Cirque Dreams: Jungle Fantasy

This past week the USO hosted a Circque Dreams preformance and it was pretty awesome. :)  My almost-two-year-old was awestruck by it.  Flash photography was prohibited from the show, so this was a great chance for me to test out my skills at doing low light shots with my 50mm.

It was surprisingly easy, I did a good portion of these shots with my daughter on my lap, or in between chasing her down to get back in her seat.  (Shooting in AV mode certainly made my life easier).

-Shasta

Brothers

Recently I did a family session with two small boys who were absolutely adorable.  Towards the end of the shoot, we moved down to a small stream that I love to shoot along.  Well, eventually the water got the best of the boy's curiousity and I was able to capture most of it.  

                                                                         Enjoy! :)
                                                                              -Shasta

"Hey look! Water! I'll give you my juice box if you put your foot in..."

"Yeah? I'll take your juice box! Watch this!"

"I'm doing it!" -- "Mom is going to paint your back porch red."

"Huh, that was a bit colder than I expected."

"Two juice boxes say you don't have the guts to do it again."

(This was when I thought they were done playing and turned away.  Just as soon as I had put my camera down, he slipped in and soaked his backside).

Dad to the rescue... and one cold, wet little boy.

It was then that he realized, his brother didn't have a juice box.

Cold and humiliated, he was ready to go home.

Editing a New Favorite

This is one of my newest personal favorites, and I am so pleased with how this shot came out.  So much so, I thought I'd share more of it with you!

I'm still trying to improve my skills with the 50mm lens, for the most part I keep the aperture between 1.4 to 2.8, but on this shot I decided to reduce the aperture to 5.6 to achieve a larger depth of field (I really loved the texture of the rock).

(Click images to enlarge)




Aperture: f/5.6  Exposure: 1/50  ISO: 100  Focal Length: 50mm

 

I'm still tweaking the B&W version of this picture, this is my first version.  Normally I like black & white shots to be very bold and high contrast, but I'm thinking this shot might require a softer look.

And below is an example of what the shot looked like straight out of the camera, compared to an edited version. 

When I edited this picture I used Paint the Moon's actions from her "Moxie" and "Blessings" sets for Photoshop Elements.  Other than that it was basic editing touch ups, decreasing shadows, boosting contrast, brightened the eyes, and slight sharpening.  And I used the cloning tool to remove a few blemishes.

So that's how I did it! I know many of my friends are interested in learning more about photography, and while I'm not nearly skilled or experienced enough to really teach it, I'd like to share my methods with you.

Thanks for reading! And if there's anything else you'd like me to start posting on here, I'd love to hear it!

-Shasta

Crave Photography: Giveaway

Crave Photography is in my top 10 favorite photographers, she is amazing and her style is stunning.  I LOVE her work!  Anyway, she's now hosting an incredible giveaway for photographers.  An ALL EXPENSE PAID TRIP FOR A TWO DAY MENTORSHIP! I can't tell you how excited I would be to win this! 

To top it off, there's 6 vendors participating in the giveaway.  MCP Actions, Florabella, Jessica Drossin Textures, Zozo Bug Baby, Rock the Drops and Gracy Lu Originals.

So go check it out! You can click here for Crave Photography's FB Page, and enter the giveaway on her blog. :)

Flickr & Stuff

Recently I overhauled my Flickr set up, started over from scratch and came up with a different username that better matched the rest of my business screen names.  Here's the link to my new account! FLICKR

I want to take a moment to thank everyone that booked a session with me this month.  Holy cow am I excited!  A little nervous, because I'm going to be pretty darn busy, but I cannot wait to get out there and get some beautiful shots with the cherry blossoms in bloom!

This coming weekend I have three sessions & a BBQ to look forward to. 
What are you doing this weekend? :)

March Update & Future Goals

From Suzy Q's new Royal Elegance collection.

This past weekend I got together with the owner of Suzy Q's Jewelry and we had a photo shoot of her products... it was so much fun!  This was the second product shoot I've done, and I really love doing them.  If you (or someone you know) own a small business and would like pictures taken of your products or services, let me know.  I can offer affordable packages or we might be able to work out a trade of services.

Next month is going to keep me quite busy with cherry blossom sessions.  As of right now, I have six sessions on the calendar, and an additional three sessions that are floating around.  I'm really excited about this, it's the busiest I've been since starting my business back in October!  The only downside is that we will be moving back to the states this summer, and I'll be losing all my clients here and having to re-establish myself elsewhere.

Speaking of re-establishing elsewhere, once I get to Washington I'm considering switching up my business (narrowing my field of work), and maybe even go back to college.  I'd love to learn more about photojournalism, it's something that I've always been interested in, but never had the guts to pursue.  My photography skills still have a ways to go, and there is still so much I don't know about editing.  I'd love to go back to college and absorb as much as possible, because trying to learn it all on my own is a bit overwhelming. 

On a side note, I have less than 5 months left on my Project 365!
I've really enjoyed it and I'm already scheming some ideas for my next project.  I think I'd like to set a goal of taking face shots of the people in my life.  I don't want this to be a timeline stricken goal, becuase I want to work on the quality of the picture and not feel pressured into submitting something for the sake of a deadline (like I have with my 365). I think it would great to compile 100 different faces of people in my life, or even people I just happen to cross paths with. Do you have any experience with a project like this, or know of someone who does?  I could use some tips & advice. :)

-Shasta

The Coffee Shop Blog: Color Bar Templates

The Coffee Shop Blog, which is incredible to begin with, recently released their new color bar template... and it is super addictive.  I'm seriously wishing I had this when we painted the interior of our old house!

If you design anything, and need inspiration for color swatches, you really ought to check this out - it is that awesome. :)

Here's the link to the Coffee Shop Blog so you can download the template for photoshop.

And here's me playing around with it. ;)