Still on vacation in Northern Michigan. My girls and husband let me do a photo shoot of silhouettes at sunset. It was so amazing and fun.  Just wanted to share a few photos.

Also, if you are looking at these, can you please tell me if they look dull or distorted (such as my logo in the corner) and if the color looks ok?  I am having some issues with wordpress, and on my computer they appear all distorted.  Oh, and also, does this post looked centered?  Thanks for your feedback.  Trying to decide if it is just my computer or the wordpress upgrade.

Here are a few - many more on flickr…

Here is a small sampling of non-sunset shots from the trip. Many more of these on flickr too.

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 I just got back home from an incredible weekend with 40 workshop attendees, Cheryl Muhr and Brianna Graham.  And it was fabulous!  This workshop was so inspiring.  I love Cheryl’s style and philosophies about doing work you love and not doing things you do not.  And about making sure you price yourself so that you feel like you have self worth and are doing something incredible for others.  You are capturing memories for families.  You never know what life has in store for you and those you love.  And as photographers, we document life.

Watching Brianna and Cheryl shoot was fun.  They have completely different styles, yet both produce stunning images.  I often get asked in photoshop trainings how to imitate these two photographers.  And my best advice to you is to be inspired by them, but do not try to be them.  Every photographer sees the world through different eyes.  Let your eyes and your heart guide your images.

 So… do you want to see some of my photographs of the models?  Here is a small sampling (ok - 20 so not that small) of the images I took and post processed.  I shot in manual, was at ISO 200, primarily shot these at 2.0-2.5 and varied my speed based on the light.  I post processed using MCP Actions - Complete Workflow: Color Burst or Color Explosion and/or Quickie Collection Actions using Crackle, Color Flair, Night Color, Sharp as a Tack, and a few others.  I also used the Eye Doctor on many, Magic Skin on a few…

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My parents visited over Memorial Day weekend. And I took some photos of my mom and dad together.  And a few of them with my daughter Ellie.  My other daughter did not feel like being in pictures.  But after the fact said, “I am sad that I did not get in any…” Next time maybe she will remember this.

Here they are.  Let me know what you think.  My biggest obstacle was color as my dad is very tan, my mom lightly tan, and Ellie pale.

With summer approaching in North America, photographers head back outside. One of my favorite, fun things to do in the Spring and Summer is shadow pictures.  Plus kids LOVE doing them, so it gets them actively involved.  These are not usually the shots that make good wall portraits, but they are ART.

So feel free to join in if you like.  The assignment, go take a shadow picture.  Try to find interesting shapes that make for unique photos.  They can have a subject in them.  Or they can just be the shadow.

If you get a really amazing one that you want MCP Blog readers to see, please email it to me at jodi@mcpactions.com, with a note that I have permission to use it on my blog. If I get enough of them, I will make another post in a week or two and share some of the shadows.

Here are a few examples from me.  The 1st is a bike shadow.

The second photo is a combination.  What I did was combined a shadow photo taken on white foam core with a photo I took of the sky. Then I enhanced the blues of the sky and deepened the shadow.

I hope you enjoy playing with the shadows.

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Ellie was so excited to put her new sunglasses and matching cami tank top on.  She decided to give me 5 minutes to snap a few shots.  So I thought I would share them with you.  I cannot decide if I like the black and white or color better.  So you tell me, which do you like best.  Add your opinions in the comment section.  I would love to hear what you think.

Also in the 1st one which has 6 versions - I was playing in Photoshop with some black and white conversions - thoughts on which you like and do not like???  I think I like the top and bottom right ones the best, but I love hearing what others think too.

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Here are some of the photos I took yesterday before we went to the dance studio to have photos taken by the studio’s photographer. 

Read more on my blog about that experience.  My photos were all taken with my hi-lite backdrop, 4 alien bees.  Main with softlighter.  Fill with umbrella.  Backlights shooting into the hi-lite backdrop by lastolite.  My room is 11×13 - about as tiny as you can go.  I am very out of space and my photos look slightly distorted as a result.  But I need to make do with what I have.  Settings - 1/125, ISO100, f9

I would love opinions on these - so please comment :)  Bad and good comments welcome.

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I was in Florida visiting my parents. They loved the warmer weather (as we left in snow and came back to snow). Here are a few snaps from our trip. Keep in mind that while I did use an SLR, I consider most of these snapshots. Sometimes snapshots can be way more important and memorable than a portrait. Enjoy - I would love to here your comments.

Here are a few pool shots:

Here is a storyboard with Jenna and my husband.

On the boat - Jenna driving with her Papa. The Ellie hugging her Nana.

And Jenna being silly with her dad on the bow and her peaking through to see him. Yes I know - I chopped her foot…

We were this close to a cruise ship - actually closer but this looked like a postcard shot.

And Ellie showing me she can take photos just a little better than me…

There was a bridge we went under that had tons of iguanas. This was my favorite shot - shot with my 70-200 at 200mm. We were in a boat. Look how close I looked to it.

I need to get back in practice taking shots of them in the sun - a little too much squinting going on - but I loved it just the same…

And vacation photos would not be complete without a sunset photo.  This was taken from the balcony of my parents condo.  The buildings they look at are not that amazing so I did more of a silhouette shot.

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I shot the photos below at 1/125, ISO 100, and most were at f8 (a few at a little more wide open).

The girls are wearing temporary tattoos on their face and arms - decided that I want to remember them at this age with these so I chose to leave them instead of edit them out. In fact, that was how I got them to go with me is they wanted photos of their “body stickers.”

1st some of Jenna:

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Now for Ellie - who kept changing pettis…

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#8 -

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#12

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Things have been hectic here. So when that happens, I sometimes do not have time to post a tip or tutorial. Instead, I will try and post some photos those weeks - and if possible I will tell you what settings I used and such.

Here are my twins on their 1st day of kindergarten.

Settings - it was in the 8:30 in the AM and sun was low and the light was great and consistant. I was on Manual - ISO 200, 1/125, 4.0 (wide open for my 24-105 lens). For editing, I ran my color pop action, my eye pop on one or two of the closeups, and then added a frame/watermark and reduced size for web.

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We have been on vacation this past week. And are driving home today. Sorry that I have not taken the time to do a tutorial this week. I will resume this upcoming week.

Here is a link to our vacation photos. Many are just snapshots since I did not want to miss any moments. Here is a sneak peak at a few of them.

Ellie riding a horse:
Both girls riding together:

Ellie flirting with our friend’s little boy:

Jenna on a hay stack:

Ellie and Jenna strawberry picking:

Ellie at the beach:

Jenna at the park:

Mackinac Island - we went here for 1 day of the trip:

The girls eating Super Man Ice Cream:

My tries at a silouette - the girls were asleep before sunset so these were outside the condo we rented, before they went to bed:

And my Artistic Playground shot:

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My name is Jodi. I am a mom of twin girls.

I love photography, but enjoy editing photos even more.

I do product photography, photoshop training, photo editing, and have a series of photoshop actions that I have created.

Everyone says blogging is great, so I thought I would give it a try.

I am not sure yet how I plan on utilizing the blog yet. But I am thinking I may have contests and use this as a place to share my product work, give photoshop tips, and maybe even do contests. We will soon see.

Here are my girls.

Jenna:

Ellie: