Self Portrait

So, I am trying to get better about taking photos every day. I've found that I am a little sporadic and not staying focused :) So, I've signed up for a few challenges each week to keep me on track. This weeks challenge in one of my groups is Self Portraits. Not a huge fan, but ok.

Let's go for it!

Self portraits are a little tough to get great focus, but this didn't turn out too bad, considering it was my first time seriously trying. I just converted it to black & white - because let's face it - everyone looks good in black & white :)

Have a fabulous day!

I heart Faces: Photojournalism

So, it's another challenge over at I heart Faces and this week it is photojournalism: use an image or images to tell a story. I immediately thought of these two pictures I took of a friend of mine before she had her first child. Daisy, her first baby, was so sweet that day and catching these two pictures one after the other made me so happy! It was such a precious moment! Hope you enjoy and head on over to I heart Faces for tons of great photojournalism photos!

It's going to be a great week!

Ahhh...the weekend was FAB and I feel like it's going to be a GREAT week! I'm so excited I can hardly sleep. Why, you ask? Nothing specific, I just feel like good things are happening...is that weird?? Oh, and we are on our way to the midwest this Friday to see my family, which is something I look forward to every year - Labor Day is my favorite holiday :)

Anyway, it was a great weekend and I even got some snaps of my husband when we took a walk through old downtown on Sunday. I love taking pictures of him - it makes my heart flutter every time :)

Here are a couple of shots. It was pretty bright out, so trying to manage the light was tricky.

I hope ya'll had a super weekend!!

Fix it Friday #68 (#2 for me :))

Happy Friday!!!

A lot has happened this week and one thing that I'm excited about it the Jasmine Star Creative Live training I've gotten this week. Although I am not a wedding photographer and Jasmine is a fabulous one, I've learned so much from her and plan to put it into practice. Like blogging. More than just once a week. For anyone who has seen this pathetic attempt at a blog and anyone who might take a look - I am making it my mission to do a great job at telling my photographic journey through my blog - more than once a week! So get ready, cause I'm chatty!!!



Now on to the Fix it Friday pic...

Here is what I did:

In Lightroom I adjusted the exposure and added some recovery

Then I straightened and cropped the picture

and added some pretty blue to the sky with the gradient tool

I then lightened her pretty face with the brush tool and bumped up the colors (mostly the grass and her dress) in the HSL tool

I know there is some additional tweaking in there, but that is the jest of it - I'm no Lightroom teacher, so if you have any q's drop me a line!



The Original:

My first Fix it Friday

I heart Faces has a Fix it Friday photo each week to play around with editing, so I thought I would give it a try! This little boy is so precious, and the photo so crisp, I didn't do too much on the first edit.

The Original

In Lightroom, I cropped his brother out of the picture and applied a pre-set I created called raquel1.

In the second edit I played around with some funky pre-sets and thought this was kind of groovy (although it takes away from his beautiful eyes)!

Head on over the i heart faces.com for lots more entries!
Happy Friday the 13th!

raquel

Surprise at I heart faces!

This weeks theme is Surprise! So here is a picture of my good friends baby boy Miles, who should not be surprised I am pointing the camera at him :) I do it every time I see him!

Head on over to iheartfaces.com for more great surprise pix!

A sweet family

I had the privilege recently to photograph a Mother and her two daughters (with a meet up photography group) - they were wonderful! Here are a couple of shots...