Alice : 3 Months

This little lady was ready for her closeup!  She was happy throughout all of her pictures with bright eyes and lots of cute expressions.  To be honest, I was having a hard time planning beforehand what we'd do with a 3 month old--still too young to sit up, but much more alert and awake than a newborn, so I knew we wouldn't be able to do the scrunched up pics I had planned for Gracie.  It turned out to be a really fun shoot with lots of great props provided by Alice's Mom, and in the end I am really happy with how her photos turned out.

Most of these were shot with simulated window light--a softbox shot into a big white sheet.  The really bright ones were shot in front of an actual window with sheer curtains.  Either a single Speedlight or a large reflector was used for fill.

Alice's Dad is a DJ, and I think this one might be his favorite :)

My "Babies and Toddlers Challenge" Entry

The day of my much anticipated dual photo shoot--with 1 week old Gracie and 3 month old Alice-- didn't start off so great...

 I got few test shots in and then dropped my camera.  Ugh, what an awful noise that makes.  The body survived, but the lens--my beautiful 85mm baby--did not.  It looks as though the filter was the real casualty, but it's so stuck on there I can't tell just yet.

Luckily, I had brought a 105mm macro along for the detail shots, and except for a little lost light I think it worked great. The photo below was the second shot I took--about 5 minutes after the lens casualty. It was definitely a pick-me-up and set the tone for a great day of shooting. Grace was a trooper and looked beautiful in all of her pictures :)

Here's the photo on DPC.
My scores were high throughout the challenge and the comments were very positive.  In the end I took 5th place and earned my highest score yet: 7.0723.  This was my first time working with a RAW file, and I think I'm hooked.  More on that later, and many more of Grace's portraits soon.  =]

Bubble Beards

It's been a while since I posted pics of my boys on here.  They were making bubble beards in the bathtub the other night.  I thought these were super cute and I really liked the editing.  In fact, I liked it so much I created my own action so it'll be quick and easy to re-create.  I've never tried this before, but if you like the effect you can download it by clicking here Mrs. V's Warm B&W Action BUT you must also have downloaded and loaded Pioneer Woman's Action Sets 1&2, because my action uses two of her actions.  Actually you should load the Pioneer Woman actions regardless, because they're the best--hands down my absolute favorite and most helpful action sets--and they're free!  If you try out the Mrs. V action you might need to tweak the following items after it's done playing to get the exact effect you're looking for:

-Adjust constant slider on Chanel Mixer layer.

-Reduce opacity of Curves layer

(One of my steps will stop you and tell you to mask the skin tones on the Lighten Things layer.  If you're not editing a photo of a person you can skip this step.  Just press play to continue.)

Let me know if it doesn't work.  Or, if you have no clue what an action is or how to use one ask me.  I'd be happy to show you.  :)