Double the Blessing

Yesterday I had the privilege to meet these two sweet baby girls and their family.  They were pretty good sleepers that's for sure and they loved snuggling one another.  Even though they kept us on our toes with the little messes they kept making, it was all worth it!  How can anyone resist this sister love?

Wedding Preview

So, as I mentioned before, I nervously shot my first wedding this past weekend. Even though it added a little stress to my life, it was fun, a great learning experience, and worth every minute. I am still in the process of editing but I wanted to post a few of my favs so far. Please be brutally honest with me, it's the only way I will get better. The wedding and reception were both indoors and that proved to be more difficult on me but I managed the best I could. I would love to do an outdoor wedding one day in the future.

Kristen and Matt's Engagement Session

It was an absolutely beautiful day for photos. The wind was a little stronger than I would have liked but other than that, it was a great day. This sweet couple who I had so much fun shooting ended up with some great shots. We walked around downtown and found some neat places for photos. I have photographed Kristen before and she is great in front of a camera. Can't wait to do more of them in the future!
*My body of my blog is not wide enough for some of these photos. I will have to figure out how to fix that. So you will just have to imagine what it would look like. Sorry!

What I Use..What I Want

Before I go knee deep into this post let me start with a little disclaimer. Everything I am about to say is simply from my own experience and from the little knowledge I have gained through reading lots of blogs and posts about photography. This is merely my opinion and I will leave it at that.
I have had many people ask me what camera I use or what lens I use. As much as I would love to say I have a Canon 5D Mark II, I don't. My first DSLR I purchased in late April. It is a Canon Rebel T1i. It has served me good. I will probably use this camera for a while. I would highly recommend it for someone who is getting into photography buy doesn't have the money to get a $2000 or more camera. The T1i runs around $800-$900. Of course the camera came with the stock lens, but I rarely use it. I know it's a 18-55mm but that's all I know about it. It is an okay lens, but if you want to bump up your photo quality you need a better lens. I have rented a few different ones to see what I like. I was really happy with the Canon 50mm 1.4 and will be purchasing it the next time I buy a lens. I like the clarity and bokeh it gave me. I tried out the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 and liked it okay, but I think I got a bad lens. It kept back focusing on me and drove me nuts. Then, I found out about the Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 and have really grown to love it. True, it isn't a Canon brand but for the price you can't beat it. It is very comparable to the Canon 24-70mm 2.8 but is lighter and WAY cheaper. If I had $1200 to spend on a lens right now I might get the Canon one but I am just as happy if not happier with the Tamron for a fraction of the cost. The last 4 or 5 photo shoots I have done with the Tamron lens and I think it worked well. I have yet to try an 85mm or larger lens. For now, I am happy with what I have.
I will talk about editing in another post. There is just so much to go into about that. For those of you that are wondering...yes, I still use Picnik. No, I don't have any versions of photoshop at all. I am happy with my editing and for now will continue to use Picnik.
If anyone has any specific questions for me about photography please ask away. I will try to address each question in a future post. I hope this helps some of you with your questions. Have a great weekend, I am off to do another photo shoot this evening. Wish me luck that the weather holds out!!

Baby Girl L

What a sweet little girl she is. Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot I did of her on Thursday. She has strawberry blonde hair and cubby little cheeks. It was so much fun!!

I want to know...

I would like to know which one you like best? Whenever I edit a photo I always end up doing so many versions of it because I like them all. Now I want to hear from you!! Let me know which one you like and why you like it. If there is one you don't like you can tell me that too and why you don't. I just can't get away from editing...it's taking up all my time!!

Here is the original:


Here are my edits:

Let's Hear it for the Boys: I Heart Faces

Since this weekend was Father's Day and all the theme at I Heart Faces this week is "Let's Hear it for the Boys." You can submit any photo of a male, no girls allowed. My first entry is for the kids category. This is a darling little boy named Garrett. He was a bit shy but let me snap a few cute pics of him one day at my daughter's t-ball game. You can see the innocence on his face.

I need practice!!!

Earlier this week I mentioned that I was going to take some family photos for my friend who just had a new baby. Lots of family members are in town visiting so we found it to be the perfect opportunity to get some shots of everyone together. I decided to do most of the photos outside on the back porch but since it's screened in, I didn't have a lot of room to work with. Taking pictures is much harder work than it should be. I was trying to get good angles but was met with some challenges. The baby was of course adorable in her little black and white outfit but I know I still need lots and lots of practice. I need more people to practice on. Otherwise I guess my kids are going to get sick of the camera. Here are a few of my favorites.

My First Newborn Shoot

So today my friend, Lauren, who just had a baby a little over a week ago came over so I could take photos of her newborn baby girl. She is the littlest thing and has the tiniest features. Photographing a newborn proved to be much harder than I had thought it would be. She was so squirmy and wasn't happy to just lay there like I had hoped she would. So we took a few, we took a break, we took a few more, she went to eat, we took some more, and then she wanted to sleep. All in all it was successful. I had much higher hopes but I am satisfied since it was my first one since getting a DSLR. We are going to try to do family ones on Thursday and hopefully some more newborn ones in the upcoming weeks. Here are a few from today.