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Mr. Ian had his last baby plan session yesterday morning and poor guy. Not so happy.
LUCKILY he started off with a bang and tons of big smiles. But the shots he had the day before started to kick in, and we had to work fast.
Take a look at this little guy…you’d never know that he was feeling uncomfortable:
This morning I had the chance to play with Avery (on the cusp of 5) and Emma (6 months). We’ve scheduled and rescheduled this session, and it was so great to finally meet this cute family. Emma is sitting up confidently, and as I told his mom, I think Avery’s cast makes him look manly 
We had fun cuddling with Miss “Is It Naptime Yet?”, and Avery was so animated and fun to play with. It was a great session, with great light, great decor, and a set of easygoing parents. What more could I ask for?
Here is the doting big brother and his sweet little sister:
I made such a mess out of this room…I had to turn and snap a quick one after we were moving on to another area of their house. This is pretty much the first thing I do…pull open the blinds, clear away what I need to (in this case, a gorgeously set table…Sorry! At least it was for a good cause!). The brown chair in the corner was used for the first image above, and we set Emma on the dining room table and photographed her there for the second. I tell families that no area of their home is off-limits, especially if that is where the light is (and as you can see, the light here was gorgeous!).
Did I mention that she was ready for a nap? She recovered after a yummy bottle, but I just *adore* this litte expression!
“Hey Avery! How did you break your arm?” I can truthfully say it did not happen because he was jumping off of his windowsill…but can you tell what a little daredevil he is! Flying Avery…cast and all!
We have to take a minute and have a little moment of silence…One member of the family was supposed to be included, and he was “sleeping” at the time of our shoot. Poor little Hermit Crab went to crab heaven at some point this morning, and there were many tears. We tried to soothe poor Avery by telling him his crab was just sleeping…they are nocturnal, right? I hope tonight went okay, when he realized that his crab had, in fact, gone on to the great big beach in the sky.
The other quickie lake house session from this weekend was with Nia and Max. Nia is my daughter Sam’s bff, her mommy is easily considered one of MY bff’s, and her dad? Makes a killer Dirty Mexican Martini (therefore, he’s my husband’s bff).
“Everybody kiss!”…works every time!
*Heart* this capture of my buddy and her loving family. She has THE best smile and her laugh is super contagious.
My first lake house session was this cute family (who I’ve had the pleasure to photograph for four years running). I can’t believe that Alex was just 2, and Everett 4 when I first met them! They are now 5 and 7, and Alex is quickly turning into my son Ben’s bff.
This little monkey was all cheesy smiles, and I have to laugh at this capture after I told him “tickle yourself Alex!”. Such a ham!
I’m back from the lakehouse with our friends and we had THE best time. While there we did two quick sessions with our friends (both previous clients…I lose so many clients to friendships! )
My relaxing 4 days means I’m in the mood to play tonight (not work), and I thought this would be a fun image to play with…and also fun to share my editing process since I get a ton of emails asking what I do. So here goes…no promises that this will be coherent OR easy to follow. Just a quick run-down…
So here’s this awesome capture from this weekend. Here’s what it looks like in the camera:
You’ll see in the original that the right side of his face is super bright, and the rest is pretty dull. I HATE losing detail when images are blown like this, but it is possible to bring them back most of the time if you shoot in RAW (and FYI- I use CaptureOne to edit my RAW images).
This is what the finished image looks like (the side of his head still has detail (see his hair?), his face is bright, and the war wounds from this weekend are gone (along with his 3-night-sleepover undereye circles)
I took the original image in CaptureOne and adjusted the exposure until the side of his head that is blown comes back-which makes the rest of the photo really dark and icky:
and then I adjusted the exposure again until his face is where I want it (even though the rest is blown and icky in a completely different way):
So I layered the three images, erasing in what I wanted to keep of each individual layer:
I flattened the layers and touched up his bruise and undereye circles:
Then I cropped and burned the edges a bit, boosted contrast and brightness, and viola…a finished image:
Side note…Can you see me? 
