Photography Work for Dede, Farrah, & Knox

So I really like taking pictures.  I don't have a desire to start a business AT ALL.  But I love taking photos of my girls and for my friends.  I don't let them pay me - but I'm always willing to trade time or talents!  In December I had 3 friends need photos taken for different things.  I volunteered to help - especially cause I needed babysitters while I went Christmas shopping!

I really am a novice when it comes to setting up the camera.  I keep reading stuff about ISO, depth of field, shutter speed, lighting, etc.  It's way more complicated than just buying a nice camera.  Luckily I have been able to make up for some of my lacking skills in photoshop.  But that's very time consuming.  I hope one day to figure all this out - but it will just take time.  Plus posing!  I got there and they were asking how I wanted them to stand... uhhh.... luckily they were awesome and we just winged it.  But there is a LOT more to taking photos than I had realized!

First I did photos for the Dalton family.  It was the only time they were together before their oldest son left on his mission.  I realized after that day that I do NOT like taking photos in high stress situations.  Not that this was stressful, but in the back of my mind I kept thinking "don't mess this up for them, this is their only chance for family photos, ..."  I would much rather take photos that I know I could retake another day if they went poorly (like the photographer who dropped his camera at our wedding reception and lost all the pictures of us at the temple that morning...)  These photos were a few weeks before Christmas.  Jake was a sweetie and let me open a present early - a new tripod - so I could use it for their photos.  But the rule was it got wrapped back up and put with the other presents til Christmas.

Without any little kids we were able to take TONS of photos that evening.

Dede showed me this photo she wanted of a missionary in the foreground and the family looking at him in the background and out of focus.  So we recreated it for her!  CUTE!!!

Dede came over and watched my girls while I went Christmas shopping.  The twirls were sleeping at one point so she took Scarlett downstairs to jump on the trampoline.  They had this conversation:

      Scarlett: "I want to be big."

      Dede: "Why?  Being little is fun!"

      Scarlett: "I want to be big so I can help my mom with the babies."

Oh my goodness!  Isn't that just the sweetest!  I love that girl!!!!

Next I took photos of my friend Ashley's newborn baby girl, Farrah.  I was trying to think of a good set up for our photo shoot and I came up with this idea:

We made a few adjustments, but it worked pretty well!

Farrah in her blessing dress on a quilt that someone made her (her grandma???)

Ashley found this idea to do her birth stats.  I spent a lot of time photoshopping these photos to get them just perfect.  (see, if I knew more about photography I wouldn't have to spend so much time working on them afterward).  Here's the before and after:

Such sweet sisters!!!  (headbands their ?Aunt? bought them)

Ashley found this idea on Pinterest:

We love hanging out with their family!  Scarlett loves holding babies!

Then my friend Jamie came over and we took photos of her little boy, Knox.  She wanted a photo of him in his blessing outfit before he outgrew it.  Then we used a white crochet blanket that his great-great-aunt? made him - and she's blind!  Wow!  Knox is probably the happiest baby I've ever met!  He was just all giggles and smiles.  Adorable!!!

This little guy loves his mommy!!!

Jami and Scarlett got to squish his cute cheeks while Jamie and I looked over the photos upstairs.

It's weird to look back at these photos because I spent so much time in photoshop fussing over every pixel - I basically have them memorized!  I thought it was weird that photographers take a few months to get your photos back to you - but now I understand why.  Post-processing is a beast!  Luckily I really enjoy it, so it's a fun beast.  But still beastly.  Beast (bonus beast).