here is yet another FANTASTIC resource for you...

You have no excuses today. The weather is beautiful, the leaves are changing and there is not a better time than now for you to learn your camera. :) 

Dying....

...over the cuteness of my last couple of sessions. 

Couldn't be a more beautiful family than the one I had today. 

Beautiful weather. Beautiful setting and lighting. Just beautiful everything. 

This little cutie was such a good baby! Her mama had this little lady bug prop made just for her first photo shoot. She rocked just about every pose we put her in and made me want to book more newborn sessions! ASAP. Editing, editing, and more editing. 

Asleep.

As I look back on images of my kids...some of my favorites are of them sleeping. There is nothing more perfect than a peaceful, sleeping baby. 

Her amazing lashes and chipped nail polish. Sigh. Missing the days my kids were little. 

But, loving that I have images that take me right back to those moments. 

If you are feeling like you are in a photography funk....go back through the images you have taken over the years. You will be inspired again. Nothing makes me more excited to learn more about photography than seeing what I have already captured. Freezing these beautiful moments. Forever. 

Sometimes I get too involved with keeping up with photography trends and learning the newest programs. I take a step back and realize that my very favorite images are simple. Classic. And most importantly...timeless. 

Fall is in the air...Family picture time!

The temps are cooler in the evenings and pretty cold in the mornings. Our schedules are filling up again and I am starting to get excited for fall. I always mourn the end of summer, but once it is over I remember how much I love the fall season in Utah. 

I have a few spaces left for family portraits. 

Keeping it simple this year. $200 for a session. This includes all images (usually 25-30, sometimes more depending on the session) that I edit on a disk for you to print where ever you would like. Or I would be happy to order prints for you through the professional lab that I use. 

The last two pictures are done using off camera flash.
Let me know if this is the type of session you are wanting.

You can email me at littlebitoflove76@gmail.com for more info and available dates.

new niece...

Things have been super busy around here as we get back into school and the scheduled every day to day activities. So long, care free summer. 

Fortunately I was able to make time to take some pictures of my new niece the other day. She is so itty bitty and has such a sweet, calm personality. I am thinking that is a very good thing since she joined a family with 6 other kids! :) 

Just to put into perspective how tiny she is...the flower in her hair is the size of a quarter! 

 I am so happy my sister in law wanted some pictures of herself with her last baby. It is a real regret I have now. I don't have any good pictures of my newborns with me. :( 

Welcome to the family, baby Isabelle. We are so happy you are here...safe and healthy!

Incredible photography

I absolutely love looking at this website. 

I get lost in the beauty of these images for way longer than I should be on the computer at one sitting. 

Each image is so incredible and I would die to be a dance photographer in NYC. 

There it is. My dream. Exposed to the world. Sigh. I guess, technically I don't have to live in NYC to be a dance photographer. But...that is where my dream takes place. So that is where I will continue to dream about living and working when I grow up.
Maybe one day, when my babies are grown and have left me to pursue their own dreams. 

One can dream. We all should dream. 

All images shown are from http://dance-photos.blogspot.com/

Talk about stunning, beautiful images that make you gasp in awe of the human body and all of its capabilities. 

Viewer discretion is advised. Artistic nudity is common with this type of photography and may be uncomfortable for some to view with young children around.