My Girls

I have been working hard on getting ready for an upcoming boutique, and I finally got done and everything set-up last weekend. So this week I got to have some fun and take yearly shots to hang on my wall of my three cute girls. I mostly just wanted head shots in B&W, nothing fancy, to blow up big 16x20 and hang on my wall in some cute frames I got on sale at Hobby Lobby. They turned out really cute. I found some cool brick backgrounds that I added in after to make the background a little less boring.

Kaylee age 10

Brianne age 7

Sydnie age 3

Challenge entries for this week

This first one was for a challenge called "Two Colors" I decided I would do a cool paper curling technique called quilling. It's mostly used to make cards and decorations, but I thought it might look cool to make a larger one and light it from below. I placed the pieces of paper on a white cutting board and put my flash underneath, so it sort of glowed from beneath. It turned out cool and is getting a good score, but not good enough to ribbon.

Title:

"Shades of Purple and Green"

This next one is for a challenge called "Half" you had to take a photo of half of something. I had an idea to take a picture of Sydnie and one of her cute little friends holding hands. They turned out cute. This is the one I entered.

Title:

Best Friends, Two Halves Make a Whole

This is the one I wanted to enter, but got talked out of it since it wasn't "half enough" I wish I would have I like it much better.

This was for a really fun challenge called "Day taken at Night". In this challenge you had to take a photo at night in the complete dark and expose it long enough for it to look like you took it during the day. I had never done anything like this before and it was fun to try. This one I took at 9:00 p.m. and exposed it for 15 min. The results are really surprising, it really does look like day, the only thing that gives it away is the star trails. The big bright globe behind the silo, is the moon although in this photo it looks a bit more like the sun.

Title:

"A Moonlit Silo"

Just so you can understand how very dark it was outside, here is a test shot I took of the exact same spot this one was exposed for just a few seconds.

I'm glad this ended up turning out well because I sat in the dark by myself with only a headlamp for light, for almost and hour and a half. It was pretty cold and kind of in the middle of nowhere. I had to hike about a 1/4 of a mile away from my car to get to this spot, and I usually don't get scared over things like this, but I have to say this was a little spooky. I just kept thinking of the mountain lion Shaun saw by our house a few years ago. I did have an annoyed Raccoon that kept chirping at me, I think he didn't like my headlight and wanted me to turn it off. I was sort of glad to have the Raccoon around because I thought, "if a Raccoon is around making noise it probably means there are no mountain lions in the area." Wow! what I do for a photograph.

One last note, I purposely held back a couple photos because there is a chance I might be getting a ribbon for them! Stay tuned to see if I do.

Portrait Time!!!

So, this weekend was an portrait taking and editing marathon for me. It started out with my friend Amber and her little girl Breelyn. She wanted me to take some indoor studio shots of Breelyn in her Baptism dress. It was fun and she was my very first paying client, it sort of made me nervous, but I think they turned out cute.

Next, my sister Nancy came for the weekend so I could take some pictures of her cute kids. Then I spent most of the rest of the weekend editing, partly because I wanted Nancy to just take her photo's with her instead of me having to e-mail them to her, and partly because I have a busy week ahead of me and I knew I wouldn't have time later.

In addition to the photos below, I also edited some cute photo's my friend took. She did a great job taking some newborn photos of her baby and wanted me to edit them. They turned out really cute, but since they are not my photo's I won't post them here. Between editing all 3 photo shoots I think I will be glad to have a little break from editing.

So enough talk, here are the photo's I took. I had an easy job with such cute kids. I think I will stop writing and let the photo's do the talking.

Chloe

(she was a tough one to get to smile this weekend, but we still managed a few really cute shots)

Hannah

Hayden

All Three

(This was another tough assignment, there was no way I could get them to all smile and look at the camera at the same time, so we had to do a little swap with the heads.)

Breelyn's Baptism photo's

Happy Valentines Day!!!

Normally I would wait a little longer to post, but most of the photo's I took were so fitting for Valentines day I wanted to post today. These are mostly for Challenge entries I have been working on. I don't have a lot of time right now to go into details, so I hope a short description will be good enough.

This one was for a speed challenge announced last night at midnight, and due tonight at midnight. I had to shoot it today and enter it today. The theme was Valentines Day .

Title:

I can see the love burning in her eyes so blue...

The next two I shot for the rule of thirds challenge. I went with this one:

Title:

My Funny Little Valentine

This is the one I almost went with. I liked it so much I copied it for the speed challenge above. They are a lot alike but they were shot on different days.

This one is for a challenge called Photo Shop terms. You pick a term from the software Photoshop like: Layer, Highlights, Contrast, etc. And find a creative way to show them in a photograph.

My Photoshop term and title of my shot:

CROP

Here is another shot. I liked it but ended up going with the first one:

Hope everyone had a Happy Valentines Day!

Hooray! I won at last!

I finally feel like I might be getting somewhere with my little hobby. I finally won a ribbon for one of my photos! I entered this photo of Kaylee in a challenge called "Got Milk" and I got 3rd place! I got this little ribbon next to my picture and my photo is on the front page of the dpchallenge website for a whole week! So check it out http://www.dpchallenge.com/.

My ribbon winning entry:

I am also entered in two other challenges at the moment. This one is doing really well. I am a little surprised because I made a huge mistake when photographing it with my settings. It caused the photo to be really grainy. I had my camera tied to the basement ceiling so I wasn't aware I had it on the wrong setting until the photo shoot was over. I did my best to fix it in editing, but the quality just isn't right. I think its a good idea though, and probably why its getting a pretty good score. The challenge was called "what doesn't belong"

Title:

Which one of these kids is doing their own thing?

This next one is for a challenge called "leading lines" there is suppose to be a line in the photograph that sort of moves you through the photograph. I took so many pictures for this, of all sort of different subjects, and just wasn't happy with any of them. This one was finally the one I settled on. It's doing reasonably well. I actually entered a color version but this was the version I would have liked to have entered. I just couldn't get it right, and ran out of time before the deadline was up. Oh well.

Title:

Around the bend

Here is another shot of the same area, this is what it looks like in color.

This is the one I really wanted to enter. I love it! But some of the friends and mentors didn't think it fit the challenge theme well. It's kind of different but I think this would make a great wall hanging. In fact I think I am going to print this out and hang it in my front room. I love that it is neutral and will go with my decor.

Here is another one they didn't like. I like it, but not as well as the one above. Mostly because of the building in the background. I may edit it out and see what I think.

This is one I took just for fun. I was trying out a new (used) lens a friend gave me. I really played with the editing on this one. Different but fun.

Portraits with Studio Lighting

I managed to round up enough flashes to make a make shift portrait studio in my basement. I still haven't got all the bugs worked out. I can only get the flashes to fire about half the time, so I have to have really patient models.

I also made my own soft boxes and wow do they ever look homemade but they work and that is all that matters. I taped some cardboard lined with tinfoil together to make a box that covers my flash to diffuse the light I have them taped to my flashes right now. Just think if I actually had paying costumers they would look at my homemade setup and run away. Luckily my models aren't paying me and they have to sit there patiently while I mess around with my homemade equipment.

This first one is my favorite and what inspired my to make my homemade studio. The challenge this week is "Got Milk?" We are suppose to take a picture of someone with a milk mustache. Kaylee was my very patient model.

Titled:
Straw Verses Milk Mustache



Kaylee was also good enough to sit and pose while I was getting things set up. She was just in her pajamas and didn't have her hair done but I still think this turned out cute.



Here another one I took while I had everything set up. I wanted to enter a portrait for my free study this month this is what I came up with:
Title:
A Sisters Love


Notice how I didn't have Sydnie in any of my studio portraits. She would never have been patient enough for this. These two did such a good job of holding still and doing just what I asked them to do.

I also did some landscape work this week for some challenge entries. We had a challenge called wheels and I found these to subjects to take a picture of:


This is the one I ended up entering. I think the one above is a better quality photograph, but I just loved this one. I passed him when I was going down a rural road looking for broken down tractors and wagons. I just had to flip a U turn and come back around to get a shot of him coming at me. He just smiled at me and looked at me like I was crazy.
Titled:

Road Hog

This one is for an Elements challenge. It had to include all for elements: Water, Earth, Fire and Air.
Titled:

A Wind in the Rushes

This one is for a challenge called Sentinel. You are supposed to take a picture of something then title it sentinel. So that is what I did. I don't know how sentinel this is, its probably going to score low for that reason. Oh well.

Title:

Sentinel


These next two are not challenge entries, just ones I took for fun. I am taking a portrait a week for a side challenge I am in. This was last weeks entry. They are not judged they are just for fun. Sydnie looked so cute in her towel after taking a bath I decided to snap a few shots of her using natural light from the window. I like how they turned out.

This one I saw someone else do and I wanted to see if I could copy it. I think it turned out fun. And its a great one for the upcoming holiday. So Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Back into it

So the holidays sort of threw me. I had a hard time with everything going on to do much with photography. I've had a few weeks to settle back into regular life, and finally I've had some time to catch back up on my photography.

I will start with my non-challenge entries first. These are ones I've taken and like but they don't fit into any of the challenge themes.

This one I took while I was in Idaho over the holiday's. I liked the shot and have been meaning to do something with it. I finally got some time and worked on it, and I really like the results. I have to say it is one of my favorites:


This next set is for an upcoming challenge. I took a trip to the Salt Lake City Temple to get some shots for a challenge called 100 years. For this challenge you must take a picture of something 100 years or older. I chose the Salt Lake City Temple. I have taken a lot of pictures of this temple and I wanted to do something different, so I went at dusk Friday night and shot a few just as the sun went down, and the lights on the temple came on. I think they turned out really nice. The first one is my favorite and the one I will be entering for the challenge.

Title:
The Salt Lake City Temple Dedicated 1853

Another good one:


I loved the sky in the background for this one:

This one was for a challenge called "bits and pieces. I filled a paint drawer we had with different spices. I like the colors in it.

Title:

Kitchen Pantry

This one was for a challenge called "Out of Balance". This one was tricky because as photographers a balanced photo is a good photo, so it was hard to take a photo that disregarded those rules but still looked good. The concept behind this photo was to not only have an unbalanced photo by having a large strong color on the right, and a smaller muted color on the left. I also wanted to show unbalance in the focus made on one girl over the other. The title also shows this, and no she is not, daddy's favorite. I was also using the title to convey an imbalance.

Title:

Daddy's Favorite



This next one was for a challenge entitled "work" I wanted to try and copy the Rosie the Riveter posters from World War II. I think I did a pretty good job but the focus is a bit off. This was one of my most frustrating challenges to date. It was really hard to take a photo of myself I seriously tried almost 200 times. Either the lighting wasn't right, the pose wasn't right or I wasn't even fully in frame. Finally I got this one, like I said the focus was not in the right place (it was on my shirt not on my face) But the pose was good and the lighting was decent so I gave up and just went with it.

Title:

Women at Work "Rosie the Riveter" circa 1943

Here is one of the original posters for comparison:

This final one is one of my favorites. It was for a challenge called Rubber Ducky. It was kind of a silly challenge. Here are the specifics:

In the photo you must include the following: Exactly 1 rubber ducky, a piece of rope or string, one or more vegetables, and something red. This is what I came up with.

Title:

Ducky, having much success during the annual run of Swedish fish.

Odds and Ends

I had a bit of a crazy Christmas and photography sort of took a backseat to everything else. I actually did take a lot of pictures but most of them were just snapshots or I haven't gotten around to editing them. Here are a few miscellaneous shots that I have gotten done.

This month I am working on improving my still life photography skills. I have been taking pictures of various object around the house. This type of photography is harder than it seems.

The one has kind of a complicated setup. First I suspended a large white cutting board between two chairs. I placed my external flash (that I got for Christmas) underneath. Then I laid the object on it, and positioned my tripod above it facing down. When the flash from my camera goes off my external flash senses it and also goes off lighting it from behind. This is what you get kind of cool huh!

I guess this also qualifies for still life. Outdoor still life anyway. This one I took of a crab tree covered in snow and then added a special effect in photoshop to make it look painterly. I decided it sort of looked like a Christmas card so I added the text.

Challenge entries:

I did manage to enter some challenges this month despite the hectic holiday schedule.

This one was for a challenge called inside looking out. I decided it would be fun to give a mouses view of Santa's Christmas Eve cookies:

Title:

Twas the night before Christmas

This was my free study entry

Title:

December Sunrise

This last one is one of my favorites of all time. I don't know what there is about it but I like the mood of it. Me liking it doesn't seem to be helping it in the challenge it is only doing average. I really thought it would do better but sometimes its hard to guess. The challenge was called Contre jour which is a fancy french word meaning toward the light.

Title:

Reflecting on the Dawn of a New Year