Miss A {::maternity::}

I had the honor and privilege of photographing my dear, lifelong friend, Amanda, a few weeks before the birth of her youngest daughter, Juliet. 

It was a maternity session that was also a family session, and there was plenty of wonderful fun to be had.

These are my favorite images from that day. 

Lily is listening to what Juliet has to say, but Mama 'Manda knows; Juliet says she's coming soon!

Loved the session. Love the family.
Can't wait to photograph them again when Juliet makes her appearance, which should be any day now. 

Amanda, her family, and all of us friends are officially on baby watch. =)

Ok, Ok: I Did It

For the longest time, I was editing with Lightroom 2, and using Photoshop Elements 6 for when I wanted to put watermarks on my images.

Well, I finally broke down and installed Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 6. (And deleted the dated Elements.)

Now, I can edit and watermark without leaving a single program.
I still haven't quite gotten skin retouching down yet in CS6, but I am working on it.
The patch tool is quickly becoming my friend! =)

In other news, I am going to be quite busy over the next 46 days.
I have a maternity-cum-family shoot on Sunday. The mama's due in approximately three weeks with her second daughter. So excited. =) I am in the process of making a belly sash for her to wear. It's my first go, so I'm a bit nervous. (And most of it will be hand-sewn, because I am still unfamiliar with a sewing machine!)
I have two engagement shoots over the next month. One of the couples wants to mail out their photos with their invites before Christmas. The other couple is easy-peasy on time, and just wants it done before the end of the year.
Also coming next month is another wedding. Yep, I am second-shooting my fourth wedding next month! I am so excited.

All of this coming work is a blessing, and I welcome it.

Goodbye, October

Goodbye, October, a photo by speckled_beckle on Flickr.

There is still autumn left, but not much.

We've already had three snowstorms in my area, and more may come during the next month. November has been a historically unpredictable month for snowstorms.

I've been taking advantage of the fall colors while I can, but I've mostly stuck to the autumn I see around me in my front yard.
I didn't make it to the mountains this year, but I will make it a goal for 2013.

This little vagabond leaf was hanging out in the currant bush in the front yard, detached from its normal branch --that is, indeed, a currant leaf.

Tis the last of October, so Happy Halloween, everyone!

November brings Christmas prep and, of course, Thanksgiving.

(By the by, do you notice a new watermark I'm trying out? I may need to make it bigger, but I don't know. Feedback on that would be appreciated.)

Session::Scott

The plan for the day included hanging out with my friend, Krista.
We were going to edit* and bake banana bread.
(*Krista is also a photographer.)

While we were hanging out, she invited me to a session that she was going to have with her cousin, Scott, that night.

I had to run home beforehand, but agreed.

The first place we were going to shoot was closed for the season.
So we went somewhere else. (And it's a place that is quickly becoming one of my favorite places to shoot!)

It was near sundown, but we managed to get some great shots in before the sun went down.
(By the way, I am loving my nifty fifty!)

Here are some of my favorite photos from that day.

I look forward to fall a little more each year.

I look forward to fall a little more each year., a photo by speckled_beckle on Flickr.

I love fall and everything it brings with it.

Well, ok, most of what it brings with it.

For example, I love the cooler temperatures and the hoodies, hot cocoa, and bonfires it brings along with it. I don't mind the moisture that fall also brings to my area. (Yes, even the random snow day is fine with me.)

I also love the smells that fall brings. The drying leaves, the cooler more humid air, the first wisps of chimney smoke... Ah, lovely. (Another scent I associate with fall is diesel exhaust on the cool morning air. It reminds me of the time when I was in school and would wait for the bus on my rural street.)

I also love how it is a flourish of color, more fleeting than Spring but just as imminent. One has all of Spring and the following Summer to capture the beauty of flowers, but after leaves change to orange, and then successively to brown, they fall to the ground and their delicate bones get trampled underfoot.

It all makes the loveliness of fall that much more beautiful.

Of course, the thing I do not like about fall is that which is most inevitable: that winter will undoubtedly follow.
While winter is beautiful, and encourages me to wear lovely sweaters and drink more hot tea and cocoa, sometimes the cold just gets annoying.

Ah, well.

I welcome each season as it comes, camera in hand.

Welcome, Fall! I have been expecting you.

Spark

This post is starting out the way that most of my text posts have: untitled. I usually figure that getting out what I need to say will spark something. =)

I am nearly done with my third week of training for my "real" job; next week I 'graduate' from training, and the week after that, I will be answering phones! o.o (I feel so unprepared.)
...though, today, my trainer observed me navigating through our systems, and she said I performed pretty well at that.

(Kids: if your parents ever tell you that spending time on your computer is a bad thing, they may not be telling you the real reason they want you to log off.)

Adjusting my schedule back to nights has been difficult. I'm glad for that. I miss my mornings. =( The light is just so fresh and new and gorgeous at the start of a new day.
(Thankfully, Bailey does get me up early every day.)

I am not finding myself to be too motivated for photography during the week. (Getting out of work at 11:30 pm doesn't make it easy to schedule any photo shoots, either.) And, on the weekends, I'm usually so busy with family that I just use my camera phone and Instagram everything.

...but that's going to change.

I am second shooting a third wedding on September 8th. My amazing photographer and I have two additional weddings on our calendar to shoot this year: one in October and one in December.
Personally, I have three maternity shoots coming up. One in the next couple months (Mama A's due in December!) and the other two probably early next year (Mama C is due in March and Mama K is due in April). I also have a family shoot and a few love sessions on my peripheral calendar.
It will be so nice to know what my semi-permanent schedule will be, so I can hopefully get these shoots ironed out and calendarized. (Yep, I just made that word up.) =p

In preparation for these shoots, to update my camera bag, and as a way of celebrating having a job, I purchased a lens today. (Well, I ordered it on Thursday, which is still technically the day I'm operating under.) I am so excited to play around with it...I can hardly wait until Saturday.

I do need to buy some new work clothes, too, so I don't have to keep doing laundry every two days.

That's what's going on in the photography part of my life right now. =) I am trying to schedule some impromptu shoots for this upcoming three day weekend, so if I have caught interested parties in time, I will definitely show you the work my new lens can do.

Otherwise, have a great Labor Day and see you in a few weeks.

Aquarius | The Water Bearer

Aquarius | The Water Bearer, a photo by speckled_beckle on Flickr.

I should have started this series off with either Aries or Capricorn --since Aries is what the Zodiac calendar starts with and Capricorn is what the Greco-Roman calendar starts with-- but I just now thought of that.

So oh well.
Aquarius comes first alphabetically.
...at least that's the logic that I'm claiming.
It has nothing to do with the props we had available at the time, alright? =)

This is one of the shots out of my head from the zodiac shoot.
There are several versions of each sign swimming around in my head, and I don't know when (or if) I'll ever get them all out and into the camera.

I will surely try, though.

The ideas exist on paper, if that counts for anything! =P

This photo has a different editing style for me.
Very muted colors, almost a desaturation gradient as it goes down the photo. It almost (!) looks like I used a fancy-shmancy preset or Photoshop action on this photo. The only thing I did in Photoshop was a bit of hair fly-away touch up (since Lightroom's clone stamp tool is mediocre and good really only for skin touch ups) and add in the watermark.
I used MCP Action's "Remember When" preset in Lightroom, but then I played around with individual color saturation sliders and this is what you get.

And, if you came over from Flickr, you may remember that I mentioned that every photo so far from this series has taken on a different voice -- Libra, for example, is black and white, but I didn't just hit the "grayscale" button or pull the saturation all the way back. I like that each photo has taken on a different voice in post-processing; each sign is different, so why shouldn't each photo be?
It's almost like having several mini photo sessions to edit. When I first got Lightroom and was building up my own personalized collection of presets, each photo session that I shot created its own preset, not by intention, but just the way that each session had its own personality, voice, and environment / condition.
Most of the shoots that I've done since have not really allowed for much in the way of creativity when it comes to editing; I may go overboard-crazy with editing someone's family session, but if I am not 100% happy with the result, no one else will see it. (Chances are, the photo will be either color or monotone, not appearing to be half and half like this photo seems to be doing.)
An artistic session like this one got the ball rolling again.
So, in a way, this series is nostalgic for me, taking me back.

There are several other shots coming from this; I might just blog them instead of Flickr them. We'll see. Or maybe I'll just Facebook them. It's 3am; please forgive me if my brain is all over the place!

Also, one final word about this photo: I am not crazy about my water mark. Any feedback on that would be great. (And any feedback on the photo / concept would be great, too.)