Easter

I love Easter--the beautiful spring blossoms, the sunshine, and the first holiday we celebrated after my son was born. So it will always be a special time of the year for me. These past few years, it's seemed that nothing is certain in life with job changes, moving, our son's health, and the inevitable emotions that come with these changes. Yet, as I've reflected this week about what is unchanging in my life, I always come back to one experience: the first time I truly felt the assurance of the existence and absolutely overpowering grace of Jesus Christ, my Savior. That knowledge has guided me through a mission to Hungary, a marriage, and now motherhood--even when times are hardest. So, this Easter I'm truly grateful to Him who is the constant in my life:


"And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written, that the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, which beareth record of them, may be and abide in you forever." Ether 12:41, The Book of Mormon

And for my Hungarian friends . . .

--És most, azt ajánlanám nektek, hogy keressétek ezt a Jézust, akiről a próféták és az apostolok írtak, hogy veletek legyen és megmaradjon bennetek Istennek, az Atyának, valamint az Úr Jézus Krisztusnak és a róluk bizonyságot tevő Szentléleknek kegyelme. Ether 12:41, A Mormon Könyve

 

  

The first three photos were taken by Jacob, the last one by me: The petal blossoms were falling off the trees like snow yesterday, and that's my sweetheart with a handful. The text is Hungarian for "love."

Spiderwebs

Whenever Jacob and I come home at night, Jacob makes sure to check on the resident spiders that build magnificent webs outside our home. He is fascinated by these nocturnal creatures. Consequently, these webs and their occupants have become a favorite subject of his to photograph. Here are some of my favorites. Come to think of it, this post is especially timely considering Halloween is just around the corner. And that last one is kind of spooky!

Head Swapping

It's been a full week with my surgery and a sick baby on our hands. We've taken a break from photo shoots for the time being. However, we wanted to post a little about some of the work Jacob has done in his Special Edits work including head swapping. It's a little trick photographers use in post processing to get all the faces looking right. It takes some work, but the results are very nice.

First, you have to have two (or more) photos that you can use to form the composite. That's why I often take several shots of the same pose when I do group portraits (like this shot from a kids photo shoot earlier this summer). Obviously, the goal is to make sure all the people are looking at the camera and smiling at the same time without any help from photo editing. But when that doesn't work, I try to get at least a nice shot of each person looking and smiling at the camera in the same pose so we can "head swap" if we need to.

Here are the two photos Jacob used to create the composite above:

Good expressions on both of the little ones' faces, but not so good on the two oldest

Pleasant smiles on the two oldest, but "deer-in-the-headlights" look on the two youngest

Next, Jacob finds a place where he can swap one part of the image out for the other. Sometimes, head swapping is as easy as taking a head from one photo and putting it over the other photo, then blending the background to match. In this case, Jacob had to swap out whole bodies, so here's how he ended up editing these originals.


Put the two jigsaw pieces together and ta-da! After all that work, we had fun playing around a little with the color levels and added a bit of a vignette to the one at the top of the post. But the full color one below looks just as good, and hopefully doesn't draw any attention to the photo editing that was done to it.

Practice, Practice, Practice

There's an old saying I often think about: "Repetition is the mother of all knowledge." That definitely holds true for sports photography. These shots (especially the action ones) took some repetition before I got it right. Thanks go to my 12-year-old model for letting me take a second set of jump-shot, lay-up, and dribbling shots. (It was hot out too!) By the way, I love the 5th image, his "game face." He looks like a model for a sports drink ad.

While I'm giving out praise, I should also tell you what an amazing job Jacob did with the spot color on the first image. (Make sure you click on the image to see a larger version of the photo. ) In general, I am an "in-camera" photographer. I do very little retouching to photos and really try to get it right at the shoot so no editing is necessary. However, some images can't be created in camera, and it takes a real artist to transform a nice photo into something spectacular like this. Jacob did another spot color photo I love. Check it out: Special Edit: Spot Color.

Do you have school-age kids who would like to model for me? You will get awesome photos of your kids doing what they do best, and your kids will get some fun experience modeling for me like this young man and his sister. I'm especially looking to practice more action and sports photography. So, if your kid does soccer, T-ball, baseball, dance, gymnastics, or other action-packed activity, please contact us to sign up for my Kids and Teens Photo Project.

Special Edit: Spot Color

This is a favorite special edit of ours. You can choose from the two types of Spot Color effects below. Please visit our Pricing page for rates on adding this effect to a photo from a session or a personal photo from your own collection.

Black and White with Spot Color

Desaturated with Spot Color

Special Edit: Greeting Card

We love adding custom-designed text to a photo to use as a greeting card for Christmas, birthdays, birth announcements, weddings, etc. This is an especially cost-effective way of getting your cards done. Please visit our Pricing page for rates on adding a custom-designed words or sayings to a photo from a session or a personal photo from your own collection.

Special Edit: Photo Editing

There's nothing worse than having a perfect photo with a blemish, spot, or other minor problem. But thanks to photo editing software, that can be fixed! Please email us for a quote on editing a photo from a session or a personal photo from your own collection.

After Photo Editing

Before Photo Editing

Coiling Vine

Jacob writes:

The vines here grow as thick as tree branches. Winding their way up . . . everything, they create images of beautiful braids.