I was so pleased when an old friend from high school hired me to photograph her family. It was great to see her and meet her husband and daughter. We had a ton of fun running through the flowers and as always we were so awed by the beautiful sunset over the flowers. It was stunning! If you are interested in booking your own session please check out my website and send me an email through my contact page.
Spring is the most beautiful time of year in the Antelope Valley and this year was especially spectacular! We had poppies and tons of other wildflowers for weeks! I was so touched when I found out this family drove two hours to have a family session with me! No one had ever done that before so it really meant a lot. These kids were super sweet and loved the flowers. We took great care not to harm the flowers. It was so stunning during sunset. I was so happy to get the chance to share some of the incredible beauty the desert has to offer.
f3.2 | ISO: 3200 | SS: 1/80s | 35mm
f3.2 | ISO: 100 | 1/125s | 35mm
Aperture: f2.0 | Camera: Nikon D7000 | ISO: 5000 | Focal Length: 50mm | Shutter Speed: 1/200s
Shana from Florabella has started a great photo project called Project 24. It’s a no stress, no timeline photo project. Every two weeks we will start a new theme and you can interpret the theme anyway you like. Take as many or as few photos as you want or do the themes in your own order. I love that there is no pressure. We all have too much pressure on us everyday as it is!
The theme for the remainder of this week and next is Mornings. There is lots of discussion and photo sharing over on her Facebook page if you want to get inspired.
The ground outside this morning is covered with frost and even though I hate the cold, I was inspired to go for a photo walk. My shoes are soaked, but I ended up with a couple frost shots I liked and some much needed exercise.
My favorite shot of the morning.
Frosted Morning
Shot in RAW using a 50mm prime lens, ISO 400, f/4.5, 1/200 sec
Florabella’s Classic Bright at 20% with haze enabled + 1968 at 15% + Ivory Boost at 20%
This week I was inspired by those old scientific botany photos. The ones with the Latin names scrawled nearby in beautiful handwriting. This was done by placing a fresh flower under a clean piece of glass.
I am starting to lose still-life inspiration here… Photographing flowers is getting boring. I am having a more fun trying to process them in different ways so they don’t look the same every time.
I did so much to this one I don’t really know what I ended up doing. I am pretty sure I used Pioneer Woman’s Black and White action she just released for Elements.
I also remember darkening the edges a bit.
I am going to start doing before and after shots. That might be even more helpful. Probably not all the time, but when I think it would be helpful.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](https://i0.wp.com/img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png)
Harvested some radishes from my garden today. I think this image has a Gourmet Magazine look to it. Honestly, I love it.
The processing was very simple. I have been shooting in exclusively RAW for over a week now and I love it! It makes processing easier and less stressful because you can do so much with the image!
I adjusted exposure and color settings in Element’s RAW Editor and then transferred into Photoshop. There it needed a touch of brightening and that’s it!
After a month of the 365 I can tell that my photography and editing skills have improved tremendously! I can’t imagine what I might be shooting like in another 11 months!
Here is my shot for today. Not many words. We will let these beauties speak for themselves. The most basic RAW editing was done to these otherwise they are straight out of the camera.
You know it is Spring when you see these beautiful flowers on sale everywhere. I love Ranunculus! Last year I released a whole series of Ranunculus prints and I wanted to do something a little different for this year. I decided to emphasize the petals and the subtle differences in tone in each petal.
To process this I used CoffeeShop’s Chocolate Black and White Action. I had to darken the photo quite a bit for the levels layer of the action then I adjusted the lighten layer to where I wanted it. After flattening, I adjusted the levels by brightening up the whites and bringing the midtones closer to the white side for the drama.
Here are a couple more to enjoy.
I also broke out my TTV contraption and took a couple shots.
Melissa Beach Photography 