I decided to take a picture everyday of the year 2012. You can never practice too much
Category Archives: It’s personal
A year in review blog post. Sure, why not?2011 was an extremely difficult year. Probably my worst (although its a close call with the year Ella died). I don’t want to focus on the negative so I will just talk about what I learned from it.
First, I learned how important prayer is. Without it you pretty much don’t have any hope. You may think you do, but that is a dangerous & arrogant mistake. I have been praying for guidance with regards to my photography. The problem so far has been the fact that I am like a split personality. I love the artsy photos, I think about them most of the night. I write down photo ideas all day and night… and that part of me would be totally satisfied with doing only those type of photos for the rest of my life. There is, however, two problems with that. Number one, I am not that good at it. And number two, there is another part of me that loves nothing more then a beautiful real portraits. So, what to do?First I finally narrowed down the type of portraits I love the most. It is glam photography. Basically modeling photos with unique set ups and make up (for me, boudoir falls into that group). So I am trying to focus in on that. It’s not that I don’t love babies or families, because I do. It’s just not what I was born to do.Second, I realized I have to spend a lot more time learning my art, my style. I love my photos to look like a day dream and I have always said that. But I lose that vision too regularly. I decided to spend all the days I am not working on client work creating my day dream photos. I am going to include the children more so I will get to be with them even while creating my art.Everyday I pray that God will help me become the best Catholic, wife, mother and photographer I can possibly be. This year, I had many distractions (that’s life) and I think I have learned how to keep moving even when things get turned upside down. You have to keep your eye on the (day) dream. So living through the worst year of my life did have benefits. It did teach me a lot. Now I just have to make sure I don’t forget ..and to keep praying! With God, all things are possible.I hope you have a wonderful 2012!!!
<3, THighlights of my year
- I had about 50 client sessions. That’s not bad right? About one a week!
- My work was published many times and 4 that I saw myself! Including a national ad campagine!
- I was a finalist in the Project Imagin8tion contest by Ron and Bryce Howard. Out of 96,00 entries I was one of the “best”!! (I will always be sad I didnt win it though haha!”)
- I learned. A LOT.
- My mentor, Brooke Shaden, (even if she doesn’t really mentor me personally) emailed me a couple times!!! Even offered a free ticket to meet her at an event!!! I cant even believe Im writing that, its just so awesome! (I wasnt able to make it, Ill always be sad about that too!)
- Oh ya! I got my Mark ii in 2011! I feel like Ive had it forever, its such a part of me! (Thank you A & B, youll never know what that loan meant to me)
- And the thing I am most proud of. I never gave up on hope or faith and I never stopped loving!!
From my family to yours <3
I made these through snapfish.com. I liked so many so I thought I would upload a couple different ones to the blog
I have been asked countless, COUNTLESS times how I do my floating photos. First of all, there is so much I DO NOT know, I want to take a class on it myself. However, I do know the basics of it. I taught myself honestly, and there may be a lot of different ways to do this. This is the only way I know that looks real and is actually very simple. Someday I hope to learn how to float in all different situations like My Brooke does…. maybe by sharing what I know I will be more likey to have the favor returned
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This is my first tutorial so I hope you can follow along!! Here we go!
My Easy Peasy Floating/Levitation/Flying Tutorial
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The Photo-taking Part
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1. Set up your camera & tripod.
2. Put stool in place and auto focus the camera on it.
3. After it’s in focus set your lens to “manual focus” to ‘lock’ the focus and don’t change it.
4. Climb on the stool and try to look weightless
5. Use remote to take photo. (if you don’t have a remote. Set the timer and run to the stool and lay down as fast as you can)
5. DO NOT MOVE THE CAMERA or the tripod or change the focus!
6. Get down and move everything out of the camera’s view.
7. DONT TOCUH THE CAMERA or the tripod or change the focus!
8. Take a photo of the empty background —being careful to not move your camera!
That is it for the photo taking part!! (you can put your lens back on auto focus).
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The Photo-shop Part
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1. Open the floating photo.
2. Open the background photo.
3. Push “V” on your key board, click on the floating photo and drag it onto the background photo.
4. Lower the opacity to %50 so you can see where to line up your photo.
5. Move the opacity back up to %100 and click the “layer mask” icon for the top layer.
6. Grab a black brush. Leave it at %100 and set it at about %50 hardness.
7. Start painting over the part of the stool you want to erase.
8. If you mess up switch the brush to white and fix it.
9. Zoom in to make sure you get all the stool.
10. Zoom back out and switch from black to white till you get it perfect.
11. Admire how cool you look floating in mid air!!
12. Flatten the photo tweak it and run some actions to make it look even more real!
13. That’s it! Share with friends
I think this is honestly a great gift idea! I would think that even if I weren’t the photographer. It is so original and thoughtful. I am going to list people it would make a great gift for/from.
- Grandparent to their child = perfect way to get those pictures of the grand babies you’ve been asking for!!!
- Group gift to bride at bridal shower = boudoir shots for future hubby!!
- Group baby shower gift = ensure she will get newborn photos right after the baby is born!
- Baby shower gift = special maternity photos she will never forget!
- Engagement party gift = perfect for E sessions and “save the date” cards!!
- Wedding gift = so the couple can play dress up after their honeymoon and get all the special photos that they may have missed on their wedding day!
- Graduation gift = do you know a special kid who’s going to be graduating next year? Think ahead and give the gift of their senior session!
- Aspiring model = just because we live in AZ doesn’t mean your hopes of modeling are down the drain. Give him/her the gift of head shots and watch their dreams come true.
- Anniversary = boudoir shots will make you both feel special! (your wife will LOVE the fact that you want photos of her. ..and your husband will be shocked that you took those photos for him! trust me)
- Family Christmas gift = this is a special gift any family will cherish for a life time!
- Mom’s birthday = everyone chip in and get mom the gift of confidence. Every woman who does a boudoir session is reminded of how beautiful they really are!
- The impossible to shop for person on your list! They will love this!
The list goes on and on!!
Email me for details theresa@withlovephotographyblog.com
