I asked them to squish for this shot so I could get all three in the frame……..love every one of their little faces

and in bw cause I really like it too and can’t quite decide

also had to add another just for the sheer cuteness factor.

Last sale of the year for Action Sets and a Mentoring GiveAway!

I still can’t believe it’s November, next week is Thanksgiving, AND Christmas is just next month!! It seems time keeps passing by faster and I still haven’t put up any of my decorations yet which is crazy unusual for me

So, for one week {till Thanksgiving – why wait till Black Friday, right?!}, I will have all my actions on sale as well as offering a new set this weekend!

Come back and check this post at noon today and everyday for the rest of the Thanksgiving week for a free action from the Pre-Released set!!

Had to share cause 1. He’s Adorable and 2. that second look is so fierce it cracks me up, I asked him to give me a serious shot and he showed me!

I had to get one shot with his little animal cause when he was born, this monkey was three times as big as he was…so crazy how fast they grow!

To go along with my previous post (coca-cola), I had to add a couple more to the blog. I love the light as the sun was setting with these.

and all the little monkeys together!

To all you young ladies, these boys are not available to talk to until after they graduate college. Nothing like giving a kid a soda to bring some laughter and goofiness, and and one serious pose upon their request

As I have written before, I have been working on updating my current website as well as re-establishing the goals I have for my business.
I love photography and when I say I love it, I mean I really love it! I have enjoyed watching my clients reactions to seeing their pictures and it blesses me to no end to give someone something they will cherish forever.

I have this subject titled “ACPCG” because it is an organization I became involved with about 6 years ago. I haven’t been as active in it as I would like but it is something I feel strongly about and wanted to share with my fellow photographers that this is truly a gift that you can give to someone else.

With having two preemies myself and one in and out of the hospital for the first couple years, as well as having a dear friend lose her son to an awful disease, when I found this site, I knew I had to join. Basically, it is the photographer coming to the hospital (or a different location) and capturing a child that is in the NICU or that has a life threatening illness. Touching up the prints and giving them to mom and dad to hold on to and cherish.

I met one family a few years ago where the boy was in remission and so thankful that years later (presently) he is still in remission! I was so blessed and encouraged by meeting this family and the tears that came to her eyes when she saw the images I took of their family and her son was priceless.

I just wanted to encourage my fellow photographers to give back at times and be a blessing to others. My hope is to do this more in the next few years especially as my kids get a little bit older.

Here are a few of my youngest in NICU, I am so grateful to God for how healthy and strong he is and am thankful that with this next pregnancy, it looks like this munchkin will be coming to term and not early, praise God!

There are many other organizations to be apart of if this one is not for you, I just wanted to share this one in particular. Thanks for reading!

For this week, my NorthWest Set is on sale for $15 instead of $24.95!

I also wanted to do a quick post with a tip on working with actions.

I grabbed this shot real quick to use……he has got that car right behind him though which is a bit bothersome so I wanted to play with it in PS to see if I could make it a little less apparent. I also wanted to encourage those of you that do run actions, to go a step beyond to make a photo yours by adding some of your own steps. Actions run differently on all pictures too so even on my own actions, I will add a step now and then to improve it for that photo.
This one is SOOC (only cropped and resized for web)

This next one I ran my NW Retro action on it.

I felt like it needed some more *umph*, so instead of just running the action, I decided to add a low fill layer (brown) at 24% opacity. I flattened the layer, added about 5% of soft light, went to curves (the blue channel) and went to the top right corner and brought it down a bit.

Below, I ran one of my black and whites from my NW Set. (Started with the SOOC)

Duplicated the layer, “Multiplied” it in “Blend Mode” at 70% approx. and erased them back in slightly.

I then wanted to try out some texture, so I opened a texture that I have and ran the same BW on it so the color would be the same. I dragged the texture over to the picture and used “free transform” to fit it perfectly over the picture. I erased them back in at a low opacity and then reduced the the texture layer to 22%. I flattened the layers and then burned a little bit around the edges.

I hope that helps a bit and maybe even given you some ideas with Photoshop. There is soooo much you can do with it. I am working with CS3 on these and my actions only run on my Photoshop CS and above.

One of my most wonderful friends ever and her beautiful children! !

Of course with this topic I had to include one though it was so hard to choose so I stuck with a shot that is more personal, my oldest holding my youngest <3