Practice Composite

All of my faithful blog readers will likely remember those cool juggling photos I did of my handsome husband. (If you don't remember or have never seen them, check out "Portraits of a Juggler" in the June archives.) Well, there was one image on that post that was composed of three images to show Eric's movement walking and juggling downtown. I tried to composite them into a single image at that time, but couldn't figure out how to do it cleanly. I had handheld the camera for the shoot, so the backgrounds weren't lining up when I tried to stack the photos, and then I couldn't get all three images of Eric in the one image without also painting in some of the uneven background, so I eventually decided to give up on it for the time being. 

Last month I decided to enter the original tri-image photo set in the Motion category of a local print competition, and I received some very complimentary remarks from the judges; however, I was told the entry was ultimately disqualified from judging because they "were under the impression that it was supposed to be a single image." Oh well.

ANYWAY... after hearing that, I decided maybe it was time to try merging these images again. Well, apparently my Photoshop skills have significantly improved in the past six months, because I sat down to do this today and it only took about fifteen minutes. I haven't scrutinized it for perfection, but I think it looks good for the little time I spent on it. Hope you like it, too. :)

Baby Bliss

Last week I had the pleasure of photographing my friends Nick and Beth and their precious new baby Simon! We decided to go to the campus, since there was still some nice fall color on the ground. Simon is just about four months old now, so we basically stayed in one place and just enjoyed family time outdoors--it was a nice warm day for late November! Here are a few of my favorite photos! It was so much fun watching this adorable baby explore everything! :) Thanks, Nick and Beth, for letting me capture some of your cherished moments with Simon as you watch him grow!

 

My Best Friend's Wedding

Caley has been one of my best friends since 6th grade. We have been miles--even oceans--apart over the years, and our friendship has always just grown with us. Three weeks ago, I had the honor of doing wedding portraits for her and her new husband, Stephen. They are an amazing pair, and so much fun to photograph! Stephen proudly donned the traditional Scottish dress, and Caley had a beautiful custom gown that couldn't be more suited to her personality (nor could her awesome shoes!). Here are a few of my favorites from their wedding shoot. Caley and Stephen, thank you so much for having me do your wedding portraits!  It was an amazing privilege!

 

Senior Portraits!

Last month I had my first clients for senior portraits! Campbell and Seth were so much fun to work with, and we had a lot of fun incorporating their personalities in their photos! Campbell plays the bass, so we included that in several photos; and Seth is an avid tennis player, and he has a neat collection of antique tennis racquets that we used for many of his photos. Here are several of my favorites from both sessions. Enjoy!

Sisters

Last weekend I had the privilege of photographing these beautiful girls! We had so much fun listening to music and taking pictures in and around their gorgeous Victorian home! Here is a small preview from their photo shoot.

Looooooong Overdue! Fireworks and Sparklers!

 ...And by "long overdue," I mean that I was long overdue to add a new blog post as well as to edit these photos! These first eight photos are my favorite shots from my first experience photographing fireworks! This was during our family vacation in Florida over this past summer. My husband and I sat on top of our condo building and watch the fireworks being shot from a couple of miles out in the ocean. The main thing that got in the way of my shots was all of the smoke that clouded over some of the fireworks, but I still got a lot of nice shots! Before this shoot, I read that it is best to set your white balance on "daylight" and your shutter on "bulb" (manual shutter control), and I have to say, the colors came out really great! I kept the shutter open for about 4-6 seconds for each shot. Only slightly edited to pump color.

 
































These photos are from a visit with my husband's family a couple of weeks ago. We had a fun cookout, and our niece and nephew got to play with sparklers! They enjoyed letting me take their pictures, too! My shutter was on 2 seconds for these photos. My husband also put a firecracker down inside a dried gourd, and I caught that explosion, which was awesome! You can see in the photo where the explosion caused a crack in the gourd! The last photo is a 2-second exposure of the bare firecracker exploding. These photos were tons of fun!