My fave session

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 15, 2007

This was my favorite shoot this month. This little girl had the most beautiful skin, it was just like porcelain.

Her grampa gave her this costume and always refers to her as "Queen Ella" so we did this shot for grandpa.

And the leaves that are still around because we live in the south and it never snows...lol

And i wasn't cold, the hat was just too cute to not use it.

And dancing with her daddy. He told me that he danced with her everyday because he wanted her to learn to dance with a man that will always love her. AWW!

And this shot was my favorite of this Christmas Season, there is something so innocent about it.

Thanks for looking.

bellacat · Dec 15, 2007

what more can I saw than WOW. she is beautiful and you did an amazing job capturing her in your photos.

The Phototron · Dec 15, 2007

All I can say is wow, too. Although most of them could use a heavier vignetting because of her light skin.

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 16, 2007

Aww thanks for your kind words. I agree with you about the vignetting, but the parents hated it. I think it makes them look artsy but they are the ones paying so whatev, ya know?

She was super fun to shoot, the camera loved her. (and her daddy is a brain surgeon and ordered all 68 pictures! soo I loved that my camera loved her! LOL) Merry Christmas to me!

Peanuts · Dec 16, 2007

Lovely lovely work. One thing I noticed is there seems to be a slight magenta/red cast to some of the colour images, as well, I am afraid her entire sweater with the leaves might be completely out of gamut - if printing you might want to look under it. Otherwise... beautiful! (As per always)

emogirl · Dec 16, 2007

beautiful shots...i love the dancing ones...those woudl go on my wall! i agree with peanuts....i think the leaves/her sweater is oversaturated to the point where it looks like the colour is bleeding particularly on her sweater - be bette if that were toned done. I'm all for juicey colour, but that might be just to much.

Trish1977 · Dec 16, 2007

I love these! I also checked out your website and think it's one of the best I've seen!

Do you mainly use natural lighting, or do you use flash kits or something. I'm trying to learn more about lighting and trying to decide if I need to invest in a lot of lighting, but if it's possible to get shots like this with just natural light then I can save a lot of money!

Any advice or tips would be appreciated!

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 16, 2007

Thanks for the compliments! Brit and Emo, you guys are rght. Her little pink shirt would be out of the gamut. When I have these printed, I'll take time and mask out her shirt while I bump my colors. Thanks for the advice!

As for the lighting, these are all done by natural light. The only times I use any kind of studio lights is one newborn shoots, and when I'm actually in studio. (On the rare occasion that I am forced to do studio stuff)

Don't spend a lot of money on lighting stuff, it isn't necessary IMO. My advice would be to buy a used light meter (www.keh.com) sells them and just work really hard to get your exposures dead on. When I first started out, I bought all this lighting stuff (and I hardly ever use it). Then one of my mentors told me to just use my light meter and learn my camera and how it meters (mine is almost a full stop off) and go from there! It was an "ah-HA!" moment for me and changed my style immediately! Best of luck.

RowmyF · Dec 17, 2007

precious photos..I think you did well in capturing the essence of the child through your lens. I especially like the first one of her dancing with Daddy....brought a small tear to my eye (granted it's 1:00AM, but STILL)

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 17, 2007

RowmyF said:
brought a small tear to my eye (granted it's 1:00AM, but STILL)

Her mom wrote to me and told me that those also made her daddy tear up. That, to me, is the ultimate compliment to a photographer. Thank you.

EJBPhoto · Dec 17, 2007

Nice work. My main CC is that I see when you pop the environment, you are also popping the skin without masking the face off. If you look at the photo of her playing in the leaves, her skin is bright pink. I would pop on a separate layer and erase the skin back in. I noticed this on your previous leaves shot too.

The first one is darling.

Keep sharing!

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 17, 2007

EJBPhoto said:
Nice work. My main CC is that I see when you pop the environment, you are also popping the skin without masking the face off. If you look at the photo of her playing in the leaves, her skin is bright pink. I would pop on a separate layer and erase the skin back in. I noticed this on your previous leaves shot too.

The first one is darling.

Keep sharing!

I get what you are saying and appreciate the CC. I'm so not good with masking stuff! LOL!

It's not pink on my screen... maybe I need to callibrate. Hmm...is it pink to anyone else, I wanna know if my monitor is off on color. (which it sometimes is!)

EJBPhoto · Dec 17, 2007

Hmmm yeah I've got a pink cast on her face and skin on my screen. You print with whcc? Jeez, I couldn't print those out of gamut colors with them. Haha I have to use color inc for the fuji paper for extreme color pop.

Allsmiles7282 · Dec 17, 2007

EJBPhoto said:
Hmmm yeah I've got a pink cast on her face and skin on my screen. You print with whcc? Jeez, I couldn't print those out of gamut colors with them. Haha I have to use color inc for the fuji paper for extreme color pop.

No, I use Color Inc for somethings and WHCC for some things. If it is prints like this, I would go with color inc but there are just some things that WHCC cant be beaten with. All my vintage stuff and all my press stuff are printed with them.

BTW, it probably is my monitor. Time to callibrate...

EJBPhoto · Dec 17, 2007

Oh okay. I use WHCC for press printed only. And now starting to print with Millers as well when I'm in a bind for time (they can get photos to you over night for FREE. Lol its amazing).