Tuesday Tips & Pics - Janelle & James Maternity Super Mini Session

My Tip for the week is super simple--don't waste an opportunity for a "mini session."  After I shot pics of my good friends Megan and Dave and their little one, Madyson, in the back yard of her 10th birthday party, and got some really cute shots from it, I realized that you don't always need to set up time for a full on portrait session.

My cousin Janelle, is stunningly beautiful, and ever since becoming pregnant I knew I would love to photograph her.  But she lives a couple hours away from me, and our families don't get together any more as often as we'd like, and frankly there was no way we'd ever manage to work out a time for a maternity session.  So instead, when at her baby shower this weekend, with tons of family around, I waited until the light got nice and I pulled her and husband aside for a few minutes.  I mean literally, less than 10 minutes.  Which brings me to my second tip shoot with purpose! I didn't gave time to just shoot away, so I quickly posed them, got a shot, and moved to something else.

If you shoot with purpose--concentrate on your light, exposure, composition, poses--you can get great shots in a very short amount of time.  I was very pleased with my results from this super short mini session (in the middle of her baby shower!)



These next two are my favorites. Isn't she beautiful???   

I'm leaving tomorrow for 12 days! Will be going to Canada for a week and a few days in Portland and Seattle.  I'm so excited to be getting away and taking lots of pictures of the beautiful Pacific Northwest! I will have limited internet access but will try to keep up with everyone's entries this week, and HOPEFULLY will have internet access to post for Tuesday Tips & Pics next week!

Read more...

Scavenger Hunt Sunday

The url for Live, Love, Travel is now www.jaymimphotoblog.com. Please update your readers if it didn't do it automatically!

It's been a while since I've participated in a Scavenger Hunt Sunday, so I thought it was about time. This is what I came up with.



1. Paint
Paint can be make-up, right? I know sometimes I feel like I have my face painted when I have a lot of make-up on. Right before I went to Peru, I took a workshop with Tonya Joy Photography. I posted the family session from the workshop, but we also shot a bride and groom as part of the workshop.  But then I went to Peru and right after I had a few portrait sessions to shoot, and I never got a chance to edit these pictures.  So I'm just getting to them now! I'll post more soon!



2. Green
Simple enough, a lone water drop on a leaf.




3. Shapes
I struggled a bit with what to post for "shapes." So I pulled a shot of my cheesecake bars from the 4th of July that I hadn't posted previously.  Nice and square with some star shapes thrown in.



4. Clouds
As you may have figured out from the 4th of July, my boyfriend has an amazing view of LA from his backyard.  And it gets some incredible sunsets.



5. Eyelashes
I went to my cousin Janelle's baby shower yesterday.  And when the light got pretty I pulled her and husband aside for some quick shots.  I'm absolutely in love with this one.  She is so incredibly beautiful, I could just shoot her everyday.  More from this mini session coming soon!

Read more...

Greek Yogurt with Warm Berry Sauce

The domain name for Live, Love, Travel is now www.jaymimphotoblog.com.  Please update your readers if it didn't update automatically!

I haven't done much food photography lately, but as soon as I saw this recipe for Greek Yogurt with Warm Berry Sauce, I knew I would want to photograph it! (Recipe Below)

I've been trying to eat a little healthier lately, and sweets has been a hard thing for me to give up.  This perfectly satisfies my sweet tooth for either dessert or even for breakfast with a little granola thrown in.

I threw in a few extra fresh berries on top too! I used blackberries and blueberries for this, but you could use any berry really.

I made this in the evening after work and by the time I was done I was quickly loosing light and ended up setting this up on my balcony trying to utilize the last tiny bits of sunset light!

 

You can see in this shot that I'm outside!

 

I really love the way shooting these in the "golden hour" added a nice warmth to the gooey sauce.

Greek Yogurt with Warm Berry Sauce-2/3 Cup Blackberries (fresh or frozen--I used fresh)-2/3 Cup Blueberries-1/2 Cup Water-1/4 Cup Sugar-2 Tablespoons Fresh Lemon Juice-1 Tablespoon Butter-Greek Yogurt (or ice cream!)
Combine first 5 ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Reduce hit and simmer for 10 minutes, until sauce begins to thicken.  Smash berries up a bit with a fork.  Stir in butter. Pour over yogurt!
(recipe originally found on My Recipes)

Pull Back ShotHere is a cell phone pic of my set-up.  The sun was coming from behind and to the right of the set-up, and reflected back with my reflector on the left.  I simply set up a cutting board on the edge of my balcony and covered it with some fabric I had and added a few paper napkins. 
. (please try to ignore the Christmas lights on my balcony!)

Read more...

Tuesday Tips & Pics - Shooting Infrared

I'm so sorry, I've been a bad blogger lately! I've been so busy and gotten so behind on taking a pictures let alone editing them! I promise I'll get back into the swing of things!

I had a bit of inspiration today and got to go shoot a bit of infrared photography.  Infrared photography allows you to photograph infrared light that your naked eye can't see.  In color it looks very red and strange, but when converted to black and white it creates a very cool and surreal effect.

There are only two ways (that I know of!) to shoot in infrared.  You can send your camera out to get converted to permanently shoot in infrared or you can buy a filter, like the Hoya 58mm RM-72 Infrared Filter to put over your lens.  I REALLY want one of these filters! I know the disadvantage of it is that it cuts out a LOT of light so you have to use it with a tripod and a long exposure.  But it beats permanently converting your camera to shoot infrared!

However, I was talking to a friend at work that found a Canon PowerShot G9  online used for fairly cheap and bought it just so he could send it out and have it converted to Infrared.  He chose this camera because it was cheap and portable and still shot RAW.  So, he was kind enough to let me borrow it for the evening, so I went to a park and grabbed some shots real quick!

Here are a couple of the shots I got:

When uploaded, these pictures looked bright red. The first thing I did was adjust the white balance to bring some of the red under control. Even though the final picture will be black and white, white balance will still effect the end result. After fixing the white balance (a bit, it still looks strange) I converted to black and white and adjusted blacks, contrast, exposure, and clarity a bit. I did those steps in lightroom, then I brought the photo into Photoshop, duplicated the layer and added a gaussian blur at 25 and then set the blending mode to soft light. I lowered the effect to 30-50% depending on the photo.

Here's what the process looked like:

 

Link up your shots (and tips if you have one!) below!

Read more...