Valentine's Day!

This year is our 13th Valentine's Day...as a married couple, 11! It got me wanting to take a picture of our wedding rings, however, my lovely husband literally refused to remove his wedding band for me! He said "It's MINE and it belongs on my finger"... I proceeded to remind him that he plays/fiddles with his ring all the time and that he almost lost it during our trip in Canada this past Christmas...but that didn't go too well for me! lol

So, here's my wedding ring! There's a story behind this ring... me and husband got married with my engagement solitaire ring as I had yet to find the wedding band that I liked. We were married 10 months before I actually found what I liked. I wanted it to look like a flower! :)

I love editing....as much as taking pictures!

UPDATE: I have three wedding booked thus far, which means, I'll only be taking a few more and that will be it for the year as far as wedding! My goal is to have one or two a month for 2010. Editing is going to be tedious and time-consuming as I'm building my portfolio!

I have an upcoming wedding this weekend, just a quick 1hr wedding shoot to get a few formal shots in.

Ok...moving on to today's post......

I have an addiction to editing, I truly do! It's not a matter of taking crappy pictures and fixing them, I rather not waste my time on those but instead, it's about taking an already pleasing picture and turning it into a work of art...

Here's a before (which only required but 15 seconds of editing) and the after (adding old paper texture, vintage color play, and rounding of the corners).

It's been 10 days since I last posted...time goes by fast!

I'm such a slacker...actually no, I've been pretty busy learning! I can't very well spend all of my time on the internet now can I ? :) Actually I could cause I can spend days and days of doing mindless research and get lost in the World Wide Web.

So, here are some recent shots that I have done..... I'm really anxious for the weather to be prettier so that I can go outdoors but I can't complain too much since I'm also learning a lot of technical photography stuff too. Enjoy the pics!!

Here's a few cool effects !

So, I've been playing around with some of my photos. Here's a few cool effects (some subtle, some more drastic/playful)..

1. Here's my daughter Cassandra , all too serious on the left...I wanted to add a little smile to her face... see the edited new version on the right... subtle but yet still noticeable.

2. My step dad makes beautiful handmade violins, each one taking over six months to be complete (carving, gluing, drying, varnishing, curing, etc.) ... and by the way, he tests his violins for another few months after...so, technically it can take a year before his violin gets into the hands of his/her lucky purchaser! In this photo, I wanted to make the violin stand out, it was competing for attention with the statue, clearly, the statue is the "prop" to lean the violin against, it's not the center piece of the photo! So, with some photoshopping "light" effect, I made it stand out a bit more. I'm sure there's more I could do to it but for now, the spotlight effect seems to make the violin stand out a bit more.3. Here's another subtle but cool effect... my poker hands! This is the hands of my husband and his best buddy from NY (twins seperated at birth I tell ya!! lol). This is not a vignette effect but a all around darkening of the edges.
4. Lastly, I played around with my own self-portrait. I personally prefer a more natural look but I understand that some people like the contrasty more edgy look, therefore, I decided to step out of my comfort zone a little bit and "play"... here's the result...the picture on the left is my retouched portrait and the one on the right is the contrasty/edgy look. You'll notice that the image on the right looks sharper then the left and this is because of the various processing steps that I've done to it, it makes the one image on the left look more soft when in fact, it's nicely sharpened.

That's it for today folks! I got some learning to do and errands to run! :) Till tomorrow....

P.s. don't forget to post a comment, I'd love to hear from you!!

The finished edited corporate headshots are done!

Here's a quick review of the four headshots I did this week.

The background was the same for everyone, just different processing was done according to skin tones. I could have made them all the same but they are going to be posted separately so the slight differences will not be as noticeable.

This was a fun job and can't wait to do more!

Carole

My First Corporate Shot... Thumbs Up!

Just got done with a session today (corporate headshots)...but I have to share this candid shot of one of the employees.... I honestly felt like she did, THUMBS UP!! *LOL*

The setup took me a little longer then expected, I was working in a small space, which made it a little challenging but doable. Also, I have to figure out how to photograph someone with glasses, glare is somewhat of a challenge!?! :)

Here the shot I was talking above..... I haven't retouched this picture at all yet, she's naturally BEAUTIFUL!! :) Lucky girl!

Not your typical business card....

I have been brainstorming this week for a new and effective way of showing my work but also at the same time providing the potential customer with a way of contacting me...and then it occurred to me, why not a 4"x6" collage photo!? It may be a little bit more expensive then a typical business card but I believe it will be much more effective! It's all about first impression right?

I'm going to be doing several versions of this as I may want to cater to different market (i.e. Weddings v.s. Maternity). However, at this time, I'm doing a generic one that shows a little of everything "pet, couples, family, kids, babies, wedding, etc.".