When the sun hit this little ladies hair it was amazing! The weather was fantastic and I had great conversation with this girlie. I love talking to 5 year olds. Why? Because they crack me up! My little girl Haylee just turned 5 and is already itching to turn 6 but seriously the things that come out of her mouth make me laugh so hard. This little girl was no different. I loved watching her Mom and Grandma’s faces while she answered my question because the answers she was giving weren’t her normal answers I found out. Such as when I asked what her favorite color was. She told me it was black and red… her Mom laughed and said that was something new. It is typically pink and purple.

I hope you guys had fun at the Circus… since it was her first time and all (again something she told me but she had been 3 times before lol).

Happy Monday!

I love my job! I get to meet amazing people and capture moments of their lives. Yesterday I got to meet this amazing couple. They were just married! They were so much fun and I must say I absolutely adore her wedding dress! It is just simply beautiful!

I am super excited to show a sneak peek of my new Your Walls display options that Candace from Simple Wish Designs created for me. I should have them all up soon but in the mean time her is just a little sample. LOVE!!!!!

My Gear:

Camera – Nikon D700
Lenses – 50 1.4, 85 1.8 and 60mm Macro

Programs – CS5 and Lightroom 2

I shoot in RAW.

Question: Who designed your website?

Answer: I did My website is through Show It and I love how customizable it is. I wanted my website to be different. I wanted it to portray me as a person and photographer. I didn’t want it to look like a template site. I love that I can change anything I want, whenever I want.

My super cute Twitter and Facebook buttons you see above and on my site are from the amazing Tiffany at On The Spot Studio.

Question: I’d love to know how you achieve such consistent skin-tones. Is is something you do when “developing” the raw image or something you do in Photoshop itself?

Answer: Good skin tones start with a properly exposed image. I tend to over expose my images a bit. I like bright! I just eyeball the image and tweak the skin tone coloring using the hue/saturation layer. I remove some red or yellow till it suits my taste. I did learn the CMYK method and talk about giving me a headache. I would drive my self batty making sure the values were correct and I wouldn’t always like the results. I ended up going back to my regular way of editing skin because I liked the results better.

Question: What is your workflow?

Answer: This is how I go about editing my images. I obviously first load my images into Lightroom. I then use the rating option (stars) I just go through them once. The keepers get one star and the throw outs get none. I then display only the keepers. I only go through my images once. Either it stays or goes. I then do my Lightroom edits. I don’t edit every image in color and black and white. Images that I feel will rock in black and white go black and white and that is it. I then export them to Photoshop. I edit each image and save one for gallery, one for print, and then if I am using the image for a sneak peek or on my site I save one for that use as well. I have different folders set up for each image. I also make sure I save the session to my EHD (external hard drive).

Question: For those of us still trying to find our editing style…when you were starting out did you always do a “straightforward” simple edit of each photo for the client and then play around with more creative versions of that edit and offer that to the client as well?

Answer: Ah yes finding your style. Seriously finding my style drove me nuts and still does sometimes. I never have been the ‘straightforward’ editing type of girl. My style has evolved to be a bit less drastic in my editing but I am not a clean processor for the most part. I edited the way I wanted to edit. I think it is really important to display your art they way you want to shoot and edit on your website so your clients will know what to expect from you. If your images are all over the place then how will your client know what type of style they will be getting. I hope that makes sense.

I think it is important to find YOUR style not try to replicate someone else. If you are pulled to a certain style then go with it and do it your way. Be true to yourself and your art and those that appreciate your work will be the ones hiring you. Why shoot and edit in a style that isn’t something you love. We do this because we love it and if we are doing something we don’t love then we need to stop doing it that way.

::stepping off soap box::

Question: Do you use certain actions?

Answer: Yep!

Okay here is the list of my favs.

Florabella – I haven’t got her new set yet. I am trying to have self control lol
TRA (Totally Rad Actions) – I just recently fell in love with these as well.
Lily Blue – I use her presets and actions
MCP Actions – I use her Eye Doctor action and always use her resize and sharpen for web as well.

Question: Do you have a favorite “go to” lens for your pictures?

Answer: When I was shooting with my D300 it was my 50 1.4 but now I am in lust with my 85 1.8 on my D700.

Ending this post with one of my fav images of my little man Hudson.

Clothing can be found at Forever 21, Old Navy and Piperlime