Actions

I've known and used actions in Photoshop before, but I have shied away from the more "edgy" styles since it's not my preferred look.  But Yesterday I met my sister-in-law's family up at Sundance to do some holiday photos for them and as she was doing an emergency diaper change, I was doing some test shots and figuring out light on her husband, Jordan.  I came home and played around with this a bit and found a really cool action that my favorite Matt Kloskowsky (my secret crush from Photoshop World and Scott Kelby celeb) has made as a Lightroom preset.  I like the real harsh look and desaturated skin tones. But I had to find just the right photo to try it.  Thanks, Jo!

 Other than the presets, these shots were straight out of camera.  This isn't the same preset as above, but is still desaturated on the skin-tones.  I don't hate it but I think that's because I like the subject matter so much!  Isn't little Miss "E" adorable?  I love to "shoot" her and the camera loves her mom and dad, too!

So what do you think?  Do you like this preset?  Or do you prefer truer, less desaturated skin tones?  what about the edgy one of Jordan?  Give me your opinion!

Busy Christmas Creating

After shooting, I love to create!  I have been an avid scrapbooker, but since I've had the option of doing all my books digitally, I sold all my stickers and paper and went cyber!  Lately I've really not done too much by way of compiling my photos of my family into books because I've been so busy shooting, editing and blogging.  But I wanted to share my creations of my Christmas card I'm sending out this year as well as my sister's family (hope you're okay with that, Sar??).  I just love how hers turned out!  Admittedly, both these ideas were inspired by my new passion, Pinterest!  Merry Christmas everyone, maybe you may receive one or both of these cards in the mail???  Or maybe I'll just go cyber???? We'll see!

My Little Guy

 This is my baby boy.  I finally took him out today to take some "school" pictures.  Here it is the first of November and I get around to taking pictures of my own kids!!  I'm sure the leaves will be gone after the storms expected this coming weekend.  So at least we got a few shots before they all blew away.  He's such a sweet boy and he was totally giving me the fakest smile until I said "Say I Love you, mom".  Then he totally flashed me the sweetest face and that's when the shutter clicked!  I used an Autumn preset in Lightroom to give it that fall feel.  I like the muted colors and the warm light.  My sweet freckled faced boy!!!

Snips and Snails....

As much as I do love photographing little girls in their pink and frills, I can't resist these little guys!  I think because of my own two rowdy little boys (whom I realized aren't so little after being around these two).  They were so cute and so different than the girls.  Anyway, I am feeling some definate  perks to this line of work!  However, I never realized how wiped out I am after a shoot!  Oh, well...It's totally worth it!  Thanks Kelli for bringing these darling little boys over.  We had a fun day!

Irresistable!!!!

Little Miss "E" turned one this past week and so we just had to do a special session starring her with a birthday cake!  She is just too cute and I couldn't decide which photos to post, so here are most of them!    I'm sure her mom and dad can't resist that little face, because I know, I can't!  Happy Birthday, Miss "E"!  Your Aunty Shaunna Loves you!!!

I had some fun playing around with some pre-sets in lightroom!  So you'll notice some big differences in color and texture!  It's fun to have such a great subject to "play" with!!

At first she was acting all dainty just using her finger and thumb and kind of pinching the frosting off and sticking it in her mouth.

But finally after a bit of coaxing from her mommy, she "got into" it a bit more!

I love how she looks so tickled with herself!

Fall Special:

Of Pumpkins, Bee Stings and Naked Babies

This cute little guy is the son of one of my young women that was in my church youth group a few years back!  He is so darling and had so much fun.  About half-way through the shoot, a bee got caught in my hair and started stinging me on my neck! OUCH!  We looked up and bees were swarming from the neighbor's yard (he has hives, which I love because my garden and flowers love, too!  Plus I just bought some really yummy honey from their 9 year old son who is putting the money in his mission fund!)  I just love his sweet little face and eyes!

Cute Little Ladies

The interesting thing about this shoot was the older one of the two, "G", was the harder one to shoot!  It ended up being torturous and tearful!  She just wasn't in the mood to spend much time taking pictures.  Her mom did say that she fell asleep in the car on the way home.  Little Miss "E", however was pretty happy since she had napped and eaten before and did pretty well.  She will be one in a few weeks and so we decided to break up this shoot into a few segments.  So I wanted to post some of these that turned out so cute!