Literature

I like reading, though I don't often take time to sit down and read. I usually save all my reading time for holidays and road trips. But I feel like I'm missing out on something. Like I could use some intellectual stimulation, or not even that, just something to read in general.

Reading enables me to slow down. To soak in my surroundings. The last two days my husband and I have laid in bed while my daughter was napping and we both read. It was so inspiring. We opened the curtains and let the warmth and the light of the sun pour into our room through the blinds. We listened to the hustle and bustle of the busy Surrey intersection right outside our window. We heard students laughing as they walked back to school after lunch. We listened to the silence that comes from a sleeping baby.

My favourite author is Nicholas Sparks. I own most of his books and love the plot lines of his novels. His books are light hearted and don't require much personal reflection or intellectual stimulation. I was having coffee with a good friend of mine today, where else but at Wendel's in Fort Langley, and saw this book propped up on a stand facing me. It was beckoning me to open it's cover and flip through its pages and process its words.

So I bought it.  It's called Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay. I'm not sure what it's about exactly or if it will even stimulate my brain cells, but it's written by an author I've never heard of before and the reviews on the back sounded intriguing.

"It will make you cry - and remember."  

I love a good book that will tug at my emotional strings. There were a lot of references to crying and "weep"ing so it should be interesting! I'll let you know what I think when I'm done!

A friend of mine and I are going through a book together called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. Well, we just started, tomorrow will be our first "meeting" to talk about it! But so far I'm intrigued. It's about falling in love with God, the whole God, the God that created the universe and every intricate detail that goes along with it. I'm super excited to read this one, and to be able to share it with my friend and be inspired together!

I'm also making more of an effort to read my Bible. That's always been a tough one for me for some reason but I've been so blown away by God in the last few weeks that I'm anxious to find out more about Him! Right now I'm reading 1 Corinthians.

Then there are the non-intellectual reads that I enjoy, like magazines! I love finding inspiration in fashion magazines and wedding magazines for poses and ideas.

Here's a look at what's on my  side table in my room at this point in time:

What books/magazines/articles inspire you? What's currently on YOUR shelf or in your hands?

Booked

I'm not sure how or when it happened. But it happened. I'm totally booked for October! I was looking at my Google calendar the other day and started counting all my photo shoots and I think I counted 11. That includes 2 weddings, one of which is my own and the other one I'm 2nd shooting for a friend.

I thought for sure October would be slow. There are fewer weekdays to take pictures since the sun sets earlier these days, and there are only so many Saturdays and Sunday's in a month. But somehow I managed to book 11 sessions! That's awesome!

I have so many of my past clients to thank! Most, if not all, of my clients have heard about me via word of mouth. They saw their friends' pictures from a session I did and loved them, and then their friends saw their pictures, etc, etc. My clients have been my biggest source of new clients! So thank you to all my clients!

It's funny, I think back to January when I first decided to pursue this career and I remember telling my husband, "I just have to try it. If I suck then I'll stop and sell my equipment." I guess I don't need to tell my equipment! =) I'm glad people like my work and are booking me for sessions to make permanent memories of them and their families at this particular point in their lives. That's what it's all about to me.

So, if you'd like to book a photo shoot with me it'll have to be in November! But that's still enough time to use the photos for Christmas cards, so book soon!

Here's one more Sneak Peek from Saturday's family session I came across last night while I was editing.

HEATSEEKER /concert

A good friend of ours is in an '80's cover band called HEATSEEKER. He's been ranting and raving about this band since he joined and we had never had the opportunity to see them live in concert for ourselves. Until Thursday night, that is.

If you're an '80's music connoisseur then you would be SO stoked to be at one of their concerts. I was born in 1985 so I kind of missed that era of music, but my husband grew up on AC/DC and Guns 'n Roses so he was a fair judge of their talent. And he was blown away. The songs they played were all classic '80's songs (I admit I maybe only knew 2/3 of the songs!) and they pulled off each song as if they were in the actual original band. They even donned outfits circa 1980 to boot. Tight pants, mullet wigs, black nail pollish. It definitely took you back!

SO if you've got an upcoming social gathering of some sort, whether that be a work Christmas party, birthday, anniversary, maybe even a wedding, and want some classic solid entertainment, well you might want to give these guys a shout. They're pretty impressive!

I've never taken photos at a concert before so this was a fun challenge! I can't say that I want to go into Concert Photography, but I had my camera with so I used it! The main singer had the most light on him so I got more shots of him than the rest of the band!

I hope you all had a fabulous weekend!

Sneak Peek

I met a fabulous family at Bear Creek Park for a photo shoot today. Here's one picture to share with you for now!

JULIE & RANDY /couple

I never posted a Sneak Peek of this couples session from last weekend. Why? Because my Sneak Peek turned into 15 pictures! haha. I figured I would just hold off posting the pictures until I finished all of them and do it all at once. I just had too many favourites to only post 1 picture, and my daughter had a long nap when I got home from this shoot so I could actually take time to edit right away!

Randy and Julie have been friends of mine for a long time. I went to church with Randy and his family for many, many years and when he met and married Julie they continued to come to our church, which I'm very thankful for! This is a fun couple to hang out with and Julie is such an inspiration to me and I'm so grateful for her friendship!

We took these pictures down in Yaletown, Vancouver. It was such a great location with the brick buildings, cobblestone sidewalk, and just a great overall atmosphere. Aside from all the hugs we had to give some people fundraising for something, it was a blast! haha.

FAQ /Sparkling Eyes

This is my first FAQ post. I feel a little ineligible to write one of these. I don't have any real qualifications for what I do. No fancy certificate framed on my wall. No piece of ID that says 'Professional Photographer'. But I have my passion and my art and this is what works for me! So, if you like what you see then maybe this post can help YOU in some way or another and that would make me happy! I want to help other new photographers as much as possible since I know how invaluable all the tips were that I've received from other photographers.

I've had a few people email me and comment about the brightness of the eyes in my pictures of children. How do I do it? I'll tell you what I do to achieve the bright, sparkling eyes of little ones, but in no way am I saying this is the right way to do it, or even the best way! It's simply my way and it works for me!

I first edit my picture in Lightroom, using my sliders I adjust white balance (my camera isn't super accurate straight out of camera, or SOOC), and I adjust the brightness and contrast (which makes the biggest impact) and then a little of the Light and Shadows. Once that's done I export my RAW images into JPEGs. Here is what my original image looks like, SOOC (I'm a little embarrassed to actually show a picture SOOC as it's not to the quality that I like to showcase!) But here it is:

After I've converted it into a JPEG I then open the image in Photoshop CS5. If I have a close up picture of a baby or child I love to make the eyes shine just a little more than they already naturally do. So, I take my Dodge tool (solid circle with a little stick coming out of it, similar to the magnifying tool) and I slightly lighten the iris (coloured part) of the eye.  Every picture that I put on the internet also gets enhanced with Kubota Image Tools Magic Sharpener for extra oomph! This is the final result:

Here are some of my other favourite shots where I've used this technique:

I hope that helped somebody out there! haha. If not, well it was fun to write!