It came! 20 x 24 Family Storyboard

Last week was an exciting one for me and my clients. Their special order of this 20 x 24 storyboard arrived looking as gorgeous as we could have hoped for! We went with metallic paper mounted for framing with a linen texture and a glossy finish. I can't wait to see it hung up in their home!

Family Treasure: 16 x 20 Storyboard

Here's the 16x20 storyboard design I created for one of my family shoots. The hardest thing was making the paisley background! They family had it printed on metallic paper--gorgeous color saturation and a rich metallic sheen--and are going to have it framed. It was so fun to create a piece that will be treasured through generations.

Family Portrait and Fram-eable Special Edit | Johns Creek GA Family Photographer

When I started Butler Family Photography, I chose our name based on the fact that it would be Jacob and I (and hopefully someday our son) shooting and producing the images. I also wanted to imply that our main focus was family-inspired images. 

It's so hard to get a great photo of everyone altogether in your family, especially a big family, and especially if you try to do it yourself. (I know, I've attempted it with my own.) So we are focused on making images for others that we would want shot of our own family. And would I love a big frame-able Special Edit like this one? Large enough for a 22 x 28 print or canvas. Yes! (You are going to want to see the bigger version. Click on the image to see it.)

A few design notes:

• Jacob suggested I make the border look a little like the photograph is spilling over a bit onto the image frame. Fun idea, huh?
• I change the names of the families when posting my designs on the web. Don't they look like they could be Johansens, though?
• Oh, and a big massive thank you to Jacob who did the incredible editing on the background. It needed a lot more bushes and leaves than were there originally, and he is the master at that! 

Our clients liked how the image looks in black and white too.

Family Portrait Storyboard

My storyboard special edits are a hot item lately! Besides this one, I have 3 more packages I will be designing storyboards for. It's fun to create a custom look for each family's group of photos. This storyboard was based on a special edit I did last year, but definitely customized to fit the pictures from their shoot.

Here's how I did the blue background:

1. Flat colored base. I chose the color with the hues and shades of the photographs in mind.

2. Texturized so it looks a little like linen-finished paper.

3. Decorated with a subtle floral brush in a darker shade than the base color.

4. A custom texture overlay to add a little more depth.

5. A second layer of floral brushwork. Done!

Hats: Schaer Talents Business Card Shoot

One of my good friends recently started a hat and accessory-making business. I love her creativity and was thrilled to design her logo and business card. We wanted the business card to feature some of her hats. Here's how it turned out:

Here are the cards fresh from the printer. The pearl paper we ordered gave them a warmer hue and a shimmery finish. They looked gorgeous!

The image for the back of the card featured a collection of her hats. Because it was on a plain white background, I could do a COB (cut-out-background) photo and use the cream flower-patterned background to echo the design in the front of the card.

Here are some other hat images I took as possibilities for the card. I love showing the texture of the yarn, but ultimately decided that a straight-forward representation of her work would be the best for this design.

I love this one. It just reminds me of something a Who in Whoville would wear!


Check out more hats and accessories at the Etsy shop for Schaer Talents: http://www.etsy.com/shop/jschaer1

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."

Sibling Storyboard: Special Edit

I'm finally starting to catch up on all the posts from my holiday shoots. For this one, I designed a 11x14 storyboard as their special edit. I loved incorporating 3 photos along the side with the awesome waterfall portrait. I custom-design each storyboard according to the colors, atmosphere, and character of my subjects and their surroundings. For this one, I really wanted to bring out the personality of the brother and sister and well as compliment the color work of the main image. I also love the fact that these storyboards look and feel ready to frame without a matte.

Busy, Busy, Busy . . . and a Beautiful Storyboard

I have been SOOO busy: shooting, editing, more designing, more editing, babysitting, more editing . . . but "tis the season" for the photographer to be up at--uh, 1:36 a.m.--and blogging because she's neglected it for too long!

Needless to say, I have LOTS of things to post and I think this 11x14 storyboard is a great place to start:


It was a challenge to figure out how to get all the kids and mom and dad in a nice arrangement with the big group photo, but I think it really works. By the way, I change the names of my clients when I post custom designs on my blog . . . I'm just trying to be careful about privacy. I also get a kick out of making up a new name for my clients.

Border Detail

I love doing some overlapping/transparency in my storyboard designs because you can tell that it's a custom design, not just a cookie-cutter template off of a photo site.

11 x 14 Storyboard: Special Edit

Here's the special edit from my recent shoot with a family at the Smith Plantation grounds in Roswell. Originally, my clients and I had planned on a spot color of their cute girl in her swim gear (below), but I felt the photo was at its best as a full color image.


So, I suggested a storyboard using some of the awesome group photos we got. Since I knew black and white was mom's favorite, I used the best family shot and then made black and white conversions of three more photos for the "3-peat" row of boxes. The finished product is a gorgeous 11 x 14 suitable for framing.


Storyboards are new for me as a special edit. (Jacob designed the Baby Parts collage we did last year.) But design is not new to me. I based this special edit on some of the guiding principles of design: dominance, white space, contrast, and simplicity. My dad would be so proud! (He's a professor of graphic design at South Dakota State University.) I especially love the subtle detail in the borders: elegant but subtle so as to not draw away from the focus of the entire piece.


I am so excited to offer these one-of-a-kind designs as part of my packages. I'm looking forward to more opportunities for custom designs (business cards, photo collages, Christmas cards . . . )

Tweaking Reality: Special Edits

Before the spot color treatment (below)

The Special Edit is one of the best parts of our packages. It's a chance to take an image from photography to "photo artistry." Many clients choose spot color, also called selective color photography, for their special edit. I really loved how the above spot color turned out. It also lent an edgy look to the "unposed" fashion look we were aiming towards.



Another kind of special edit involves tweaking reality. On this one pictured a, the client's request was to mute the colors so the water didn't look as muddy and perhaps crop it to emphasize the family more. She also mentioned that the first boy's pant leg was a little bothersome, "but you can't get everything, right? :)"

Before the Special Edit (below)

Well, I definitely used Jacob's expertise on this one. He helped me with the background and I digitally fixed the pant leg. The trick with the waterfall was to change the color without affecting the family in the foreground. I also added a subtle vignette to the image so that it would emphasize the family without having to crop the image. I made two versions of the edit for the client: one as a muted, vintage look. The client was thrilled and chose both versions as part of her package.

The vintage version (below)

Special Edits take time, but they are so worth it. If I've learned one thing about professional photography, it's that an extra effort in post processing can make a great photo into a stunning one.

A Little Bit of Glamorous: College-Age Portraits

You may remember my lovely sister from a previous post about how I do photo processing. I am finally catching up with all the photos I took before my son went to the hospital, and here is the result of today's work.

This session was actually a photo shoot for other family members and my sister was photographer's assistant as well as model for her own photos. She was really a great sport, especially when I wanted to shoot her against a green wall ("Are you sure, Marchet?"), and I love how glamorous she looks in these images.

Some of the ideas for the post-processing were hers: the spot color with all but the eyes, lips, and shirt in black and white (a little vampiric-looking, don't you think?) and the sepia-toned portrait in the middle. Jacob came up with the idea of the third one, a wind-swept glance backward in the "midst of a battle" (he's watching Lord of the Rings right now). I used some textures from Pay It Forward Photography for the second one. I'm just loving textures right now; they add an artistic dimension to an image you can't get in camera. Too cool!

Senior Sisters: Senior Portrait Session

Don't these two senior sisters jump off the screen? They're so glamorous! Thanks to amazing light from the twilight sun and some fun effects in post processing (love the color on that third and fifth one!), these images really work as both senior portraits and head shots for the girls' budding modeling career. You can see more of their work at Amelie Photography. One of the owners is a friend and inspired me to get into the photography business in the first place.

I had so much fun with lens flare and natural rim light! I have been focusing on that kind of light lately, and it's great to see the work pay off. My favorites? So hard to choose, but of course the first one is my favorite. The pose was the girls' idea and I really worked in post to slightly overexpose their faces and bring out those gorgeous brown eyes. I also love the straight-faced shots especially the second shot and the profile shot of her sister in the same setting. Mom will love the smiles (she made sure I got some teeth in there!), so I think everyone will be happy with the results.

I did a fun little special edit for the girls using their last portrait. This 4x6 card has two versions: the first version with one sister facing towards you and the second one with the portrait flipped and the names rearranged accordingly. These two are close friends, but I thought it would be nice if they each had a version where their face was facing right side up. They can use these for graduation announcements or get wallets made and have them for yearbook signing day. Enjoy, girls! And congratulations!