It's February and we celebrate Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year (the year of the Tiger) on the 14th. It's onward and upward towards Spring and Easter. We are looking forward to new growth as the weather warms up here too! Have a wonder filled day.
This is great-grandmother with some of her great-grandchildren – the 1st and the 4th generations of this family. How many generations do you have in your family in one photograph? These children will always remember and treasure the time spend with their great-grandmother.
It’s the first day of the 2009-2010 school year for the girls. Snapshots for them to remember the day also helps us to remember not only what they looked like at that time, but also help us to see how much they’ve grown by the end of the school year:
G. has been growing her hair for two years and decided this week that she was ready to cut it for Locks of Love. J.’s hair was not long enough but will be sent along to them because it can be sold to offset the cost of the hairpieces for the children. D. also got a haircut today. We’re glad that the girls are showing their love for others by donating their hair to Locks of Love.
One more play with textures and blends, original on the left:
One more play with textures. I love the artistic look the blends give to my images. The comparison image is below, original on top:
I’m singing in the rain, singing in the rain … flat lighting on this cloudy day, but the girls had fun anyway:
I’ve been spending some time learning to do other things in the post processing of my images. One thing is learning to use textures to give a different feeling to an image. Many photographers are using textures for senior photos and the grads love the feel textures give to their images. Textures fit well with today’s teen lifestyle. Do you like the newer version of the pensive mood with textures added? Does it add to the mood of the image? Compared to the black and white version posted in June, which one do you like best? Dark and moody or light and airy?
Here’s another one. The original is the 2nd image in the profile collage above:
I have a question for you: Do you have any formal portraits of you with your mom?
While reading a thread recently, I found that the answer was usually “No.” Here’s another question: Wouldn’t you like to have at least one formal portrait with your mother now?
One poster tells the story of how she does not have a single professional portrait of her family that includes her mother, who passed away some time ago. I don’t have any formal portraits of my mom and me before she passed away. The most recent would be about 5+ years before she passed (at my wedding), and that’s 30+ years ago.
As technology changes, things change easily, i.e., tvs, cellphones, computers, etc. A family portrait only increases in value. It does not get replaced or thrown away. Some day, your children will need a portrait of you, and unless you make it a priority to be in the portrait, there will be no photos for them to find. I have been practicing for our family portrait by making it a priority to be in front of the camera (not just behind it), because I’ve faced the fact that the portrait is not about me—this is for future generations.
Thank you and have a wonder filled week with your family. Practice makes perfect—am I there yet? 
We met this pretty special bunny last week when Uncle A. and his family were here. He has an awesome family and everyone loved him. Don’t you just love him too? Domino’s photo was taken by my assistant, Miss J.
Storyboards are a great way to print and share multiple photos. Since the digital age allows you to overshoot, most of us have a multitude of images on and off our cameras. We often have more than a few photos that we would like to print, but the cost to print that many will sometimes cause the printing process to come to a screeching halt. Using a storyboard with images that tell a story will make it easier for you to make prints for you, your family and friends:
