If your not sure where to go with those brand new digital negatives you purchased to get a fabulous Christmas card consider Creative Blank!
Angela will design your card with your digital negatives and then you get the digital file.
You can print it yourself at www.mpix.com for an awesome final product.
She’s not limited to Holidays… check out her blog to see birth announcments, shower & birthday invitations, blog headers and more!
You can email her at cbeeler@grandecom.net
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
Happy Birthday Portrait Style!
This girlie was in my small group at church when she was little!
Well now she’s all grown up and for her b-day she had her friends over for lunch.
After lunch she brought them all to my house where we had an all girls photo shoot!
Everything from hats, sunglasses, to charlie’s angles, pyramids and everything in between it was a girlie good time. Happy Birthday Chic! It’s time to ring me!
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
Yes most of my clients have already started thinking about giving portraits as gifts so here we come holiday season!
We’ve been friends with this family since our 6th graders were 1 ish and while our circles don’t often intersect these days, I hold them dear to my heart.
Dot won a gift card I donated last year at our churches women’s retreat and she cashed it in today… I think she’s going to flip when she’s sees her pre.ci.ous. family!
If you want to book a holiday session we have a few spots left.
Contact me through the website: www.stephensphotography-waco.com
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
Megan’s Day
I know that bridal portraits are about the bride but Megan made me so happy today! First off… isn’t she stunning? Megan agreed to have her bridal portraits done in Dallas and today was the perfect day for the event. The temperature dropped, the breeze was not to soft, not too strong and Megan looked radiant!
(thank you Mrs. Sunshine… thank you thank you for all your help fixing and refixing M’s dress and making her veil just perfect!) Doesn’t she look happy?
After bridals we ran through the drive thru at Chick Fa La for a quick bite before changing and heading out to do engagement portraits! You’ll see those later! I got to check out the awesome location for Megan’s wedding at The Mediterranean Villa and it’s going to be a.w.e.s.o.m.e. It’s a photographer’s paradise and her wedding pictures are going to rock! So here’s to you Megan (your the bomb) and while the rest of the world may wonder what I meant by that… rest assured M. knows
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
Click N Kick
We are getting ready for our Click N Kick promotion where we take kicker sports photos of you or your little one in action. WARNING: These are NOT your standard sports portraits.
I got a second work out this afternoon trying to track all star, select, should be pro twin soccer players so I would have some pictures to use for promoting the event.
I knew these two boys would be super because they have the same names as my two boys and they have red hair, and my little one has red hair. (and my daughter adds they all have armpits so that makes them brothers from a different mother says she) Who knew?
These boys were a.w.e.s.o.m.e. We did the traditional soccer pose just for kicks, but I think I ruined them with these action shots which are far more descriptive. Not only did I walk away with some kick bum shots… I learned some soccer lingo too.
Stay tuned for their posters & the Click N Kick details
!
This is a bicycle kick and is way harder than it looks! Don’t ask me how I know.
Filed under: 1 | 2 Comments
Love Drops!
When our oldest son was little he would run around the house and randomly stop and look at me. From across the room he would “sprinkle” invisible love drops my way all the while yelling, “loveeee drops for mommeeee; love drops for momeeee.” I would stop whatever I was doing and return the love drops and most of the time end up on the floor wrestling all the love out of him I could get.
These little ones remind me of love drops. Aren’t they sweet? The grand finale’ from their session coming soon!
Filed under: 1 | 1 Comment
It’s time for another Storybook Life idea.
While in England one night I was “super nanny” for a set of twins who’s parents are a part of the Devonshire Chippy Club!
I decided to try a 5 min. photo shoot using only UK natural light and a reflector. I picked the worst time of day (20 mins. before bed time) and set up a challenge that created “the best pictures ever taken of my boys”.
On the flight home it was father’s day so mom grabbed my lap top and surprised dad with pictures!!!
How cool is that???
You will need three crazy people… a sense of humor… muslim fabric & a reflector, & a large flash card !!!
If fun is the central theme… you’ll get the pictures you want.
Allowing them to be goofy is what made the session work.
The pictures were looking like this straight out of the camera…
I wanted B&W pictures so I used a grey muslim backdrop I had brought.
(muslim works better than cotton for absorbing/reflecting back light)
I draped it over two chairs. Fancy I know. I placed a reflector to my left up against a coffee table.
I had a large floor to ceiling window to my back. Most of the light was coming from the top portion of the window.
(a reflector can be your car sun shade or white poster board)
I had the boys hop like frogs onto the middle.
It was less than a five foot square.
I set my ISO to 1600 which is high for a portrait.
The higher the ISO the more noise you will get. I
Because the light was good I didn’t get noise in these pictures.
I set my aperature at f4.0 and my shutter speed was between 1/50 & 1/100.
when foreheads kiss some of my favorite moments are born.
Leaving lots of time for silly faces in between and saying things like poopy pictures got the boys cutting up in NO time at all. Establishing “this is fun” is what the first few moments are all about.
Number one pitfall for parents is they want a picture more than they want an expierence for their kiddos. Portrait time should be fun. If it’s not…. pack it up and try again later.
I know I want the final product to be B&W so in photoshop I punch up the contrast to about 55%.
I used a B&W photo action to achieve a good balance of color & contrast.
(you can google photographer actions. Many are free on photo forums)
actions let you do several steps automatically and speed up the process
of photo editing.
In photoshop under image>adjustments you can use gradient map for a manual b/w. Make sure in your tool bar your set with one swatch white and one black. You can then go under image>adjustments>color/contrast and adjust the contrast to your liking.
(you want to avoid a flat, grey b&W)
Not too shabby for straight out of the camera + b/w conversion.
If you don’t have photoshop you can download a free 30 day trial at adobe.com
They have smaller versions called elements for around a hundred bucks.
Filed under: 1 | 2 Comments
A Career First!
Some people make you want to change the world. They inspire you, motivate you, challenge you, make you wish you could be like them. My calligrapher friend Jeannie is all that and so much more! I had the joy of once again photographing her two boys and this year I had the priviledge of meeting her niece who loves horses and is too sweet for words.
I am still loading all the pictures but had to post this because tonight ladies and gents I had a career first! I thought I had juiced all the sweet expressions out of her son (who happens to be one of my son’s best friends) and so I offered him a break and was about to move on to one of the waiting other two when he says something to the effect of “but you haven’t taken enough pictures of me!”
So what’s a photographer to do but take more pictures??? And roll over laughing with his mom because I have NEVER had a child say that to me! ever! no never!
And here is the sweet picture he wanted to give me… his very best upside down shot… and I might add I LOVE it !!! (and now you can see why my son and I, and the rest of the world, just love this little man!)
His eyes are amazing!
and then we had a little piggie back that turned into brothers wrestle match
I love the candid expressions & causal summer feeling these have
It wouldn’t be a photo shoot with Charity without a foot picture so
here it is…
Thanks Jeannie for being my friend, for trusting me with your family portraits, and making the world a wonderful place to live!
(and if you ever need a calligrapher…
let me know I’ll hook you up with the best!)
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
What do you do to get the fastest, crawling one year old in Texas to sit still for a nano-second?
Why everyone knows you give him a (clean) band-aid to chew on…
And then you take pictures of him eating it!
Filed under: 1 | 1 Comment
New Address Card
There are so many fun things to be done with photographs in this digital day.
This family was in the process of packing up the house when I photographed their three children.
That meant we just had to use these adorable faces to help people update their address books.
Now they can mail out post cards so all their friends and family have their new info.
Isn’t that just so clever?
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment
Recent Entries
- Drawing a Holiday greeting card Creative Blank?
- Happy Birthday Portrait Style!
- 88 sleeps, 9 hours, and 32 seconds until Christmas!
- Megan’s Day
- Click N Kick
- Love Drops!
- Story Book Life: Natural Light B&W
- A Career First!
- The One Year Old Eating Band-aids Pose
- New Address Card
- The making of a superman…
