Sunset Silhouettes

One thing I love about the beach is getting my friends to jump in front of the sun at sunset! I did a series like this last January and wrote a a tutorial on how to do it if you're interested.  I shot these at the same beach, in Santa Monica, but it being summer now instead of winter, the sun was in a completely different place! It pretty much set over the mountains instead of directly over the water like it did in January.  The sky had very different colors and gave the pictures a very different vibe than last time. I also had some fun getting my friends to hold hands and jump together!

My fabulous jumper in these shots is an amazing photographer herself, check out her blog Meghan Bob Photography.

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Sooc - From Good to Wow - Looking Up

Jill and Ashley have a challenge on their blogs every week.  First we link up our Straight Out Of Camera pictures with Ashley, then on Thursday we link up our edits using Ashley's photoshop tutorials.  This is my first time participating because I get really nervous showing my SOOC pics! I like to at least do subtle lighting/contrast/color fixes.  But these are completely untouched - they're not even cropped.

The theme this week is Looking Up - I picked these because she is sorta looking up and I am looking up at her to take the pics.

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I Heart Faces - Favorite Face of May

I Heart Faces theme this week is just to pick your favorite face from the month of May.  This was hard because I took sooo many portraits this month, but I decided on this picture.  I really liked the angle and the black and white.

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Portrait Session with Kristin Quinn (Part 2)

Ok, here's the final set from my portrait session with Kristin. Go here to see Part 1 of this session, which I feel like has a very different vibe from these!

Sorry there are so many pics, it was really hard to narrow it down!

Which ones do you guys like??

Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

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May Favorite

Every month Click it up a Notch has a photo contest to post your favorite picture you've taken that month.  I've been posting pictures all week from my portrait session with my friend Kristin (click here to see Part 1 of the session and read what I learned from the session) and I know I wanted to use one for my May favorite but it was really hard to pick one.  I was sure I would do one of my sun flare shots but for some reason I kept coming back to this picture, and I'm not sure why.  I think there's something ethereal and dreamy and almost surreal about it.  And I love the massive amounts of bright green bokeh framing her face!  And since I just took the picture this past Sunday, I'm using it for Fabulous Friday as well!



I will be posting Part 2 of this session tomorrow, so please come back and check it out!

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Before and After - Kristin

Yesterday, I posted part 1 of my Portrait Session with Kristin.  I'm still going through many, many pictures to get part 2 ready! Here's one picture I came across and edited yesterday.  I really liked how it came out!

To edit I used the following (totally free!) actions:
-Pioneer Woman's Slight Lighten at 75% opacity
-Pioneer Woman's Boost Action at 50% opacity
-MCP Mini Fusion Action at 20% opacity
-Coffee Shop's Baby Powder Room Action, to sharpen her eyes and smooth her skin.

Here's the picture side by side with the SOOC version.

And just one last pretty sun flare picture for the rest of the photo contests on the net today!

And I almost forgot--one last portrait, with some texture added for "Texture Thursday."

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