Courtney and Darrel Engagement

I recently was given the opportunity to take my cousin's Courtney's engagement photos. Courtney really likes the toned old school style of photos. Lately since I have started using Lightroom, I have come to enjoy "stylizing" photos. These photos are really just a tease of the photos that we captured.

Fist a couple of photos of my beautiful cousin Courtney.





I better not forget Darrel the lucky fiancee.





If you know Courtney, she is "quirky" (in a good way), fun and well it is easy to see how Darrel fell for such a great girl.



Jumping off a rock with an umbrella is totally a Courtney thing to do!



Now for some of those toned (black and white, sepia etc.) photos of the engaged couple. They look good to together don't they!











I liked the umbrella so much here is a straight color version.





Back to those toned images Courtney loves...











It was a blast! Later on there will be a link to the full gallery.

Update here is the entire photo session:
Courtney and Darrel's Gallery

Cyndi and Nick

I had fun taking pictures for my cousin Cyndi and her awesome good looking family (what can I say, it runs in our genes).

I wanted to share one of the last photos first, the kids were getting restless by this time, but I wanted to capture the awesome sunset that was coming.





Cyndi and Nick's kids are a hoot (and a bit of a handful at times). The energy of youth. Here they are flexing their muscle (so cute, it makes me smile).



Another of the entire family...



The oldest...



Middle...



Youngest and a girl (can you say cute and getting spoiled)!







Just the girls.



Just the boys.



I am starting to wonder if I am going overboard with the Lightroom adjustments. To much of a good thing, do I need to tone it down on the toned images?

Gone fishing

I took my son Clayton and cousin Ethan fishing this last weekend. I had forgotten how much work fishing can actually be. What I remember of fishing as a kid was mostly sitting around waiting for the fish.

As a parent there is more loading bait, tying knots, untangling line, such that sitting is a bit of a luxury!



The important thing is time I spent with my son and my cousin. I remember fondly the time fishing I spent with my dad as some of the greatest times of my life. A couple more of the boys...

Vivian's baby blessing

A bit late in getting to it, but wanted to share some beautiful photos of our baby girl! She was blessed last weekend (first weekend of the month). Lots of family and friends were there to support us, and we are truly touched. Those who couldn't make it, we missed, but we know your hearts are with us.

Now some pics of the beautiful baby!






She is so healthy and growing so fast!

EXIF tip

Here is a quick tip! Many photos on the web contain EXIF data intact. EXIF (exchangeable image file format) is part of a photo that contains information such as shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, camera used, lens used and the list goes on and on.

I like to use Opanda exif viewer (its free). The EXIF viewer only works if the photo you are looking at has EXIF intact. Some processing removes the EXIF data.

Once Opanda is installed, an option appears on images when you right click View EXIF/GPS/IPTC with IExif.



From the EXIF info you can see this image was shot at *F 1.8 *ISO 320 *1/80 sec *Aperture priority *exposure comp +1 *focal length 50mm, plus a whole bunch of other information you wouldn't need to ever know.

There are a lot of other free EXIF viewers out there, find one so you can see what settings were used to get that cool shot you've been eyeing (I know I do)!

Lightroom import goodies

I picked up Adobe Lightroom a few weeks ago, and have been playing with it a bit lately. Mostly I have been transferring my library of photos from Elements to Lightroom. So far I have reduced some 20,000 images to a mere 8,000 images (half the catalog down, the other half to go)! Lightroom makes it a snap to go through and toss out the lousy and organization rocks!

While I was pulling images into Lightroom I have run across some lost gems...



One really awesome thing about Adobe Lightroom is the ability to create virtual copies of images and non-destructively mess with the images. I have been looking at some vintage photos lately, and really love the look and feel. These are my slaughtered recreations trying to get that look and feel I see in those vintage images (only sharing 2 of the 20 or so I created from a small series of 5 images).



If you are using Lightroom, then you know it rocks, if you aren't then try it out! If you live in Utah, Scott Jarvie is giving free workshops on using Lightroom. I only wish I could attend. Hopefully the next round...