Little Sadie

I had officially called off doing any more baby sessions. It was always difficult for me take the girls to the babysitter, lug everything to someone's home, set everything up, tear down and take it back home. So it's been awhile. But my friend had a baby and I had her just come over for a play session. It was much easier to have people come to my home, that I'm seriously considering offering them again. I have a blog friend Melanie who does really beautiful work. She has given me lots of good advice at how to expand and create mini set pieces. So this week I'm going to try to create my first little hardwood and fabric backdrop set piece. I can't wait.



This is the shot I always try to get and it sometimes doesn't work. I love this laying in the hands shot, but it doesn't work unless the baby looks relaxed and peaceful, and the hands holding the baby look just as relaxed. The face can't be squished and the arms can't be flailing. The facial expression is so important with a shot like this. You can have any stress. This is probably the most nerve wracking shot for the parents because it feels a little vicarious. This took us a couple attempts to get it good and relaxed. I'm glad I pushed to try one more time before the end of the shoot.


Unexpected shot. In between naked shots, the moms wrap them up and cuddle them. My friend Brooke had her wrapped in a towel because Sadie had just peed on the backdrop. (I tell them this always happens and it's no big deal, but the parents feel so bad about it anyway.) So Sadie was wrapped up in a towel with her Mama and it was so adorable how she was peeking out. We quickly threw a blanket around the towel and voila, precious shot.
In photoshop I did a slight glow, a gaussian blur, pulled out the eyes, and burned in the eyes and lips. I also found a soft action that was really pretty although I use those sparingly. I also didn't like the direction of the original, so I tilted her head to be more diaganol. Then eliminated the black backdrop and parts of Brooke that were in the shot and replaced with a blur to nothing. Maybe it's C- photoshop but it works.




It's the really big towel illusion! A total of 9 towels were used to get this look. Also I have to square off the towels in photoshop. I usually fluff the bottom towel back out in photoshop, but I forgot to do that. The bottom one always gets more squished.


This ws a crazy big flower. I finally just took a shot of her without the flower, shrunk the flower from the previous shot, and put it on the plain headband. Ths is more C- photoshop.


This was an experiment. It would probably be prettier on a hardwood floor set piece.
The baby was off center, and it bugged me, so I shifted her to the right and had to stitch together the blanket top on the left with an ealier image that had that info. I'm so neurotic sometimes.


We thought it needed a bow, so I grabbed the only bow I could find, which was green. I knew I would change the color later. Once I changed the color I didn't like the multi colored quilts, so I changed them to rose tones.


Did the same with this as the eye's opened shot before.




I always soften the skin with a slight glow and gaussian blur. The original wasn't balanced right (in my opinion) for this aspect ratio so I moved the baby up closer to Brooke. (which eliminated the surplace of black space up to the left, that was throwing me off.) I was toying the cropping really tight and cutting off most of Brooke's hands, but I settled on pulling the baby closer.

Aria and Megan

My foto phriend Ethan came into town, so we set up a workshop day just for fun with Aria and Megan. I've never actually tried for sun flares in any of my photos, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Here is is at f22. I'll have to play some more soon.


I love shooting in Livermore. It's a developing wine country. It's not just in Napa anymore. This park we went to was surrounded by vineyards. We hardly even set foot into the park, we were just steps from the parkinglot but had so much fun with area up front we didn't get to explore much.





I like this one.


I've been dying to shoot at this little wine tasting store front. It's a cute little brick building with wine barrels and a courtyard. I'm glad we did this. Ethan was fun to bounce ideas off of. I need to do more days like this to help keep it fresh. I think it's time to go back to the NCPP meetings too. (If the baby would be good to daddy while I'm gone.)


I look at this kind of shot and think, "the brick, the wall, the pose...it's been done a million times". It's time to go way outside the box. I'm tryin'. But the girls loved it and were happy with the shots. I just get bored with the same old shots.

I got Lightroom. I am not proficient on it like I am with photoshop. I need lessons, or I need a full weekend with just my computer.

Sam

This is Sam a good friend of my photo buddy Ethan. She came out from Brentwood and I met her at the bart station. I was so excited to go shoot in Livermore that day since I'd driven by so many times, drooling at the awesome downtown locations. I had been dying to shoot over there since I moved. So from bart we drove out to Livermore and it was a complete mad house downtown. It was wall to wall people and cars. They had blocked off the streets for some festival of some sort. Who knew? So...we made an honest effort, found a parking space forever away and did a few shots not in the location I was hoping for. But it worked out anyway. It forced me to drive around think outside the box. I found some locations I never would have found otherwise. Like the Alameda firehouse. We ended up in downtown Pleasanton.

Making do with a tiny patch of grass across from Safeway, thanks to that no good festival!


Stumbled upon the firehouse.


Probably wondering about this location. I confess...This was a hybrid of a different location (Brentwood) and a little mini park location across from Safeway. Throw "across from Safeway" on the end of anything and it makes it sound so glamorous.


Earlier in the day I picked up this chair. It's 90 years old and from Austria. I got it at a garage sale. He just gave it to me. I think he wanted to get rid of it. I actually didn't want it, but I turned around and he was stuffing it in my car..along with a parrot and two goldfish.




Sam has traveled to India through her church group, and India means a lot to her. This quilt is from India, so it's a little tie in to something that is important to who she is. And that's the only personal tie in I was able to pull off.


Under the hose drying shelf at the firehouse. I love high school seniors. They're on board anywhere you want to put them.

Erica

This was a shoot with a client who made quite a drive out to me. That was really nice. As you can tell, she was tall, (really tall), and beautiful, and a lot of fun to shoot. This was my first ever shooting in Pleasanton. I'm still learning the area. But we went downtown, to a cool little trail off of Bernal and to a beautifully landscaped area inside a...wait for it...business park.