Avery Park Family Session

I loved seeing this family again. I had a session with them last year, here and here, before their sweetest new addition joined them. Its so fun to have a second session and see how their family has grown!

Brooke, Rae'ven & Sg. Dad Willamette Valley, Oregon Family Photographer

Brooke and Rae'ven are two of the sweetest girls! Their mom, Michelle, and I are good friends, so I was excited when she asked me to do a shoot with the girls and their dad when he arrived home from Iraq! I felt honored. Derek just returned from a 15 month tour in Iraq (which I believe is his second!)

So I am editing away on this session. I wanted to post a few pictures while I finish working on the rest.

Willamette Valley, Oregon Family Photographer

Fix it Friday at I ♥ Faces

I finally get to try Fix it Friday again...I have missed it for several weeks. This week is a picture of a little one with some rocks. I love the blurred background look, but the subject is a little bit blurred too. So I tried to boost the colors and sharpened the image. The first image I left vertical, but I wanted to try a horizontal image as well. So on the second image and I cropped the picture and stretched the canvas. Once I had some blank space to the left I cloned in the rock to fill up the rest of the "frame". Check out the other "fixes at I ♥ Faces.

Original

A Freebie

First off...happy birthday to an old (ha ha) high school friend! She is celebrating all week long by giving things away on her blog. She is a VERY crafty and talented person, so go check it out. Just leave a comment to enter!

http://columbialily.blogspot.com/

This is a shot I took a few weeks ago, I love the two stars (? Planets? I guess I don't know much about the sky!)

I got some more pictures finished and wanted to post a few more for you. Again, I had a good time with your family. Sorry I left my tripod there! Oops!

~Amy~

I had the chance to take a few pictures of my sister Amy yesterday. She was feeling a bit silly, like most moms who are used to being behind the camera, but I think she did a great job "faking" it for me. :) We used my dads old truck as a prop which was kinda fun.

She was just being silly above....I love the one below!

Close-ups

I have been working with a few different lenses in order to perfect my close up technique. Mainly it is just fun! I love the purple daisy!

Photographing Kids

One trick I read about is to give the child something to do...then just start shooting away. Or have them climb onto something. This gives them a reason to stay where you want them! I really like "natural" or "unposed" pictures. They might not be exactly right all the time, and you definitely can use some posing here and there...but for the most part I really like the unposed look.

These pictures are taken of my own kids....to practice and try out some different settings on my camera.

Just a safetey note, NEVER spend time "hanging out" on the railroad tracks! I had to zoom out as far as I could to make it look like I was far way from the kiddos since I just didn't want to step too far away from them. (Though we could see forever in both directions that there was no train...)

This is one of my personal favorites...not because it is "such a great picture" but because it is just a perfect rendition of who my kids are! :)

In these ones it seemed that in every picture one of my daughters had a "broken neck." (As I refer to it!)