Josh + Sarah :: Baby Max cont’d :: computer annoyances

 

I officially hit the two week mark with this one:(I try to have newborns hosted within seven days.  I now have time, space, and quiet – and my pc that my hubbster had built for me two years ago just took a royal dump on my celebration.  It’s been acting slow and funky for the last two weeks or so and finally yesterday it really went “wrong” – all the diagnostics in the world can’t seem to fix it – so I have a new one being built that I should have no later than the end of the week :-/  Adding more hours to my work week I can do, but without the tools, I have no options other than to apologize and wait patiently.  I suppose the timing is never good, however the week before a wedding when I prefer to have all of my editing and ordering and emailing documents all caught up isn’t really my first choice of “when”.

I think I have to be gently reminded that I am not always in control here, and I’m not the only photographer this has happened to and certainly not the last.  I never keep images on my computer so that has never been a worry for me, however it stinks anyway.  Not just for me, but for those who are waiting. I’m going with a 6 core over my current 4 core processor and going to a newer OS so I can support more RAM than the two sticks I have – so I suppose, as one of my computer boys said, the only upside is I get an even faster machine out of the deal (and a bit less in my bank account, teehee).

I also wanted to share a few from an engagement session from back in May – Meet Sarah + Josh!  Their wedding is at the end of August of this year.  They both have such a neat chemistry and a level of comfort around eachother that is so sweet, I just love it when couples can be themselves and let who they are together really shine <3 Their wedding portraits, I have a feeling, will be very telling because their connection is so obvoius and rich.

Upward and onward, I thank you in advance for your patience and know that I will be here dilligently upon the arrival of my new machine, getting your items requested/ordered/expected, to you as promptly as possible!

xo

dani

a sneak peek :: baby max

Just two of baby Max at one week, who came to see me the other day… he slept over an hour on the way here and another two hours when he got here. How about that?!

Happy Friday <3

xo

dani

before + after

A little bit of fun for my photographer friends – I think at some point we are all curious what everyones images look like straight out of the camera (sooc) and then a final edit, and how we got there, so I thought I would share one.

This image was taken with 5d mark II + 24-70 – 2.8L lens, manual exposure @ 50mm, 1/1250 @ 2.8 ISO 200 in RAW format, in a shaded area at Eagle Isle:)

With the whites of her shirt, and not using fill flash, I have to (just like weddings) find a good balance of keeping the skin editable and not blowing out her shirt. 

If I cant do a custom white balance at the time I do my best in adobe lightroom by selecting the whites and adjusting – it isnt the best way and isnt always accurate but for this image, I adjusted the WB in LR and increased a bit of contrast and saturation then exported to .jpg and opened in photoshop.  I use the Patch tool to remove debris (also known as food, boogers, scratches, schmutz, blemishes, etc) from faces most of the time, and do it on a duplicate layer.  Flatten, save, and then ran a curves adjustment layer on the image to change the color toning to a slightly more vintage appeal – saved as a copy of the original. 

If you’re hitting your exposures near to the “T” in camera, your processing time is cut down – and getting it right in camera has to be your main priority – photoshop is your friend, but it is not the photographer!  Learn to do manual adjustments in PS – actions are fun and very useful when done correctly, but any reputible actions maker will tell you that they work best on a properly exposed, clean image as a base.

I had a crazy busy sunday work wise and before that, spent saturday turning 27 – I spent my birthday at the ZOO with the kids!  LOTS to blog!

Happy Wednesday! Hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of what comes onto my computer and how I work with it.

xo

dani

June 1, 2011 - 7:43 pm

jamie - ever thought of teaching a class? :)

joe + marlana :: 04.16.11

 

 

FINALLY got to blog Joe and MarLana!  They never even got more of a facebook sneak peek:(  Their book comes in tomorrow and I’m so excited to give it to them! 

I think they could all be models personally:)

Back to the him-haw, but I do want to publicly thank BOTH the Ricci and Binkley families for their amazing hospitality, Mr. & Mrs. Ricci for inviting me to their table for dinner and making me feel like I was a part of your family.  May you all be blessed and enjoy eachother now and always.

Thank you SO MUCH to my lovely Christi.  She wasn’t originally supposed to work that day and she came on her scheduled day off to shoot the morning and the ceremony and to hold a light in the blistery crap cold rain by the lake-  and turned out some bang-up images for me even in that short amount of time.  Thank you for all that you do for me.  NONE of this would be happening the way it does without you. I can’t wait to watch this unfold through the years.

I’ve officially moved out of the upstairs and now have invaded my dining room for the next week (um…. insert how you think I like that, here ____________).  All of my hard drives were backed up, computer upgraded and reorganized for the move (weee!).  Then, I got the blue screen of “&$!%^$!!!” today.  It rebooted, but I’m guessing soon I have to do some other upgrades to my operating system I”m not happy about, and I dont think my new video card is meshing well with my machine! Ahh!

Okay enough of me rambling. Enjoy Mr. + Mrs. Binkley =)

xo

dani

May 20, 2011 - 6:39 am

rach - love them. Looks like they really enjoyed their day.

May 28, 2011 - 8:49 am

Jess H - I love these! You are getting better and better with every wedding! I love the style of the shoe picture. What did you do to it?