Salt Lake City

I attended Brianna Graham's photography workshop May 9-11 in Salt Lake City. I had the opportunity to attend the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance Sunday morning. It was amazing.

They performed the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," for which they won a Grammy. It was incredible.

This is my friend Seini Pahulu and her son. She so graciously let me stay at her home for the weekend. I used some of the post production skills that I learned in the workshop on this portrait.

De-Cluttering!

I've been taking and saving personal and family photographs for nearly 30 years. They've been stuffed in boxes and stored in closets, completely disorganized. My poor husband has watched theses boxes move from house to house and closet to closet. I finally decided to start de-cluttering our house, starting with my boxes. Here you see the the before and after shots of how I organized them into albums. In the end, I had a large black garbage bag full of photos to throw away, incredible!


BEFORE


AFTER


STACKED

Twinkies on the move!

This was a portrait session with two year old twins. They were interested in everything but me and my camera. When I can't get my subjects to look and me and "smile', then I go to plan B and follow them around getting fun candids!

It's been so fun to watch them grow and see their personalities emerge. I have had the privilege to photograph them since they were babies.

Patty and Jeff

Patty contacted me saying she wanted a family portrait before her husband, Jeff, left for Iraq. She rallied her family to come together for the photograph. Saying she had a big family was no exaggeration! Not only did we shoot the group portrait but I also tried to capture some special moments between Patty, Jeff and their daughter. I felt really, truly honored to be asked to document this time in their lives.

Brown to Blonde--Biker Chick to Bride

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE photographing Jennie Gabriel. She is like a chameleon. She is an exceptional actor and model.

With her slicked back hair and the harsh studio lights, it looks like she is ready for the stage (life is a cabaret old chum.................).

Fun and fluffy, workin' the sassy attitude.

Military [slash] inquisitive [slash] vulnerable [slash] sexy [slash] intelligent [slash] soft [slash] direct [slash] subtle............

In the program Lightroom, I added a vignette (by adjusting the amount of lens correction). I also adjusted the fill light to lighten her hair from auburn to red and then adjusted the contrast and vibrance to make the colors really pop.

I wouldn't want to meet this character in a dark alley. She looks like a gun wielding biker chick ready to rob a convenience store. Watch out 7-11! In Lightroom I applied the preset "cyanotype", I think the blue helps emphasize her icy stare. The image is slightly out of focus (not intentional--it was shot with a 50mm lens in AP, f/4.5 at 1/100 sec--no obvious reason it is blurry). Usually, I like the eyes to be sharp as a tack but here I don't mind. In fact, I think it works. Happy mistake.

For this bridal session we hiked to the top of the look-out near Los Alamos in the snow! Jennie is such a trooper when it comes to photo shoots.

I simply love the hoop earrings. They add a 70's vibe. Thanks Jennie for being such and amazing model!!

Amanda & Michael

It was so fun shooting this engagement session! Thanks Amanda and Michael for an awesome afternoon. Here is a sneak peek at your images. I will have the on-line gallery ready for you soon.

9 weeks

Look at this little guy! He has such loving parents. This is what happened during the session: he slept for awhile, was alert for awhile, eventually got hungry, was fed, snuggled with mom, snuggled with dad, snuggled with both mom & dad, stuck his foot in dad's mouth for awhile and then was ready to fall back asleep. It was super fun to capture his nuances...

The entire session was shot with a 50mm 1.8 lens on aperture priority with my Nikon D700. I usually shoot in aperture priority because I like to have control over the depth of field. For this image I didn't have enough light to keep the ISO at 200 (which is my preference so my focal area can be tack sharp), so I adjusted it to 400 ISO and got a shutter speed of 1/100 (I personally can't hand hold slower than 1/60 of a second). I set the f-stop at 3.5. I developed this image in Lightroom. I set it to grayscale and then tweaked the contrast, exposure and did a little adjustment (with the adjustment brush) around the lips to bring them up.

Aperture priority 1/60 sec at f/4.0, ISO 200. See the blue highlight in her hair and on baby's head? That is coming from natural light shining through the window on the right side of the room. I was using a softbox on her left and had set my white balance to incandescent, that's why the natural light coming in on the right looks blue. Kind of a happy accident, certainly not intentional.
Aperture priority 1/160 sec at f/4.5 ISO 1000, developed in Lightroom using the Sepia preset, I also tweaked the contrast a bit and used the adjustment brush to bring up the exposure on the baby, I used it to darken the lower right and left corners (like a slight vignette).

Aperture priority 1/200 sec at f/3.2 ISO 400. I cropped this image because I wanted to get in tighter to the baby's hand. I developed this in Lightroom and added the "general-punch" preset and then a vignette.

AP, 1/80 sec at f/4.0, ISO 400, Straight Out Of The Camera (no Lightroom tweaking).

AP 1/125 sec at f/4.0, ISO 400, SOOTC

AP, 1/125 sec at f/4.5, ISO 1000, developed in Lightroom, first set to grayscale then tweaked the contrast and exposure, I needed to use the adjustment brush to darken the exposure on the baby, I pulled the clarity slider to the left (just a touch) to soften the image then added a vignette.

AP, 1/40 sec at f/4.5, ISO 500, developed in Lightroom, used preset "direct positive" to really punch the colors then the adjustment brush to tweak the exposure, contrast and saturation in various parts of the image, then added a vignette.

I set up my studio in our home. I put the backdrop in our sun room. I use a soft box to light my subjects. The sun room can have a ton of natural light pouring through the windows. We have semi-transparent blinds and black-out blinds so I can adjust the natural light.


I purchased this light and softbox new from a used camera and equipment store in Santa Fe. It isn't sync'ed to my camera. I don't own any studio lights that fire with my camera (besides my SB 800 speedlight). I leave it on for the entire session and keep my camera in aperture priority, white balance set at incandescent. It can get hot, and the space gets warm which is great for babies, they love being warm.