Category Archives: Photography

I’ve been doing a lot of photography lately. Fun for me!

You can see some of the pictures on my photography website: Green Orchid Photo

But some you can’t. Because I’m not done processing them. Which reminds me . . .

Anyhoo, some of the pics I’ve done recently:

Leslee and Jason – wedding pictures at the Salt Lake Temple

Leslie & ??? (I can’t remember her hubby’s name!) – Maternity pictures at Red Butte Garden

Beth and Alex – engagement pictures on a rainy morning.

Jameson & Gregson – darling kiddo pics.

Torri & Kylie – fun prom pics

Megan & Ben – wedding pictures in Nauvoo Illinois

Not to mention my own personal photography  – pictures of my sweet kids and our daily adventures.

I even bought a new 8GB cf card.

I’m glad I have a camera.

Last night I had a dream that I took THE coolest jumping picture ever, and I got into all the jumping photo clubs on Flickr, and everyone LOVED my photo, and I had all sorts of external validation.

And when I woke up I decided: I should learn how to take Jumping Pictures.

And so I called the best jump-picture-person in Utah, who also lives on my street – Rick.

We conned a few people to jump for us.

And I learned lots.

NEATO, I say.

Last weekend I did a couple photo shoots -

1) Another Bridal session with my sister, Leslee. It was: FUN to hang out with Les for an afternoon, AWESOME to practice my photography NICE to have a captive and willing model and a GREAT memory with my sis.

2) A Newborn photo shoot with my neighbor, Tiffiny and her newborn, JACE. He is darling.

You can see more pics at Green Orchid Photo

Today we went and did the bridals for my sister, Leslee. She’s getting married in March.

Today was her official “Bridal” session – with her photographer. Wyatt asked: Why didn’t you just take the pictures? Well, she has a photographer. And so I just went along to do sisterly duties – fluff the dress, watch the hair, hold stuff, hand over tissues . . .

and document the documentation.

I really liked what happened with this shoot. I thought it might turn into a disaster, but it turned out A.W.E.S.O.M.E.

It was supposed to be at the Salt Flats. But after driving 110 miles from Salt Lake – we found out that it was flat, and salty, but also watery. A situation we did not anticipate. And then a blizzard blew in. And it was COLD. But Leslee and Jason were way good sports (as was the photographer’s pregnant wife!) and look how cool these turned out!

Last month I officially launched Green Orchid Photo. It has been an interesting process . . . the creation of this photo biz. I know I’ve done photography before, I’ve even registered a business. But my direction was never clear, and my confidence was shaky at best.

But during the last several months of 2009 I somehow found a confidence that I had never had before. I had an idea and a direction in the type of photography I wanted to do, and how I would go about persuing my passion.

And then one day in January . . .

Leslee was over for lunch. I was showing her my website, that wasn’t quite finished. I told her I needed to figure out how to create a group on Facebook. I told her about my idea for a wedding giveaway.

Leslee sat down at the computer and created the Green Orchid Facebook Group. She announced the give away. She linked people to my site.

Talk about being pushed out of the nest! There was no going back now! I scrambled to finish the last few details on the site. Then I started to watch . . . would anyone actually visit my site? Would it just be my family and neighbors?

I am surprised at the amount of traffic I’ve received on my site in the past month, let alone the number of entrants I’ve had in my giveaway (my goal was 10 – and I thought that was pushing it).

I’m working hard to create a successful photography business. I love it, and I want to do it more.

The other day I was at the grocery store and I saw a magazing – Utah Bride & Groom – on the stands, with a cover story article about wedding photography. I was busy and didn’t have time to peruse it, but made a mental note to hit Barnes and Noble later to check it out. The article was entitled: 200+ Utah Wedding Photos – Inspiration and Ideas from Local Couples. Well I’m excited to say that I didn’t find ANY inspiration. There wasn’t anything particularly special about the photography that was presented. In short, I think I could do better.

Which is always a shot of confidence.

Tomorrow is the end of my give away. I will be announcing the winners.

But I don’t have any clients – YET.

So I went and took my bambinos on a practice shoot yesterday afternoon. It’s good to go practice. And I think some of these turned out lovely.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted much about my photography. My sister in-law asked me to take pictures of her baby boy, Andrew. Of course, such things are always fun for me.

One thing I did differently with these pictures is that I actually processed them in both b&w (well, a toned b&w) and color. I’m not very good with color. But I want to get better. So I practiced with these.  I practiced adjusting skin tones and giving the overall image a soft “baby” feel.

But then, I really do LOVE black and white, so I processed them as such too. What do you think?

My neighbor, Kellie, lent me the basket (THANKS KELLIE!) and we just played around with different poses. It was fun. These were all taken in my living room (construction stuff pushed out of the way).

I like this one a lot. I like the height of the blank wall behind him.

The “baby pictures” I’ve taken in the past have been of NEW borns – less than a week old. Andrew is two months old, and starting to chub out like a baby should. That was fun.

And he was such a good sport – he’d wake up for a minute while we re-posed him, and then fall contentedly back to sleep. Good boy.

Next time I’m doing new born pictures in a yellow golden field. Think of this basket in a field with golden sunlight and big trees. AWESOME. Anyone know of any Fabulous Fields in Salt Lake? All the ones I played in as a kid have since been developed. Bummer.

It’s wonderful to see miracles in peoples lives. Here are two.

Number of pictures taken in July, 2008: 915

Number of pictures taken in September, 2008: 651

Number of pictures taken in December, 2008: 697

Number of pictures taken in March, 2009: 7

It’s been a long month.

This is my fun image of the day. I actually have been waiting for a fresh snow followed by a cold day so I could get a shot like this. (If it’s too warm, then the snow melts right off the tree. If it’s too cold, the snow is icy, not fluffy.) Even though I’ve had this shot in my head for about a month now (we haven’t had a good snow since Christmas), it didn’t turn out as I envisioned. Oh well. It’s my own fault. But I still like this shot, and I still like the concept, so it’s something I can work on as we get more snow & Olivia is willing to participate.

Part of my poor planning was that I didn’t have the proper clothes. I wanted a really long green scarf, dark pants, and a wool coat. Oliva owns none of these things. This morning when I realized conditions were perfect, I scrambled! I went to Savers (which apparently is THE place to be on Monday mornings at 9:30 am). No green scarves. No dark pants. No wool coats. I settled for this pink scarf, figuring it was about the saturation of the green I envisioned. Then I dug out a coat I bought for Cal last fall, that is for next winter (size 2T). It seemed to fit Olivia okay. The other major problem with this picture (when one compares it to my original idea) is the horizontal nature, and the distance of the trees. I had in mind a vertical image, with the trees towering over O. But Cal was with us on this photo shoot, and I didn’t want to go farther than 20 yards from the car (where he waited, unhappily). Ergo the trees were a bit farther off. It gives me opportunity to improve.

First thing I did was crop the image, clone out the footsteps in the snow, and change the scarf and pants green. I ended up changing and playing with the colors on the scarf and pants about 4 times each before I got it right. (The sample above was not right.).

Then I fixed my contrast & saturation curves and ran a slight sharpen filter on it.

Next I added some slight color to the snow, using aqua greens and blues with a brush on color dodge & color burn mode between 10-3% opacity.

Finally I merge copied all layers into one layer and ran a lens blur on it. I then used a layer mask to paint back in the areas that I wanted to be in focus. Because it’s not a true lens blur, I actually think it adds a bit of “magic” to the image . . . like looking through a frosted window pane in winter. Cool.

And the last thing I did was brighten up the scarf (yet again) so that it really pops. Click on the image above to see a larger version.

Click on image for larger version.

I have set up a new photoblog as a subdomain of this website. You might remember my old photography website. I took it down a little over a year ago. Since then I haven’t had a place to really post my “photography” which hasn’t bothered me in the least since 9 out of 10 pictures are simple snapshots of my little family and our adventures; and I post those here. But now I have a site to show some of the other work I do. You can check it out by going to “Andrea” at the top of the home-page, and clicking on “Photoblog” on the drop-down menu. Or you can just click here.

You can post comments to the images, and feedback is greatly appreciated. I’ve posted most of my old work, though I’m sure I’ll find more that I’ll want to put on as I go through my old files. But in the mean time, I’ve also just started showing some of my “new work,” starting in September!

This picture was taken on a shoot (not guns) with photography super-hero Rick last weekend in Manti.

Overgrown, Cambodia, 2004

I got my camera in January, 2004. At the time, Wyatt had just finished his first semester in graduate school. We were trying to get through school sans student loans. I was making $9.50/hour, and Wyatt made $7.00/hour at a 10 hour/week gig on campus. We were living in, what we now call with a delirious affection, “the Meth Lab apartment,” because there was a meth lab directly across our 35 foot wide street from us (we woke up one morning to the whole street shut down and men in HASMAT bubble suits walking around like a scene from E.T.)–the apartment was small, old, dirty, and, as you can tell, in a “great” part of town. Our favorite day of the week was Tuesday because it was “fifty cent night” at the dollar movie theater. Financially life was -ahem- simple.

One night I came home and announced to Wyatt that I wanted to get a new camera, and that it would be released in January, and that it would cost $1000.00, almost a full months wages, and two months rent. Wyatt never batted an eye.

I had done significant research about “digital cameras” – a still relatively new era of technology. The camera I settled on, after almost a full year of research, would be top of the line. It had been announced at a photography trade show in October, to be released the following January. We had three months to save up.

The day the camera was released on the market, Wyatt and I climbed in the car and headed down to the local Best Buy. To my hearts distress, another woman came in wanting the same camera, at the same time as us. The store only had one in stock. The salesperson said which ever of us went without, could come back the next day. He would order one in from another store, and give it to us with a $70 discount. Wyatt talked me into waiting another 24 hours. I did not want to wait.

Now, four years later, my camera is almost antiquated in terms of technology. Luckily it still takes good pictures. I estimate (based on my camera’s counter system) that I have taken 36,889 pictures over the past four years of ownership. If I had taken those same pictures with a film camera, they would have cost $3,576.18* just in film alone. Then there is the additional cost of development–which I won’t calculate, because while printing film costs money, so does having a computer and photoshop to edit the digital files. I truley feel that my camera has been one of our greatest family investments, second only to the real estate we’ve purchased. Not only has it saved us money in the long run, but it also has enabled me to continue pursuing my talents and interests in photography AND, most importantly, capture the moments that have made up our lives for the past years.

Now, it has been four years since Wyatt and I climbed into the Jeep and made a purchase that made us both catch our breath. My camera is getting old. I have a couple dead pixels, and the flash doesn’t reload quite as quickly as it used to. It’s time retire it to “backup” position.

Yesterday I bought a Canon 5D, and a new 24-70mm f/2.8L IS USM lens. It was another purchase that made me catch my breath. But Wyatt never batted an eye.

*Based on FujiFilm Superia 100 ISO 35mm film, listed on Amazon.com at $3.49/36 exposure roll.

You might remember the comic strip from Calvin & Hobbes, “The days are just packed” (This later became the name for a book of collected strips from the series). It shows Calvin getting up early, and going through a crazy day full of all the childhood stress–teachers & homework & chores, etc.) Well, that’s how our life has been lately–JUST PACKED!

Wyatt and I are in the process of buying a new house – one that we will actually move into. This means that, in addition to getting everything in order to purchase the home, we have to get our house into shape to rent or sell (it depends on the day as to what we think we’ll do with it). All the projects that have been “on the list” for the past 18 months, are suddenly at the fore-front of our to-do. We’ve been working on finishing the painting (of trim) and getting the bathrooms finished. We decided not to take on any more projects, just finish the ones that are already started. We’re also tearing out the backyard, finishing up the sprinkler system (that we put in last summer) and throwing down seed.

Of course, once we finish these projects, then the real work will begin. The house that we’re buying is a fixer-upper, and I don’t mean a little paint & rouge. I mean tear-out walls, redo flooring, put in yard–EVERYTHING! We’re just gluttons for punishment.

Saturday was Carrie’s Birthday — HAPPY BIRTHDAY CARE BEAR! Unfortunately I wasn’t able to talk to her during the day–she was out playing way to hard. I was sad that she wasn’t able to come to Salt Lake, but I think she had a great day.

Also on Saturday I made my first POLAROID LIFT ever!! This is really exciting to me. I remember the first time I heard of a Polaroid lift, I was a senior in High School. I’ve always wanted to try one, but lacked two things:

1) The equipment. Because the film used in a lift is large format, I needed either a large format camera (read several hundred, if not thousands of dollars), or a slide printer (several hundred dollars, plus the added expense & pain of shooting slide film which only gives you a +/- 1/3 stop range for good exposure).

2) I didn’t have someone to teach me how to do it. Although I had read through the process in several books, I felt it must be somewhat difficult and didn’t feel confident in the attempt.

But alas, this summer the stars have aligned. First, Wyatt brought home a 250 Land Camera he found among his Great Aunt Duella’s things. I had never heard of this model of Land Camera (I’ve had a Land Camera SX-70 Sonar for several years, used to make SX-70 Manipulations). I’d never even read about this camera as a possible source for exposure for Polaroid manipulations, something I find odd, because I looked on E-Bay, and there are plenty for sale. Anyhow, I spent the summer figuring out the camera how it worked, and then getting it to work. Finally last week I got my first exposure (fairly underexposed, but exposed none the less).

On Saturday afternoon I set out to make my first lift. I got some old scrap vellum paper to lift to. (Why vellum? Why not? It was what I had on hand, and like I said, I wasn’t confident it would even work, so I wasn’t about to make a big-do on what I lifted to). I put it in the boiling water, and watched, wondering what I was supposed to look for. But it became pretty evident when the film began separating itself! I lifted it to the cool water and set about separating film. The exposure, when separated from the paper backing, takes on a consistency of cooled soup skin. Easy enough to handle, but you have to be gentle.

Anyhow, this is what I got. I’m now so excited to begin testing exposures & filters (I think this film needs some level of yellow filtration). I’m also going to experiment on surfaces to hold my lifts. I’m swarmed with all sorts of ideas of where to go to from here!

Last night I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. It’s Wyatt’s very favorite book, and definately high on my list. Scout (our dog) is even named after the girl in the book, a compromise to naming our daughter that. I love getting lost in great literature though. I actually takes me back to when I was 12 or 13 and read much much more than I do now. I think it was easier to find great books back then. Everything was new, and I didn’t venture into the pop culture novels of either adult or child fiction. I think maybe that’s why I like to read the classics so much today. Even though I’ve read it before, there’s a reason why it’s a classic. And as Andersen Cooper said, “A great book is one that changes every time you read it.”