Ballerinas Among Us May 17, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Photography, Princess Hannah, Projects , 1 comment so farThese girls attend Hannah’s ballet school, and I photographed them last week for my project entitled, “Ballerinas Among Us.”
Hannah will be performing with these girls this weekend at the Scera.
Come see the production of “Coppelia” at the Scera either Saturday night (May 22nd) or Monday night (May 24th). Shows start at 7:30 PM. Tickets $8 each. Hannah is in act one, so be there on time!
Last Night . . . May 15, 2010
Posted by Emily in : My Handsome Husband, Photography, School, Thoughts , 3commentsMy husband graciously allowed me to photograph him for one of my assignments.
Can I tell you how happy I was to go out with this handsome guy on a photo shoot?
Can I also tell you how happy I was to nail the focus on his eyes, while the tip of his nose and the outer part of his brows are out of focus? Honestly, shallow depth of field can be so great (when the image calls for it) but it can be a huge pain in your side too when you upload your images only to find out the most important features (the eyes) are in soft focus while the tip of the nose is tack sharp.
That is not fun.
More from this shoot later!
Have a great weekend!
Salt Lake Valley Night Lights May 14, 2010
Posted by Emily in : My Handsome Husband, Photography , 2commentsWhen my friend Cheryl came to visit this winter, I tried to take her to the top of Traverse Mountain so we could photograph the beautiful night lights of Salt Lake Valley.
Unfortunately, I’m an idiot, and I could not FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember how to get to to the top! I know this must sound LAME to those of you who live up there (Amber and Lindsay), but seriously, I took one wrong turn and it was all down hill from there. Cheryl and I found a different spot to photograph, but photographing Salt Lake Valley at night has been on my bucket list, so I took my trusty driver David, (who never gets lost. EVER.) with me so I could make it happen.
This is just a partial view of Salt Lake Valley. It was beautiful. The top of Traverse mountain is extremely windy! Oh my gosh! We had to wait between wind gusts to trip the shutter, and even then, I held my breath; hoping and praying the wind would be calm for 10 seconds while my shutter was open. The quickest way to get blurry images is camera shake, so it was a bit tricky to get any photos, and I only captured a few.
This is either the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple, Draper Temple, or the Jordan River Temple. We really are so lucky to live near so many temples in Utah. I’m going to miss photographing them!
Proving That Everything You See is a Lie May 13, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Photography, Princess Hannah , 1 comment so farBasically, everything you see here is a lie:
My younger sister, Allison, emailed me after seeing this picture surface on facebook asking me what I used to bleach my teeth.
Ahem. It’s called Photoshop.
This is what the picture looked like straight out of the camera:
Even though I had my white balance on my camera set to 3250 Kelvin (which is what you should set your white balance to when you use tungsten lighting) and I used a gray card as a reference, my color was still a bit off. I’m four days past calibrating my monitor (which I do every 30 days and you should too . . . it keeps your colors from straying) and boy does it show! I manually altered the white balance in the RAW dialog box, as well as smoothed out my skin, upped the vibrancy for my skin, boosted the contrast a bit, and lightened the exposure a whole step.
Now let’s get down to the real, life-altering, fake-o stuff I did on these images:
- Whitened teeth (thank you paint brush, I love you sooooo much.)
- Cropped out unnecessary parts of the photograph
- Boosted my eye color and whitened the whites of my eyes
- I magically made ALL my wrinkles disappear. (PS is cheaper than Botox)
- I smoothed out my chicken pox scars. (Hallalujah there! It’s a sore spot for me, so lets not talk about how I had over 800 chicken pox on my face when I was eight, and how I suffered with them for SIX count them, SIX weeks.)
- Cloned stamped out stray hairs
- Cloned stamped out Paris’ white dog hair on my sweater
- Added more eye shadow
- Darkened my eye brows
- Added thicker eye liner
- Did not touch my lipstick. (I would not be caught dead wearing this lipstick color on a daily basis, it is fantastic for photos, but my lips enter the room before I do when I wear it.)
Why did I do this? Um . . . because believe it or not, I had to take ANOTHER self portrait (remember round one and round two?) for part of a final project in one of my classes. By golly, if I have to keep taking pictures of myself, then I will edit them however I want. BECAUSE I CAN.
I didn’t spend 30-40 hours a week in my Photoshop class last semester for nothin’!
The best part about the night was my little photo assistant. She watched me set up my lights, put up a black backdrop and adjust my umbrellas. She even sat in for some test shots so I would know where to sit so I would be in the frame.
She then tested the camera out a few times and I had to PRY her little fingers off my remote.
Man she’s cute.
I wish I could just submit pictures of her. :)
Don’t Let Your Kids Grow Up to be JPEGS May 12, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Memory Lane, New York, Photography , 4commentsI read that tag line years ago . . . it was an ad for HP in a magazine. When I read it, I didn’t even know what a JPEG was.
Oh my.
I’ve come a long way in four short years. You see, when David started medical school, I started a new chapter in my life where I was unemployed (not out of choice, but because we relocated to a foreign country), and pregnant. Honestly, I barely knew how to check my email in 2005, let alone take a picture and then download it and save it as a JPEG file on my computer. Remember how empowered I felt the first time I learned how to download pictures off my SD card? Yeah. I’ve come a looooong way.
When you find yourself unemployed, childless, and living in a foreign country with a husband who has to study a lot, you end up following your nose. At night, when my husband would study, and the whole island was still and dark, and I had no diapers to change, or babies to tend to, I found myself reading about photography.
That is how this whole new chapter of my life began.
Remember the title of this post? I’ve taken that to heart, and I get lots and lots of my images printed. Lots of them. (Remember my basement wall in Kansas City?)
Sometimes, when the sun, moon, and starts all align, I get stuff for free or on incredible promotions too.
Like this for example:
This is my first gallery wrap. Clients have ordered them, and I’ve coveted their orders wishing I could order all of my images in 16×20 gallery wraps too. A few weeks ago, a local company offered me a FREE 16×20 gallery wrap using one of my images so I could see their work. You know, so I would order from them in the future.
Hallelujah. Bless them. I love it sooooo much. :)
I recently printed the Timpanogos Temple on a float wrap with a metallic finish. LOVE IT.
My super talented mother-in-law is an artist, and she made a water color from one of the images I took of Hannah’s ballet class from this post. I love it!
I also had two different books made from MyPublisher.com from our trip to New York. The first book is only 20 pages, and it is a generic coffee table book that would appeal to the general public, not just my family. I selected images from historical church sites for this book. It has a lovely high gloss jacket cover, with lots of pictures with minimal text. Many of you asked me to make a coffee table book and here it is!
I really love the black and white layout.
Oh, and I love the four churches spread.
The second book I made was a 100 pages. MyPublisher sent me an email promoting their new matte cover, telling me I could make a book up to 100 pages for $20. For those of you who have not made a photo book before, that is a steal. I’m not usually one to pass up a good deal, so I put in about 30 hours over a three day period putting this book together.
I love it. Really. It is my family journal of our special time in New York.
I copied and pasted my blog from the seven weeks we were in New York with accompanying images. Normally, a book this big is about $130, so you can only imagine how excited I was to only pay $20 for it! I have really loved MyPublisher. I’ve made 10 different books through them, and have always been really happy with the quality. I’ve used other companies to make books too, (Snapfish, and Shutterfly) but I like MyPublisher the best. I have yet to try Blurb, and I know they are less expensive, so they are next on my list.
Here’s the scary part though . . . I hit 100 pages without even blinking. This book ONLY covers seven weeks. Do you know how long I’ve been blogging? YIKES. I started in 2006, so you know, I have a lot of hours ahead of me and money to fork over to get my blog properly printed into several books!
Just One For Now . . . May 11, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Church, Photography , 1 comment so farI have so many fun images to share with you!
But I will only share one image for now . . .
I wish there were more hours in the day.
Actually, I wish I could function on less than seven hours of sleep . . . I could get a LOT more done if sleep didn’t interrupt my nightly routine.
I took this picture of the Timpanogos Temple last night right after the sun went down, around 9:00 PM.
I really wanted to capture the rich blue stormy sky before the sun completely set.
I may have raced out the door, sped down the road, rushed to my setup spot, and savored the last bit of light the day had to offer.
That may have happened.
He Should Probably Find an Agent May 10, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Family, Photography , 10commentsThis is my twin.
He is a regular model for me.
He should probably get an agent by now. :)
I hit him up with the idea of a fashion shoot, and he was game. We drove to the location I had in mind, and he decided it wasn’t good enough (not rustic enough, too public, etc.) so we drove around for 45 minutes looking for another spot. With only 45 minutes of daylight left, we found this location and loved it!
This is him channeling David Beckham:
Now he is channeling himself:
And now his is channeling someone who is clearly too sexy for his own skin. Oh, I guess he is imitating himself. :)
Do you know what kills me? He STILL uses a snap shot for his facebook profile picture!
Jeneece + Family May 7, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Photography , 3commentsThis is a friend of mine from high school, Jeneece.
Her family is adorable. (Especially her baby girl, but I don’t pick favorites. :))
I love reconnecting with my friends! If you are in the Utah County area and want family pictures, contact me! Currently booking June 2010. :)
Wind Blown May 6, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Photography , 2commentsOh my.
I have some darling pictures to share! Hopefully I will have a few uninterrupted minutes later today so I can upload and share them!
I mean, LOOK at that great wind blown hair.
Trust me, stay tuned for some fun pictures!
A String of Totally Unrelated Thoughts . . . May 5, 2010
Posted by Emily in : Friends, Thoughts , 3commentsA couple weeks ago, a friend of mine, from Kansas City sent me an email telling me her two year old daughter had stage four Neuroblastoma.
For those of you who need a little brush up on your cancer stats, it’s bad. Bad. Bad. Bad. Her daughter, Kate, is just a few months older than Dallin. Gosh, it makes me cry just to think about it. I can’t image what her little family is going through. This family could use your prayers. And if anyone out there wants to sponsor me a plane ticket out to KC, I’d love to go and take lots, and lots, and LOTS of pictures of them. Everyone should have great pictures of their kids. Everyone. Especially when a little life hangs in the balance.
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On a happier note, my friend Jenny got her cookbook published and will be signing books at the Lehi Costco this Saturday!
I’m excited to see her and get my book signed! She also teaches Zumba, and on this post, she commented and asked me if I wanted one of the Zumba DVD’s she made. Seriously, I have talented friends!
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Last weekend I met up with one of my best friends from high school, Erica. She and her family live in Oregon, but they were in Utah last week for a wedding. Not only do I love her guts, but she hasn’t aged a day. She has fabulous skin and I’m bummed I don’t have a picture to show it off! In the two hours I was able to steal her away from wedding activities, we talked about our previous lives which were carefree, and our current lives which are not-so-carefree. She supported her husband through dental school and she talked about the joy I would soon have of THREE mortgages: one for the house, one for student loans, and one for the practice.
Lucky us.
Anyway, it turns out she was staying with her sister-in-law who, I realized, lived very close to my oldest sister, Ang. When I asked her sister-in-law if she knew my sister, she said, “Yes! We bought their old house!” That means my BFF from high school was staying in my sister’s old house (my sister and her husband sold their house a couple years ago and bought another house two doors down) and honestly, does it get any crazier than that?!
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Over the weekend, Hannah sang and danced (two different numbers, not at the same time) in the Primary Talent Show at church. Oh. My. Heck. You will pee your pants when you see it. As soon as I corner David, (that means he has to be under the same roof, which, he currently isn’t) I will have him edit the video (I’m retarded when it comes to video stuff) and post it. It’s a treat. :)
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David finishes medical school on May 28, 2010. FINISHES! This road has been never ending, and residency is part of his medical school training, but he will be PAID. Honestly, I’ve forgotten what a paycheck looks like. In three short weeks he will have a diploma that says MD and people will be referring to him as “doctor” which he has finally earned. I’m bummed we won’t be attending graduation in Boston, because we simply cannot justify a $3,000 trip when attendance is not mandatory for graduation. Its’ not fun to make practical choices, but I’ve learned that making practical choices gives you more security and long lasting happiness than emotional choices.
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Dallin asks me for hugs, calls me Emma, and still smells like strawberries. I could just sniff his his and cheeks all day. Mmmmm . . .
