Better Late Than Never

So I just realized I never put up pictures of my trip to Disney World with my family! I actually can't believe that I forgot since Disney World is like my favorite place ever. I did take a lot of pictures, but as always, I didn't take as many as I wanted to. Hopefully next time I'll be content with the amount. 

If I had to give some piece of advice to anyone going on vacation to Disney World, or anywhere for that matter, it would be: Don't be afraid! And what I mean by that is, Find new angles for things, don't get straight on shots, crop the image in camera in a different way, and don't be afraid to photograph whatever you see! (Make sure you stop to take the picture though, if you keep walking while looking through the viewfinder, you might run into someone on accident like I did and get mean looks, haha).

 Anyway, here are my favorites, enjoy!

 "Expedition Everest"

 "Krista's new friend"

 "Takin' a breather"

 "Sodas from around the world"

 "Practically Perfect"

 "Rode this the most"

 "To infinity and beyond"

 "Watching Emma become a princess"

 "Happily ever after"

 "Tangled"

 "Best friends"

 "Playing in the plants"

 "They love Pluto"

 "Time for an adventure"

 "Tony's"

 "Beautiful and bright"

 "The Magic Kingdom"

"Tale as old as time"

Fix it up!

So I decided to start this thing called: "Fix it up!" on my blog that I'll do every now and again. It's basically when I go through the previous pictures I've taken and find pictures that I really love, but I hate the way I've edited it the first time and decide to reedit the picture. I have this thing where I love the edit I do when I'm first correcting it, and then a couple of week or even a year later I hate it. haha, but thankfully I keep the original pictures straight from the camera so I can reedit the ones I don't like anymore at anytime. 

So today, I'm fixin' up some pictures I shot of my cousin, Lauren, last December while I was in Texas. Whenever I go down there, I end up taking pictures of Lauren and my other cousin Rachel. It's almost like a tradition, and I love it because they are so beautiful and are great to work with. I was going through this shoot last night and found this original picture of Lauren that I loved: 

As you can see the original is very dark, and doesn't show her features very well since it's all in shadows. And your eyes are pulled to the left of the picture where there is a bright white line in the upper corner. So I went on a small adventure to find the final edit I did of this picture to see if I made the corrections I noticed and this is what I found: 

It's a little better, but the reason I don't like it is her face is really blue! I think I tried to brighten her face because it was so dark, but it resulted in something blue aba de aba dye. Shadows are usually composed of cooler colors such as blues and purples that's why I believe while I was changing the exposure on her face I tinted it blue. So, I decided to fix in up! I took the original picture first shown above and reedited it to make a warmer, brighter, and prettier version:

See the difference?! I think it's so much better! It looks more natural and I helps her stand out more than the background. I know the eye still finds that big white splotch behind her head, but I don't really mind it too much though my professors would have a cow. 

Anyway here are the three pictures all shown together side by side:

Well I hope you enjoyed seeing a little of how I work. There are a lot of steps, and techniques involved while fixing just one picture, imagine doing twenty or thirty! It takes a lot of time and love :) If you have any questions feel free to ask!

-leanna

Toby

Today I had work from 6am-11am, but after that (as usual) I had nothing planned for the rest of the day. So when I got home, I decided to get inspired by some of my favorite photographers and I had a longing to pick up my camera and be creative! I haven't shot anything in a month, so I'm going a little crazy because I have this desire to produce something beautiful. And you know what, I feel like everyone has that desire every now and again, whether or not everyone gets the chance to create something, well that is an entirely different topic. But today I decided I was going to create (or try to) create something I was proud of. 

I got my camera set it to M and was ready to shoot something! But no one was home.... except my perfect angel dog, Toby. 

Ever since I first got him at 3 months old during the summer of my senior year in high school, I've been taking pictures of this pooch. He's trained to not be scared of the camera and occasionally I don't even have to bribe him to look into the lens. (Just imagine how my children are going to be)... He's such a hilarious little thing too, and is always making my heart shine with happiness. So I decided to take him outside and take some pictures of my favorite little man.

Sadly, this is the only picture I got (that was good) of him outside. My lens was a fixed one, and he just kept wanting to lay in my lap in the gorgeous weather. So I took him back inside and that's where I think I captured Tob's spirit.

I didn't get to try out all of the things I wanted to on my camera, but I'm very happy with how they all turned out. 

p.s. sorry for my black and white obsession. 

Here is a "behind the scenes" if you want to call it that, enjoy!

 "Too bright outside"

"Pirate Toby"

"Nast hair"

Summer Has Arrived

I am finally done with college classes for the semester, and I'm on a well deserved break from school until the fall. The day after I finished my last final my brother, mom and I went to the zoo. I've been wanting to go to the zoo because I love animals, and I'm been wanting to use my new photographing skills I've been polishing over the past two years. It was a beautiful day and the animals were all outside and having a grand ole time! I've never seen zoo animals be so interactive. It was a great day, and I'm happy with the way the pictures came out. My favorite moment was taking pictures of the hawk. She was with a trainer outside of cages which allowed me to get closer and sharper shots, and boy do I love the outcome! Such a beautiful bird!! 

Hope you enjoy the pictures! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, finals week was crazy, and now that things have finally settled down I can put something on my blog. Tomorrow my family and I are flying to Orlando, FL to go to Walt Disney World for a week with cousins! I'm so excited! I grew up going to WDW every two years with cousins, but since my brother has been gone it hasn't felt the same. Now my brother is back from his mission, and we are going to be going as a whole family again! It'll be so fun and I can't wait to capture the memories! 

-lj

Le Mis Backstage Edition: A Sneak Peak

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't posted for a couple of days! I've been taking pictures for my documentary photography class at UVU. We have to work on our final project for the rest of the semester, which ends at the last week of April... bleh... but on the bright side, at least I won't procrastinate! So for my project I decided to document my sister's high school productions team preforming Le Mis. The cool thing about is I'm doing a "backstage edition!" Exciting eh?! The show ended last night and I came up with this idea on Monday morning... so I only got to take pictures backstage for two nights which isn't too great, but hey work with what you got right? So here you see some of the pictures I took the last two nights. I like them a lot, it's just the lighting was so dark backstage and in the tech booth, it was hard to get a good clean looking picture. So I had to bump up the ISO like crazy and keep the shutter speed super slow, which created blur and noise and made them annoying to edit. So all in all, they aren't my favorite pictures I've ever taken in my lifetime, but I'm pretty sure they will fit the bill for my class. Wish me luck! 

p.s. they are all in black and white partially because of the coloring I got from the lights and partially because I think it will look more cohesive for my project.