One of My Favorite Images

Hello Everyone!

Aside from anyone submitting their weekly assignments (for those participating), I had mentioned that I'd be taking a break for a while. Well, I can now explain my recent absence with one of my favorite images: 

That's right, we're expecting another baby! Unfortunately, I've been incredibly sick almost every day since New Year's (all day nausea/sickness) and that's why I've had to take a little break from the blog. Our little one is due in September, and although we haven't shared it with all of our Facebook friends just yet, I wanted to share the news with you wonderful ladies! Thanks for being so patient with me!

-BreAnna

People Pictures {Exercise #1}

Happy Monday! You may be thinking, "Uh, Monday? What's so great about Monday?" Well, it just so happens that today we get to post our results from week 1 of our People Pictures project. Below you will see the results of three participants, but you'll definitely want to check out the links below to view all the others!

Image by Molly L.

Image by Ania K.

Image by Noelle S.

Binkies + Noseprints Photography -- http://binkiesandnoseprints.blogspot.com/
DC Group -- http://dc2011women.blogspot.com/
Abbey Road Designs -- http://abbeyroaddesigns.blogspot.com/
Claudia Muir Photography -- http://claudiamuirphotography.com/blog
Greta S Garcia Photography -- http://gsgphotography.wordpress.com/
Elaine Janet Photography – http://elainejanet.com/
The New Diplomats Wife -- http://thenewdiplomatswife.blogspot.com/
What Eyes See Daily -- http://whateyesseedaily.blogspot.com/

2012 Resolutions

I've been inspired by Ania and Leslie C's resolutions for this year.  Here's what I look forward to in 2012!  I've shared the first three on my photography blog.  Not ready to share #4 with the world but now saying it out loud here will motivate me to get going! (yes I know this site is available to the world but it feels more private!)

1) Use my Point and Shoot camera: I have a great pocket sized camera in my Sony T5.  It's a regular traveler especially when water is involved.  But I tend to take fewer pictures with it just because I'm not familiar with it.  I challenged myself to take more pictures on a recent trip and with that practice I can now anticipate the shutter timing.  I was able to capture this snowball action shot!

[Having my DSLR conk out on me right before the holidays motivated me to this goal too.  My indoor Christmas shots weren't great because of my unfamiliarity of this camera.  Now that I've got timing down, time to learn all the modes so I don't always have to use the flash inside.]

Practice with the point and shoots -- either my T5 or my phone -- allows me to focus on framing.  And they are a lot less cumbersome to carry than my Nikon!

2) Design more in Photoshop: Creating holiday cards for my family and a client this year got me hooked on presentation and design.  There's always an artistic vision in mind for a shoot and this can extend into the presentation of the final images.  I seek to create more cards, books and wall hangings this year.

Here's the Garcia card this year:

3) Continue education:  One of the biggest things I love about photography is that there is always something more to learn.  Some new challenge.  Some new inspiration.  So many resources are available to us and I will seek some out this year.

I've just signed up for ClickinMoms Senior Success: http://us1.campaign-archive2.com/?u=d54daf08fec377347b22726b0&id=a55a7232a1&e=73ee56a042

4) … which leads me to #4.  As a brand new business, I've been considering my business plan and how I want to establish myself in 2012.  I've considered my immediate strengths and challenges.  At the same time, I don't want to stay square in my comfort zone.  I've decided that I want to try senior photography this year.  What played into my decision is (a) timing: weekday evenings are likely to work which help because it's after my day job and doesn't take weekend time away from my own family (b) I'm better at individual shots rather than groups -- but this age group will be something new! (c) senior photography outside the "black drape" box is essentially a new market in my immediate town.  There are photographers in the Atlanta area that do this, but it is not saturated at my local high schools.  I've been endlessly thinking through launching this from having reps, locations, sessions to build a portfolio, other marketing, and packages to offer.  It's time now to get things on paper and most importantly get some portfolio building sessions to make sure this is something I really will enjoy!

 -Greta G.

Date for Winter Retreat

It looks like the most voted for date for the retreat is March 3rd and 4th. It sounds like it will be lots of fun! More details to come...

P.S. I just wanted to apologize for not much being on the blog lately. I've been terribly sick and just now starting to get better. Hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things soon. 

Winter Photography Retreat

Leslie C. had the wonderful idea to have a winter photography retreat in NYC for those who can make it in either Feb. or March, and Jenn put together a Doddle poll so we can all vote for the days we would most like it to be. If you'd like to vote, please do so by this Saturday, Jan. 14th. Jenn also said, "Add to the comments anything you would like to offer to share or an activity you'd like to do while at the Winter Retreat (i.e. Urban Love pictures...)."

To add your input, click here.

Personal Project

Happy New Year! I'm sure everyone kept busy over the holidays and I hope 2012 is starting off great for you all! Today I just wanted to share a recent project I did, which would not have been possible without Jenn Johnston. 

Now, as some of you might remember, I do not have my own photography business, nor do I plan on opening my own. I absolutely love photography and am enjoying learning so much, though, that I do have hopes to work with a photographer someday. That being said, this particular project was a little different for me, but I ended up learning quite a bit and had fun doing so.

Since money was a little tight this holiday season, we couldn't do our normal donations to local charities, but we still wanted to do something. I decided to contact our local women & children's home to see if I could donate my time to take photos of the children/families, if they so wished. They replied back very excited and asked if I could also take some for families at their apartments, too. I was thrilled, but extremely nervous. I've never photographed a complete stranger (aside from the models at the workshop, but that's a bit different). 

My husband's work actually donated the money to help with prints, so that was wonderful. Also, I soon realized that the time they choose would be just before dusk, and I didn't have an external flash. THANK GOODNESS FOR JENN! She was a complete life saver and offered to loan me her flash. She also told me to consider the shipping as a donation! What a heart of gold! Thank you, Jenn!!

Thanks to everyone who helped out, several families/individuals received prints just in time for Christmas. Here are just a few: 

(The above picture is the very first picture this mom has ever had with her son. 

I know the photo isn't perfect, but I know she will be happy having it)

Somewhat on a related note, I saw a few people post this link on facebook, A letter on my door step, and I thought I would share. If you haven't already read it, I highly suggest you do, especially if you already have, or are planning to have a photography business.

Black & White Photo Results

This week's photo assignment was inspired by the 1946's film It's a Wonderful Life. Below you will find some of the results so far. If you'd like to see an image larger, just click on it.

Photo by Elaine 

Photo by Leslie C 

 Photo by Lori

Photo by Ania

 Photo by BreAnna

Winter Driving in South Dakota

I'm not sure what the weather is like where everyone else lives, but here in South Dakota it can be a bit unpredictable. A week and a half ago we had tons of snow, yet just yesterday it was 60 degrees and sunny! I wish it would just choose a season already! When it does snow during the winter, though, I always find it interesting to hear "out-of-towners" discuss the snowy conditions (whether it's a small flurry of snowflakes or a full on blizzard).

One thing I know for sure is that our little guy won't let a little snow stop him from "driving" around:

Now if I could just get this car started...

Okay, here we go...

@*&#!!! Stuck in the #@*!&% snow!!

Walking it is...

I hope you all are staying warm!

BreAnna

Post Processing from Greta

I took these and had done some edits pre-tutorial.  My standard edits were to adjust the WB (cooler more to the blue end), upped brightness a touch, upped blacks to almost 20, desaturated slightly.  Actually I desaturated first per MeRa's tips on whitening holiday lights.  After the tutorial, I worked on the eyes.  I desaturated the whites to get rid of bloodshot, dodged eye highlights and burned the iris edges.  Finally I brushed in definition around the face features.

This is one of my holiday card images -- which I'll try to post soon.

-Greta

Noelle's Post Processing Results!

Here are some pics I took of my nephews this past weekend and post-processed using Leslie Chang's great tips!

Top left- clean edit

Top right- warm b&w

Bottom left- is a a free preset called light bright colors from MCP actions

Bottom right- split tones

-Noelle

P.S. Don't forget to "like" Noelle's newly created facebook page, Noelle Soroka Photography

Post Processing Results

This week we are starting off with a post processing result from Claudia. She had a little down time while she was in the hospital with her son, so she was able to send in this amazing photo: 

"This was one I did recently.  I did a black and white conversion because the original had a terrible red glow on Michael's face from his shirt.  Then I added a vignette (something I had never done before the workshop).  I felt like it really added to the drama of the picture of my son Michael." - Claudia L.

Claudia, this is such a beautiful photo, as I'm sure everyone will agree! To everyone else: don't forget to email me your results ...or any other post you'd like to see on our blog.

Welcome!

I just want to take a quick moment to welcome everyone to our new blog. This will be a place we can share success stories, reviews, ideas and more. This is not meant to replace our facebook group, but rather give us a platform to share in more detail. I had such a great time at the workshop with all of you and I've been enjoying sharing with you so far. 

This will be a group effort, as we will all have the opportunity to take turns "posting" for the day. To keep things organized and running smoothly, I ask that everyone send their submissions to breannarenee2@hotmail.com with "Confidence Blog" in the subject line. Don't worry if you'd rather not write a bunch. You can just "show off" some of your latest pictures or simply let us know what's new with your photography! Please also submit your ideas for our photography "assignments" (participation isn't required, but we'd sure like to see what you come up with!).

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions or concerns.

BreAnna