Julia and I went to Sope Creek Park for her portraits, which, despite being about a billion degrees, turned out to be a beautiful location! Julia’s dress totally made her look like a fairy princess, I loved it!

Here are a couple of photos from our shoot:

Krista was so much fun! I love it when I get to work with someone that is totally up for all my crazy ideas. She totally worked it. We went to Stone Mountain Park which is huuuuuuge! That place has tons of potential photo spots. I was a little overwhelmed by the possibilities, but we picked a couple and went with it. I did a mix of natural light and flash to get some different moods and effects. Even though the shoot was on Friday, I have only had a chance to edit a few, and here they are!

Last week I traveled out to Lawrenceville, Georgia to take some senior portraits of adorable Vanessa. I had some technical issues, but managed to work through them without too much trouble! We took these at McDaniel’s Farm Park, a very cool park with tons of wooded trails and old historic farm houses. I had scouted the location the day before, started walking on the trails, and as usual, Georgia’s unpredictable weather left me walking for miles in the freezing cold! Luckily, it warmed up a bit the next day for our shoot. Vanessa was only sort of cold, she was a trooper!

Ok I admit it. I am falling in love with this style. I spent some time trying to improve my techniques from last time and am having a good time fiddling with all the possibilities. So here’s my new batch of edits. Which of these do you think works best?

As an aside, I was asked if I would share the editing process for my future retouch updates. Yes, I promise I will! I just usually don’t keep track of what I do, and there’s a lot of back and forth fiddling involved so I don’t always remember my exact process. I will do my best to write down my steps and hopefully you can try these edits at home too.

#1: This photo I found of the Duran Duran concert my buddy Lindze and I attended back in December. You can see us rockin out with our cameras in the front row. Definitely the best show of theirs I have seen (and I have seen quite a few!) Click on the link to see the photo all zoomed.
#2: These dinosaur stud earrings from Modcloth.com. This site is totally my favorite for unique fashion finds.
#3: The interface design and general themes in the video game Fallout 3. I am late on the boat, as this game has been out for a little while, but I just started playing it. Only a few hours in, I am mesmerized by the style of everything. It’s all post apocalyptic but has a retro 40s feel. It’s really a must see for game lovers and design lovers alike.
#4: My new lens: the Canon 50mm 1.4. It’s sooo nice and sharp. For the price, it’s a majorly good lens.
#5: Retro cartoons, in this case: Lady Lovelylocks. I was having a discussion with some online buddies about the awesome girlyness of this long forgotten cartoon of the 80s. I personally loved the nemesis Duchess Ravenwaves. I wanted to be her when I was a little girl.
#6: Thinkgeek.com’s April fool’s day items. They totally made me laugh. In particular, this sleeping bag that I really really wish was real!!

Lo-fi photography is all the rage these days. Scene kids everywhere are scrounging up their old Polaroid and Lomo cameras and making lots and lots of photos that look like something you mom might’ve taken. But you don’t have to go out and pay top dollar for a vintage camera to get the effect. Plenty of people are creating this look with photoshop. There’s even a Flickr group dedicated to this art form.
This was my first attempt at trying to create the retro effect. I took two photos from an old set that I thought was not salvageable. The originals are slightly out of focus and the exposure is a bit off. I thought maybe an extreme retouch could save them. I am not so sure it did completely. But it was a fun exercise! The first photo is more saturated and contrasty (i totally made a new word) and the second is more muted. Which one do you think works best? Maybe they both fail? You decide!