I Heart Faces: {Pets}

The theme this week at I ♥ Faces is {Pets}. Obviously, this animal is not a pet...to anyone, but the rules said we could choose any animal! This creature was beautiful in real-life. Elegant. Powerful. Peaceful. And oh so Relaxed!

Make sure to visit the I ♥ Faces blog to see more amazing {Pets}!

I Heart Faces: {Celebrating Teens}

The theme for this weeks I ♥ Faces blog is {Celebrating Teens}. I've known this sweet teen since she was born. I've had the privilege of watching her grow into a beautiful young woman over the past 19 years. She's fun loving and energetic, has a great head on her shoulders, and loves my girls as much as I love her...a perfect teen to celebrate!

Make sure to visit the I ♥ Faces blog to see more beautiful teens!

I Heart Faces: {All About Babies}

The theme of this weeks I Heart Faces is {All About Babies}. Well, we are all about babies around here! These are our 6 week old twin girls, Anne Perry and Audrey Kate. They love being close to each other, especially when they sleep. My favorite thing is when they grab each other's hand though. Priceless! Here they were just chilling!

Make sure to stop by the I Heart Faces blog and check out all the cute {All About Babies} entries!

I Heart Faces: {Play}

It's been way too long since I've entered a picture in the I ♥ Faces weekly theme. Maybe I have an excuse, you know, having 5 week old twins and a 2 year old. Nah...

The theme this week is {Play}.  We play a lot around here, but that doesn't mean I have pictures of it!

This picture is from a few weeks ago. We went to the splashpad with some friends. Addie ended up having a blast...playing! 

Make sure to visit their site to see more playful faces!

I ♥ Faces: {Smiles}

I haven't entered an I ♥ Faces contest in a while; but this weeks theme is {Smiles}, and I couldn't resist.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Addie. Her eyes just sparkled when she smiled! She was much more willing to smile naturally for the camera at 18 months than she is now at 2!

Make sure to check out the other beautiful {Smiles} at the I ♥ Faces site.

I {Heart} Faces: We Are Family!

This week I ♥ Faces is celebrating families! This is one of my favorite family pictures: my sister-in-law, precious niece, and brother-in-law at the beach last summer. I love her smile!

Make sure to visit the I ♥ Faces site to see many more beautiful families! 

I {Heart} Faces

This week is I ♥ Faces' very 1st Birthday! And of course they are celebrating with a {best face photo} contest taken sometime in December or January.  While I'm a little rusty after being sick for so long, I've finally been able to pick my camera back up and enjoy some fun shots of my little girl!

This is Addie's new smile for the camera face. Eyes close. Nose scrunches. And she grins really big.  Priceless.

Make sure to head on over to I ♥ Faces to see many more {best face photos}!!!

I ♥ Faces: {Bubbles}

Addie loves bubbles! And the I ♥ Faces theme this week is, you guessed it, Bubbles!

This is one of my favorite pictures of her because it shows such joy! I don't normally post pictures of Addie with her eyes closed, but this just seemed to fit!

Make sure to head on over to the I ♥ Faces site to see some more wonderful faces!

I ♥ Faces

This weeks theme at I ♥ Faces is {At the Beach}...which is exactly where we are! That means I have scads of beach pictures to go through, but this was by far one of my favorites. I edited it with one of Rebecca Lily's presets, except I cant remember which one now that I saved it!

Make sure to visit the I ♥ Faces website for more beautiful faces!

I ♥ Faces

It's another Pets Week at I ♥ Faces. Makes sure to check out all the wonderful faces at their site! It's such a wonderful place to go for inspiration!

This is Abbey and Austin, our 1st two dogs. It was taken years ago while I was outside planting flowers. They thoroughly enjoyed having reign over our front yard, all while on a leash! And just as with little ones, it's always amazing when a pet actually poses for you!

Constructive Feedback Friday

This week, the I ♥ Faces blog is hosting Constructive Feedback Friday. Since starting Christi's Raw Talent class, I am all about constructive feedback! I'm so grateful that others will take the time to give it! I learned so much from Susan Keller and Boybarian Dad during the last Constructive Feedback Friday. They are both inspiring photographers, and I enjoy visiting their sites and seeing their work. Thank you both for taking the time to leave me some feedback!

After shooting in Aperture Priority mode for about 6 months, I've been shooting in Manual for the last 2 weeks now. I've taken some B.A.D. pictures. I've missed some great ones. Then again, I've taken some that I really liked (here and here). I love the control I'm gaining over my camera, what I shoot, and how it turns out. Pretty amazing, but I still have a long way to go!

This is my Little Bit. She's 15 months old and just got her first (and hopefully last) shiner. I was attempting to get a few good pictures of it for this post, and this was one of the few that didn't turn out blurry. She was moving super fast, and I don't move that fast with my camera. In fact, when shooting in Manual I'm down right slow. It was the middle of the day, so there were tons of highlights.

Here's the SOOC shot.

Camera: Rebel XT
Lens: 50mm 1.4
Mode: Manual
Aperture: f/2.0
ISO: 400 (probably should have been lower)
Partial Metering (attempted to meter her face!)
Shutter speed: 1/4000 sec.
Exposure: 0.00
No flash

Here's my edit. I've got my settings on a JPG + RAW format, but with my limited knowledge of Elements, I edited these in JPG format. I really had to warm it up. I know I lassoed her face, reversed the selection and bumped up the saturation for the background. I highlighted her eyes, put them on a new layer, saturated the color, ran(?) a high pass filter on them, switched to soft light and flattened the image. I probably adjusted the color curves and increased the midtones maybe. I'm not sure though. I'm also not exactly sure how to "make her eyes pop." Any suggestions there would be great!

I used Elements for the edit above, but I've just ordered Lightroom (strongly recommended by two of my favorite photographer friends, DiAnna Paulk and Rebecca Lily as well as the photographers mentioned above) to use on my husband's old my new MacBook. Now I just have to figure it out.

I'd love any suggestions on how I could have shot this better, how I might should of cropped it, and how on the earth to have edited it! Thanks in advance for spending the time giving me some Constructive Feedback!

I ♥ Faces: Pets!

I ♥ Faces is also having a Pets category this week {Anything Goes}. Pets can include any animal though. I'd planned to enter another picture of our precious Golden, but I decided to enter this one instead. I knew peacocks were beautiful, but who knew they had so many beautiful colors to show! I thought the close crop was fun and really showed off the beauty of this animal.

Make sure to check out all of the other beautiful "pet" faces at the I ♥ Faces website!

I ♥ Faces: Kids

This weeks theme at I ♥ Faces is {Happy Birthday} for the kids category. I didn't have "that photo" that I wanted to post but here's one that we have loved! She turned into such a clown sitting there in front of so many people!

Make sure to check out all of the other beautiful faces at the I ♥ Faces website!

Constructive Feedback Friday

Today is {Constructive Feedback Friday} on the I ♥ Faces website. Since I need as much feedback as possible, I've decided to enter a picture. I love taking pictures of landscapes and architecture but capturing my little girl's expressions is really what I want to do best!

I know I have a hard time with lighting. I'm working to learn more about that as well as the settings on my camera, mostly by trial and error!

I use Photoshop Elements; but again, I don't think I'm using it to it's fullest capacity either! I'm not exactly sure where the curves are or if I'm using the contrast feature correctly. Lightroom and a class might have to be in my future!

I had a hard time choosing a picture, but I love the light in her eyes here and her inquisitive look! So here it is:

SOOC
Canon Rebel XT
no flash
50mm f/1.4
f/3.2
ISO 400
Aperture Priority (AV)
0.002s (1/640)
Exposure bias 0.67

Here's my edit. The problem is, I'm not entirely sure what I did to it! I don't like how splotchy her face is. I just can't seem to get that smooth skin look.

Since I'm new to this, I didn't keep up with what I did to it. Here's what I think I did:
Auto Smartfix (I'm sure this is a no no)
Auto Levels
Auto Contrast
Probably saturated the greens and blues a little on the picture as a whole
Lassoed Eyes and enhanced blue and green saturation (not hue).
Use the Spot Healing brush to try to get rid of some of the splotches on her face and nose.

Critique away!

***update with a few suggested changes (minus the crop)

lassoed eyes and unsharp masked: 129% with radius of 1.5
saturated yellow a tad
saturated master a tad
increased contrast by +12
adjust sharpness 150% with radius of 0.1 pixels
dodged whites in eyes and part of her shirt to get rid of the blue (whoohoo! thank goodness for Pioneer Woman!)
I'm still not sure how to do a burnt edge, light edge detail type of action. So...I'm still googling that! :) But I could see a huge difference with unsharp masking her eyes! Wow! I still can't get that smooth face I'm looking for.