Chrysanthemum

When I was a child, I loved to read.
I'm sure that came because of my parents' love for books and words.
I used to read book after book.

We would take afternoon trips to the library, and I would come home with PILES of books. Many times I would begin reading before we were even out of the parking lot.

I remember hiding under my covers with a flashlight after I was supposed to be in bed, so I could read one more chapter of "The Baby-Sitter's Club" Or "The Saddle Club" (Apparently I liked Clubs?). When my parents would come in to check on me, I would fake sleep so that I could get back to reading (sorry mom and dad!)

One of the books that has stuck with me even into my adult days is a book by Kevin Henkes called "Chrysanthemum". It is the story of a little mouse whose name is Chrysanthemum. She loves her name, but then she goes to school and the children make fun of it. It's too long... it sounds funny... it almost doesn't fit on her name tag...it's different.

My mom used to read this book to me, and I identified so much with this little mouse. My name was long, and sounded funny, barely fit on my name tag... and it was different. I remember going through a phase when I wanted to be called Kristy. I loved that name. Then in high school I decided I would shorten my name and go by Dia (you know, like "day" in Spanish?). My poor mother. She thought my name was beautiful and perfect.

Now as an adult, I am grateful for a name that is unique. I think my name is beautiful and perfect. I am even more grateful for it as a business owner with a business that is centered around me and my name.

I have been in the process of branding and finding my own uniqueness as a photographer. And I am soooo excited to release my brand new LOGO! I have a wonderful graphic designer (Elise Hogue) who also happens to be one of my 2010 brides. She did an AMAZING job taking my signature and creating a logo for me.

So thanks Elise, for a beautiful logo.
And thank you, mom and dad, for a beautiful name :)

I ♥ Faces "fix it Friday" and a FAQ!

It's another week of I ♥ Faces "fix-it-Friday". This week's picture was super cute and I couldn't resist. It also gives me an opportunity to talk a little about my post-processing which is one of the questions I get most from people.

Here is the original:



And here is my version:



I use photoshop CS4... and I am a HUGE fan of Totally Rad Actions. They have really helped me develop my style. I own both sets and usually use at least one Action on every photo you see on this blog. For this particular picture, here is what I did:

1. I used the clone tool to get rid of the tree trunk. It distracted me when I looked at the photo, and I wanted it to have a universal look. I thought about cropping it out, but I really like the little boy's hands on the rail and all the green in the background. When shooting... I keep this in mind and do my very best to keep objects like that out of my photos because cloning out every little thing can really take a lot of time.

2. I ran the TRA action "yin yang". Used the "yang" layer on the child at 77% to lighten him up a little without losing the background... and then I used the "yin" layer at 80% on the background to bring it out even a little more because I love the color! I use this action a lot because there are many times when you want to lighten or darken just one portion of a photo. That is hard to do manually.

3. I ran TRA action "pro-retouch" and used it on the child's skin at 76%. I also used the "eye bump" layer on his eyes at 25%. I love this action, because it just smooths out the skin and makes it look so milky. You just have to be careful about this one because it can also make it look very airbrushed and fake.

4. I used TRA "select-o-pop" at 100% on just the iris of his eye to pop the color a bit.

5. TRA "select-o-sharp" on his entire eye ball at 67% to sharpen up the eye and bring the focus there even more.

6. Next, I used TRA "Warm it up Kris!" at 44% just to warm up the tone of the picture a bit. I also love this action (and it's opposite, "cool as a cucumber") because it really gives it a nice color without changing the photo.

7. The finishing touch, which I use on many of my photos was TRA action "Oh Snap!" at 64%. This just kind of gives it a finished, sharp look.

I don't usually use that many actions on one photo, but for the sake of this post, I did. I also like to play around in photoshop and try new things. The more you use it, the less time it takes to acheive the look you're going for because you know what combinations you need to use.

I want to reiterate AGAIN that photoshop should be used to make an already good photo better... NOT to correct bad photos. You should be shooting consistantly (or working towards that) so that you don't have to spend a bunch of time in photoshop fixing your mistakes!

In other news... I will be heading up to Northern California tomorrow to second shoot a wedding for Muir Adams, and I'm pretty excited. I love second shooting, and I look forward to several weddings in the next month. I don't know if I'll blog while I'm gone, but I'll have tons to blog when I get back!

Happy Friday!