Project 12: January – Landscape
This is Waterfall Beach, near Denmark, Western Australia. Photo was taken on the 3rd January, near 1pm. This beach is just beautiful: white sands, crystal clear water and unfortunately for me, the day I was there was waaaay too cold to swim. I’ll be back for another visit this year though, both to photograph and to swim 🙂
Project 12 – 2012
In the photography world, the new year is an opportunity to start a new project. The holy grail is a Project 365 (well, project 366 this year). There’s also the option of doing a Project 52. I would LOVE to do either of those, but I am a realist, and I know 2012 is not going to be any less busy for me than 2011. SO… Project 12 it is 🙂 In an effort to not seem so wimpy, I’ve decided that I’ll have preset themes for each month, rather than just randomly throwing up a photo on the last day. The goal of these types of projects is to challenge the individual in terms of ideas, genre, ability, and comfort level. So, with that in mind, there will be no babies in this project 😀 and at least two of the portrait categories will be self portraits. Even the very thought of a self portrait makes me cringe!
Here’s the list:
January – Landscape
February – Low Key Portrait
March – Macro
April – High Key Portrait
May – Night Photography
June – Natural Light Portrait
July – B&W Landscape
August – B&W Low Key Portrait
September – B&W Macro
October – B&W High Key Portrait
November – B&W Night Photography
December – B&W Natural Light Portrait
Here goes…..
Baby S turns 1!
This is Baby S. She is the daughter of a very good friend of mine. I photographed her last January when she was a few days old. She turned 1 recently! Just love her to bits.
Blissful baby
This is beautiful Baby A, 9 days new. The day before Christmas we did this session on her parents verandah, to make the most of the beautiful light and the rustic wooden wall and deck. Perhaps it was the fresh air; Baby A slept like an angel.
Rock the Shot Kids + Fall Photo Comp (that’s Autumn for us Aussies!)
There are some excellent photography blogs that I follow, Rock the Shot being one of them. This month they have a Fall + Kids theme, given it’s their autumn in the US.
This is a photo of my favourite model monster taken in OUR autumn a few months ago. I took it in a neighbour’s front yard as they have a glorious liquid amber tree. Twice we tried to take it, only to find our neighbour had swept up the leaves! Tidy yes, convenient to my photography plans, not so much 🙂
Little monster is generally a pretty good model, but I find that the best photos of him are when he thinks I’m not actually taking any. In this shot he was grabbing handfuls of the leaves and throwing them up in the air. I wish I’d captured one of the leaves falling down around him.
Smash that cake!!
Well, ok, just play with it a little 🙂
I’ve always wanted to do one of these cake smash shoots and I’m so happy with the results. This gorgeous little girl, shall call her Miss I now as she’s no longer a baby, was one of the first babies I photographed. She’s recently turned one, so the cake smash shoot is in honour of her birthday. I’m hoping to do more of these – they’re such fun! Although a little bit of cleaning after is required 🙂
My first set of twins
This beautiful boy and girl set of twins are the first I’ve had the honour of photographing. I had such plans for these two, with multiple changes of blankets and headbands and hats and they were going to sleep soundly for me and what on earth was I thinking?! One baby is hard enough to settle, let alone two! We eventually got them to sleep and managed to get only a few shots but they were worth it. Such beautiful little people.
My favourite Model Monster :)
As the title says, this here is my favourite model. Gorgeous, isn’t he? And doesn’t he just know it! These photos were taken just before sunset (the golden hour) in a neighbor’s front yard. You don’t have to go far to find a gorgeous spot for photos – these autumn leaves were beautiful!
Master H | Perth Newborn Photography
This is the very calm Master H, 10 days old. He did a sterling job of sleeping through most of his photo session with just a little resettling from mum. He’s a gorgeous little guy 🙂
A bit of this, a bit of that
I’ve done a few shoots lately: three babies, a family and a pair of teenage boys to be exact! Needless to say, I have a heap of editing to catch up on. I just wanted to share a few of my favourites so far 🙂
EDIT: I’ve just found this in my drafts. I can’t have hit the ‘publish’ button 😀
A school ball
I had the pleasure of photographing the daughter of a good friend this weekend. It’s school ball time 🙂 Here are a couple of shots of the beautiful Miss K and her friends.
A fantastic weekend with some amazing women
This weekend I spent two days in the South West of Western Australia with some fellow photo enthusiasts. We’d planned this weekend away as a chance to chase sunrises, sunsets and anything that took our fancy (photographically :)) in between. And we covered some kilometres! Thanks to some ‘interesting’ navigation from Shirl, some of those kilometres were off-road. Good thing we took a 4WD!
We had a fantastic couple of days and had a LOT of laughs (not least at Shirl’s navigation skills and my inability to ‘get’ a particular card game!). Thank you Shirley, Nicole and Sue-ann, for a weekend I won’t ever forget and that I can’t wait to repeat!
The beautiful Miss H
Something a little different for me this week: a teenager! This is the beautiful Miss H. We had a great time yesterday afternoon, with lots of laughs 🙂
Baby Z is Week 5
Yesterday I had the honour of photographing another newborn. Truly, they are just so precious. This beautiful little week old girl is already the length of an eight week old: I’m sure she’s going to be either a super model or a basketball player. Or both! 🙂
Project 52 – Week 4 (another post!)
Goodness, posting twice in one week! (It might make up for missing a week or two 😉 )
Happy Australia Day everyone! We had a gorgeous day at a friend’s house, but we were all exhausted when we got home, so I went back out with a photo buddy to try to get some shots of the sky show. I had a shutter release failure, and a wobbly tripod, and a pretty bad case of vertigo from the footbridge we were on so I wasn’t expecting much. I was pleasantly surprised when I got home and uploaded these though.
Project 52 – Week 4
Yes, I know weeks 2 and 3 are missing 🙂 I’ll get to them in a while. I just couldn’t wait to share this one with you. This is Baby S, the brand new daugher of a very dear friend of mine. I love this photo for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it’s of my friend’s beautiful daughter. Secondly, the processing is different to what I’d normally do, but I like it. Thirdly, I like that it’s anonymous – it could be anyone, it just symbolises to me the fragility of a newborn, the treasure we hold in our hands when we hold our children, the responsibility that we hold. I hope you like it, too.
Project 52 – Week 1
Merry New Year everyone! It’s been a while since I’ve posted; the last few months of the year were crazy busy with school graduations, other (boring) work, a few photo jobs, Santa photos :-), and some ill health. Fortunately the new year has started off with a lovely week holidaying in Busselton, Western Australia. Plenty of rest, relaxation, and waaaay too much food! So, we’re back into exercise, endless cricket training and best of all, photography!!
This year I wanted to participate in Project 365: basically you take a photo a day and post it for comment / others to see. After some thought, I realised once the year starts in earnest (read: cricket training, work and school) my chances of keeping up with this were pretty slim. So, I’ve opted for Project 52. Same thing, but one a week.
Here’s my first effort: a day late! Taken on 1 January 2011 on the beautiful Geograph Bay. I shot this in jpeg which I don’t normally do, so I’m a bit disappointed in it, but it’s a start nonetheless.
Beautiful Baby A
On Friday, I photographed beautiful Baby A, who is just 9 days old. She is such a gorgeous little girl; we forget so quickly how little they are when they’re so new. Baby A was a little unsettled but we still managed to get some cute shots of her while she was sleeping. This one is my favourite. There are more on Flickr; all are taken using only ambient light and a reflector.
A short trip to Bali
Wow, it’s been ages since I posted! I’ve been really busy with work (not photo work, unfortunately), a sick husband, usual kid chaos and a quick trip to Bali with my oldest. We had five days of girly bonding over massages and shopping 🙂
I didn’t take as many pics as I should have, and I’m kicking myself for not getting to the beach for a sunset. It’s a great excuse to go back! So, here’s a couple of pics, and plenty more on Flickr.
Araluen Tulips
During the week I visited Araluen, a Botanic Garden in the hills behind Perth, Western Australia. I’d heard so much about the tulips and had never been so the boys and I headed up there on Wednesday with my mum. ( I was half way there when I got a message from a fellow photographer saying she’d gone there to photograph the tulips and didn’t have a card in her camera! Fortunately, we have similar cameras and I had a spare memory card, so she met us at the entrance! What a happy co-incidence.) Anyhoo- here’s a couple of my favourite photos from the afternoon, there’s heaps more on Flickr.
Fix it Friday #73
Fix it Friday # 73 at I Heart Faces is the photo of this gorgeous little munchkin:
How cute is she?? 🙂
Here’s my edit:
I sharpened her eyes, and added contrast, then lightened them to make them sparkle a little more. To do this, I selected her eyes, used the UnSharp Mask (is that a contradiction in terms, or is it just me?!), then used Curves to boost the contrast. To lighten I used part of a CoffeeShop action called Bright Eyes. I used adjustment layers to brighten blues selectively, then all colours. Then I added a new layer and changed the blending mode to Soft Light to bring out the colours. I like that it ‘deepens’ the photo and gives it a late afternoon feel. What do you think?
Disclaimer: This is NOT my photo, it is part of an editing challenge at I Heart Faces.
A beautiful sunset
Last night some photo friends and I ventured to Coogee Beach ( just south of Fremantle, Western Australia) for a sunset photo shoot. I was hoping for some long shutter speed shots under the jetty. I love how the water looks all misty in long exposures. With long exposures comes too much light so it’s a bit of a balancing act to get all the settings right. Clouds always make for a beautiful sunset, too, but there were none last night – we’ve had such beautiful weather the last few days.
All up though, we had a fantastic night – five similarly minded people doing what we love then out of dinner after – awesome way to spend the Sunday night of a long weekend. When and where is the next date? 🙂
Iheartfaces – SMIRK!
This weeks theme at Iheartfaces is “Smirk”. To me a smirk is a cheeky smile and I immediately thought of this photo of my gorgeous niece. It makes me giggle everytime I see it!
Fix-it-Friday #71
It’s Friday again! Well, it’s Saturday but iheartfaces is an American website 🙂 I got a bit carried away this week and have come up with 2 edits.
First, the original:
And my edits:
Number 1 I used Levels to selectively darken areas, particularly the sky as it was over exposed. I also added a touch of blue’s saturation and a contrast boost. I also used levels to lighten some of the shadow on the man’s face so I could see more detail in his features. Lastly I sharpened the image, concentrating on the man and the truck.
Number 2 I used number 1 as the base, but I increased the contrast more and coverted to black and white but added a layer of brown with a gradient map to give it more of a sepia tone. I love sepia!
It’s interesting to see how other’s choose to edit, I really enjoy it and feel like I learn a heap. If you want to have a look too, head over to www.iheartfaces.com and check them out.
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