Family Photos
Finally, a blog post! I know you know the feeling - such a busy time of year. I thought I'd share some photos from our little family photo shoot from yesterday. This has been something I've wanted to do for ages. I take photos of other families all the time, but I've wanted some of my own for years. We finally made it happen this year! The last legitimate family photo we took was when Cooper was around 6 months old. I know. So sad. Yes, that was ten years ago. O_O So this was long overdue! I'm so happy with how they came out.
I was SO nervous the day we planned on taking them. You just never know how things will turn out, if the boys will be in a mood, how the weather will turn. Luckily the boys are older now so it's MUCH less stressful. I tried to make it as painless as possible for everyone, and whatyaknow, we actually had fun! We ended up getting very lucky: it was in the 50's, overcast (yay for no bright sun!) and the park we picked was very close by and not very populated with people.
I of course waited til THE DAY OF the photos to go shopping for our outfits. Luckily everything came together so well. I was very conscious of representing lots of colors (of course) especially with these new photo actions I'm using - having lots of color really works so well with these actions. I used to be a big photoshop action junkie back in my Flickr days, but then I stopped using them because they just seemed overdone. And when my focus turned more towards crafting and designing from photography, I kept things simple and pretty much used my photos straight from the camera without editing them. But when it comes to portraits, actions really can enhance them in such beautiful ways. So far, I've been super happy with the Florabella Muse actions as well as the Skintone and Retouch actions that come with them. If you keep the changes subtle and not overdone, they can be gorgeous.
All that said, I've decided to take my own family photography business seriously, so I've been doing a lot of research on what I need, and purchasing a new monitor (IPS is what you need apparently!) and color calibration software is first on my list. The colors in these photos might not be perfect since I've edited them on my imperfect monitor, so I'll have to play with them more once I'm hooked up with a calibrated new monitor! (so, so excited about that.)
And since we're talking technical stuff, although I'm thrilled to have these photos, I almost DIED when I realized I'd left my ISO at the highest it can go (1600). I'd set it that high for our indoor photo booth for our holiday party last weekend. D'OH. So these are way too grainy/noisy for me, but I'll take them. I'm hoping to upgrade to the Canon 6D (I use a 7 year old 30d) next year, so hopefully the high ISO's won't be so noisy... we'll see. Anyone have a 6D? You like?
And what family shoot isn't complete without a jumping pic? The boys so love the jumping shots.
I'm not sure what I love more about the photo below... Cooper's Jack Nicholson eyes/eyebrows, or Campbell's heart-melting smile. At the risk of sounding too sappy here... these boys have my heart.
If you're curious about what we're wearing, my dress is from the GAP (it amazes me when I find things there that I like)... they have a whole 60s inspired range right now. The polka dot scarf I found there on sale as well. I found the boys ties (OMG so cute right?) from Crewcuts (JCrew), as well as their shirts (I think they're still having a 30% off sale in store and online, so get shopping!). Their pants are from Old Navy (I think) and their belts are from H&M.
Over Thanksgiving I took our family photos (my parents, my sister's family, our family, all together) as well as my sister's sister-in-law's family. It was fun and good practice. Here are some of my favorites. Shelly's niece below reminded me so much of Chloe Moretz. So pretty!
And another jumping pic. This one was techincally an EPIC FAIL, but I prefer to see it as an EPIC SUCCESS. : ) We're still getting lots of laughs out of this one!
I will be back this week (I promise this time!) with a furniture makeover I finished a couple weeks ago. Our holiday party was such a success and I have something to share from that as well. There's nothing like having a party to whip your house into shape and then bask in the glow of it once it's all over. We were so burned out from cleaning and finishing projects that we've let everything go to hell again. Ha. (we should clean? what's that?) Oh well, it was wonderous while it lasted! ; )
P.S. The "Merry & Bright" lettering is from this digital kit by Katie Periet.
