Happy Holidays – stuff yourself silly.
Posted on December 23, 2009
IT’S A GOOD TIME OF YEAR TO BE NAUGHTY…
Sending my Sweetest Holiday Wishes and may you stuff yourself silly.
(Thank you to Santa’s Helpers Linda Wagner on makeup/hair and model Britnee Johnson for being her usually adorable self.)
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Tutu’s a plenty – Arizona Dance Photographer
Posted on December 16, 2009
Okay so have you had enough Bride’s, Babies and Models yet? Well maybe what you need is some tutu’s. Some very hard working dancers over at the Maricopa Dance Academy earned a treat for all of their dance dedication. I came down and had a shoot with some of the girls. It was a lot of fun and lets me combine two things that I love, dance and photography. My good friend Cindy Price of Lilly P Studio was on hand to help and shoot. (I love hangin with Cindy…)
I love dance shots. They make me do a little happy dance. Well not so much right now because it’s 11:01 and I have been on the computer for 15 hours straight now. But when I first saw them, there was most definitely a happy dance.
These are Jasmine’s feet. She loves to break the box. She is so hard on her shoes I am pretty sure her Mom had to take a second mortgage to keep her in new ones.
Remember when the best thing in the world is the day they handed out costumes?
She’s so tiny. I just want to pick her up and put her in my pocket.
I love ballet costumes. I don’t suppose I could get away with just wearing one around the house and not be noticed?
Who DOESN’T love a good tassel skirt?
I may have posted this on another day. That’s okay…we’ll give Jasmine some more love.
Aaaaddddooorrraaaabbbbbble.
Who wears a white dress only to lay on the floor. Yeah, me.
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Wedding photos that rock! Arizona Wedding photographer
Posted on December 14, 2009
Since it’s the end of the year, I feel the need to post some stuff from throughout the year. I am sure I will do a few of these this month. I happen to have some inspiration from a recent session. 2 posts back you already saw the bride/groom couple Jen and Brian. Well upon finishing their images I found this gem. I had forgotten I took it actually. It is now in my top 10 favorite images. You have to love it when people believe in you enough to say “sure I’ll jump in the air holding hands and wearing heels” Thank you to the Bluth wedding party for the fabulous shot. (If you want to see some shots from the whole wedding, their slideshow is really fun. Bride had great taste in decor. Bluth wedding slideshow click here.)
November 2009
(Also a shout out to Totally Rad Actions on this one. I am madly in love with Grandma and her Tap Shoes)
My next wedding shot is of just the bride. This whole session was great, but there is something about the confidence that comes through in this photo that I love. Tamara is a very vibrant and funny girl. However this shot shows her elegant and strong side. I love that. Not to mention her custom designed dress (From Destiny’s Bride) was amazing and one of a kind.
February 2009
I love Grooms. It’s difficult sometimes to get a great groom image. I am not sure if it’s that men don’t like cameras or that the bride generally outshines the day. While the bride in this image was stunning, I love this shot of the groom in the foreground but it doesn’t miss showing the bride’s elegance and beauty at the same time.
May 2009
Okay so if I were giving out awards, the next couple gets “Best Arizona Location” award. They were married in the cavern of Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona. It was raining but not so much that it ruined anything, I actually thought it was wonderfu. We did some hiking that is for sure! l Such a beautiful day and a super fun couple. This was also the first day my husband joined my wedding photography and I discovered he’s a natural. There’s a debate as to who took the shot on the left, so we’ll just say “we did.” I will say that this wedding is memorable all the way around.
September 09
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE gowns and flowers. Probably because I am a girl. This bouquet was from a recent wedding. The Flower Studio out of Scottsdale did all of her flowers and they were BEAUTIFUL! Here is a shot of the brides bouquet. It had so many little touches that matched the dress. You will get to see some shots from the wedding soon and hear all about this amazing designer dress. For now, here is a shot of one of my favorite bouquets this year.
November 2009
Okay… so I saved the best for last. ITALY!!! What a whirlwind trip that was. Nothing like hauling camera equipment around Europe for the first time. Alex and Kelly are two of my best friends and their wedding will be talked about for sometime. Married in a breathtaking old Catholic church in Italy. Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous…every minute of it. The shot below has been seen by anyone who’s viewed my work at some point. If you have not seen it, this is also the image that I have on my business card. It’s beautiful and simple and my hands down favorite wedding shot this year. I only had to travel halfway across the world to get it.
May 2009
Last wedding of the year! – Arizona wedding photographer
Posted on December 8, 2009
Well this was it, the last wedding of the year! If you have watched my blog, a few months back I posted a few images from Collette and Ty’s engagement photos. I just love Collette and she is so easy to work with. She came with so many ideas for her bridals and was open to everything that struck me. They also brought Sugar and Dopey with them. That would be the beautiful horses.
There is not a shot here of the gallop, but I asked them to have the horses let go and gallop full speed at me. Let me tell you, that’s like standing in the way of two cars coming at you head on. Crazy.
The train was Collette’s idea. She really wanted the train tracks but instead we had an actual train! It was such a great shoot. After all you can’t go wrong with a cowboy, some horses and a pretty bride. Plus I got to take a trip home again to Safford. In fact the top two shots were taken on the road to my house. That was really neat for me. I gave you quite a few in this one!
Filed Under Weddings | 4 Comments
Photoshop lesson – High Pass Fashion with Totally Rad Actions
Posted on December 3, 2009
I get asked quite a bit to share some of my photoshop knowledge. I am happy to do so (I also teach lessons…hint hint) but for my fellow photogs, this is my new favorite fun thing.
Let me start by saying I have both sets of Totally Rad Actions and will be using actions from set 1 and 2. I know how popular they are, if you don’t have them…get them and then use them!
Working (and loving) High Pass Sharpen and Totally Rad Actions
I am working in CS3 today but I imagine that this applies to CS4 as well.
Here is the before and after of our shot today.
As you will see I shot Tanner with a little too much shadow. We are going to fix and save the shot.
First open up your image in photoshop…duh.
Then you are going to fix your shadows. For this I am going to use the YIN/YANG action from Totally RAD set 1
Run YIN (lighter) in the shadows at full opacity. Then back off the opacity slider until it blends.
In this photo I also ran the YANG (darker) on his shirt to make it more rich and then backed off the opacity to 50%.
Note for ALL my brush applications I have a soft brush at 100% opacity and 25% flow. You will see that atop of some of these screen shots.
Next I need to clean up Tanner’s skin. I start with the patch tool. It looks like this ;
Select the blemishes and drag to a clean patch of skin. Fill in holes of facial hair. Only select slightly larger than the blemish and then drag. Stay away from light/dark contrast it will cause a blur of color.
Make sure that you are on “source” and that transparent is unchecked at the top menu or you will see no change.
Now we are going to work on his actual skin. Run the Pro-Retouch action from the Totally Rad set 1. Same thing, soft brush at the same settings. Work on his pores, under his eyes and forehead. For men, I will back this off just a touch so it’s not too soft. Stay away from contrast areas like folds of face. Go with the contour of the face and it will look more natural. I also stay away from the wiskers, they will look odd if they are too soft.
Let’s go one step further and clone under his eyes to work on that blueish skin tone. You will select your clone tool and set your brush in the 35% opacity and 35% flow. Select an area just under where you want to work on and then drag over the area to repair. You will find that working on a lower opacity and flow with the clone tool allows you more flexibility with skin. It’s a staple in my workflow.
Note: if you want more control, run a duplicate layer first so that you can play wit opacity when you are done.
Note the settings here.
Last you want to run your tone action. It can be any tone really, whatever fits the image. Today I am using LUX (hard) from the Totally RAD sat 2. (Did I mention how much I LOVE Totally rad actions!)
With a lot of my color tone actions, I drop the opacity about the layers palate until it looks good. I rarely leave it at full opacity.
Flatten Image.
Next I am going to run my high pass.
Make a duplicate layer (command +J for Mac and Control+J for PC I believe)
Then at your top menu Filter>Other>High Pass
You will want to play with your opacity. It’s a taste thing. The more you use it, the more you will learn how much you need. Make sure you are on that duplicate layer as you need to be able to work with the opacity of it.
Now I could leave it here and it has a cool effect. I want it richer and so I am going to turn to my Totally Rad Action set and run Oh, Snap!
Flatten duplicate layer.
Back off the opacity if you need, I left it at 100% here.
Flatten Image
For that last little lift, run Match Color luminance.
Top Menu find Adjustments>Match Color
Bump your slider to brighten, be careful not to blow out highlights! (This is one of my secrets to the “brightness” of my finished images)
There you are. Save and enjoy. Obviously you can apply this process to any kind of image.
For more information on Totally Rad Actions, visit their website here Get Totally Rad.
If you like me tips, leave a comment so I know to post more!
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