New Photography Website

My husband is a genius! :) He's building me a website for my photography company. I am SO excited about it! I really wanted a cherry blossom on my website and on my business cards. I grew up with cherry trees by my house and it was always my favorite time of the year. I'm sure it helps that they usually blossom around my birthday too:) I couldn't find one online that I wanted to use or was allowed to use so I decided to draw it. I drew it with watercolor pencils, then scanned it onto the computer into photoshop. In photoshop I was able to bring it to life with painting, dodging, burning, smearing, and so on. Check it out on http://alisabuckingham.com/

Braces be gone!

I've been practicing removing braces in Photoshop. I attached a couple before and after pictures. I am very new to it, but am catching on quick. I found it a little easier to do in black and white. The dodging and burning tools work better with graytones. Any tips would be appreciated, I am going to remove braces from about 20-30 more pictures!

Haylie's Senior Portraits

Last Saturday I had the honor of taking my friend's daughter's senior portraits. Her name is Haylie and she was so much fun to photograph! She took direction really well and came with some ideas of her own, it was a great collaboration. I am still editing her photos but I thought I would share a few. As you notice in the second picture she doesn't have braces on. That was my first attempt at photoshopping them out. I think it turned out pretty good, going to keep practicing though. Tomorrow I will share some more!

Summertime Treats

Doesn't it look yummy? Today my friend Mariah came over to have a fun day. We went swimming, shopping, out to eat, and of course out for ice cream! I took her up to Clever Cone in Kennedy Township. It is one of my local favorites. They are cheap, delicious, and right up the road. Unfortunately most of that ice cream cone ended up on her shirt, which I am washing for the second time now! Ah, summertime memories:)

STOP!

I wanted to test the power of my 430EX Speedlite at night. I actually had to tone it down quite a bit to get this shot. I had a image in my head of what I wanted my shot to look like before I left the house. Your eyes were to draw to STOP and have a feeling that this was more of a message then just a sign. Hence, the blackened background. It didn't turn out exactly how I pictured, I thought it would shine/stand out more. Overall, I like it and think it gets the message across. It does in my head at least:)

Raccoon Creek State Park

These pictures are from our hiking trip to Raccoon Creek State Park last month. Even though the park is only 30 minutes away from us, it was our first time there. They have miles and miles of beautiful trails. The second picture is my favorite for a few reasons: it reminded me of a picture out of a movie, it has strong mood and imagery, and of course because my husband is in it! This picture was taken with my Canon Rebel Xti and the standard lens(18-55mm) that it came with. I believe if you don't have all that fancy camera equipment you are forced to use your creativity and to know your camera very well. Look what I came up with! Of course, I wouldn't mind having the fancy equipment either:)

Surprise Showers

It was getting pretty late and I still didn't have a chance to take any pictures. Then all of a sudden after dinner this short lived thunderstorm rolled in. When it started to clear the sun shone through and gave me a perfect picture opportunity. Talk about luck! The clarity of the raindrops is beautiful. These were taken with my Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II.

Pittsburgh's South Side

Today was our Batman day! We went down to the South Side Works to see 'The Dark Knight', which was amazing. I love going to the South Side because there is so much culture there. East Carson is the main street that goes through the SS. It is filled with coffee shops, unique boutiques, great restaurants, art galleries, tattoo parlors, and a lot of bars. My favorite spots are Crazy Mocha for coffee, Pita Pit for lunch, Piper's Pub for a drink, and Fat Heads for a Pittsburgh chicken salad. The pictures above were taken in the South Side Works area, which is filled with more upscale shopping and restaurants. They were painted by a local artist.

The Pollonator

This bee is hungry! The fact that I took this picture is amazing because bees are the one thing that I am seriously scared of! I will scream like an idiot until someone gets it away from me. Very embarrassing considering my age:) I didn't have time for many pictures today but I wanted to at least try out my new lens, the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. It is suppose to be good for close-ups of nature. The manual focus didn't work that good, and you have to play around with auto focus a bit being sure you have the right subject in focus otherwise it will do the opposite an blur what you want focused! But once I got the hang of it I think it took some great pictures, very sharp and good details. You can actually see the pollen on the bee. I am going downtown Pittsburgh tomorrow so hopefully I will get some great photos to share with you!

Portrait Practice

My husband was sweet enough to let me practice portraits on him! Next Saturday I am taking my friend's daughter's senior pictures at Moon Park so we went there last night to check out what the lighting would be like in the spots I picked out for her pictures. The lighting got better the later it was. Around 8pm was the best. Overall, I feel pretty prepared for the portraits and very excited. I fell asleep thinking about lighting! Yeah, I'm a dork! Someone very wise once told me that you should love your job enough that you don't care if you get paid for it:) I think I'm finally on the right track. On a pittsburgh area note- I am going for pizza at Napoli's in Baden, PA tonight, so yummy! You should try it if you are ever in the area!

Butterfly Kisses

Today was going to be almost 90 out so I wanted to get off early for my walk. I didn't get down to the Montour Bike Trail until 10am, not super early :) I'm not exactly what you would call a 'morning person'. I took the butterfly picture above with my Canon Rebel Xti. It's a great camera for beginners. You can get some beautiful pictures with it, it's just not great for close-ups. As you can see, only part of the butterfly is in focus. I am waiting anxiously for my Canon EF 50mm/f1.8 II to arrive in the mail. For the price you can't beat it. I will be able to take crisp close-up shots like the butterfly pic and get better results. I am also going to use it for taking portraits. So what I learned today was: Montour Bike Trail is very pretty and very busy in the mornings, my current lens doesn't take good close-ups, and butterflies can be very persistent when they want something! That butterfly flew away and kept coming back for a good 10 minutes, regardless that I was still squatting next to the flower! Check back in tomorrow, I plan on doing some portrait practice in prep for senior portraits i am taking next week!

Can you feel the sunlight?

You know it's going to be a great day when you wake up and you have nothing you have to do until 5pm! I decided to go on my daily, feel good, wake-up Pittsburgh walk. My passion is taking photographs; my goal is to take at least one great picture a day. I'm not originally from Pittsburgh, my husband and I moved here about 4 years ago. While we like it here, we are always yearning to move back home to be closer to our families. That yearning can make Pittsburgh seem pretty miserable at times! That being said, I've decided to find all the things that I love about living here(putting fries on your salads!) and combine it with my love of photography. This picture was taken at the top of the huge hill where I live. I know what you're thinking, where aren't there huge hills in Pittsburgh??? Check back in tomorrow to see if I can find anything interesting about living out here!