Thats what I've been spending my time learning to do, it's a combination of photography, light and post processing and what I'm learning more and more is that I need to spend more time in photoshop and maybe a little less in Lightroom because as much as I try in Lightroom I can't seem to achieve this look without further use of photoshop, I'm lucky that CS3 is easing my pain as I get to know it better. I've been using photoshop now for atleast 5 years and I know about 10% it's such a huge and powerful tool!

So today enjoy my progress and look forward to more of this if I'm shooting your portraits or weddings this summer.



With Abigail she was lying down so I didn't quite achieve the skin as light as I would have liked it.



With Looby though I definetly achieved the look I wanted and I am delighted with this photograph.

So thats my second update of the day and great if you're my client or future client, being a photographer means you get better with every day and that can only be a good thing!

So what do you think?

It's looking a little bit stylish round here don't you think? Thankfully it didn't take me too long to redesign my blog, mostly because I can do all that myself! I really love the new look of both here and my website and I think it's the start of a new phase for the business.

There hasn't been a whole lot of photography today mostly due to rain and making little pocket albums for clients, have you seen the pocket albums, they're soooo sweet!

So anyway I've also been brushing up on popping photos with photoshop, now as you may know I loathe and detest photoshop but it is kind of handy to be able to use it when you're a photographer as sadly (and though I wish it did) Lightroom doesn't do everything. so anyway here's some super popped photos of the girls taken in that sweet sunlight I was telling you about. If you're not a light watcher you might miss golden hour, try looking at the light an hour before sunset and you'll see what I'm talking about.



Looby!


Abigail!
Right, I'm off to finish making dinner, tonight its Duck with Gnocci, yummm!

Bernie Goes to Whitby

On Sunday Bernie decided that he would like to go and visit historic Whiby and never being one to refuse a bears request off we went to the fabulous seaside town where it is rumoured that Dracula was shipwrecked upon the beach. Of course the locals can't resist having a Dracula museum or two LOL.

The other thing Whitby is famous for is having the best fish and chips in the country, obviously it wasn't the place we had lunch though as ours was BLAND! Paul was not amused being the foody that he is! He did say that the ice-cream was pretty good though.


I think that a definite highlight of the day for me was going on a 25 minute boat ride, the sea was very very bumpy and both Iain and Looby ended up looking a little pale but Abigail and I were both out on top deck being bounced up and down by the fierce waves laughing our heads off because it was so much fun!

Of course being a Charlton day out adventure is never far away and there were moments of panic when we realised that Bernie had gotten left behind in one of the amusement arcades we visited, we sprinted back along the seafront and to our releif Bernie was waiting for us having been discovered trying to have a second ride on the merry go round.

Whitby was a definite great day out and I wouldn't hesitate to go again in the summer though I suspect it would be far too busy for us all as it was very crowded last Sunday so I would hate to think just how crowded it gets during the summer season.

Bernie Comes To Stay!

Bernie is the class bear in Abigails reception class and each weekend he goes to stay with a different child from the class, he takes along his diary and it gets filled in with photos, tickets and stories of his time with each family. Abigail was chosen to bring Bernie home for the whole holidays and so each day we have a plethora of things for him to do and photo opportunities. This slide show was just the beginning of his adventures with us on Friday night and Saturday. Don't forget to tune in for more as the week progresses!!

Finally!

I've been trying to get new photos for the wall of Iain for quite some time but given that he hates the camera and either hides of does cheesy grins it was never going to be the easiest task, finally though I got a great set of shots when we were at the park earlier this week, I shared one on my photoblog the other day and this was the other really great one, when you get a proper smile from him he really does light up the world. Iain is a totally joy of a child, he's had so much to cope with but he's come through it all admirably and I am so proud of him, I hope in years to come when he's checking out my blog he can see just how much we love him and remember how happy he's made us all.

Jumpers for Puppies

Yes it's true, Fiyero is truly a pampered pooch and rightly so for all the joy he's brought us, thats much more than can be said for Windows Vista!

Windows Vista + Photoshop = blinkin nightmare! It's taken all day just to get the thing re-installed and working, oh and if you like using the Adobe Bridge then don't bother with Vista because on my system atleast it's totally incompatible. I have to say I can cope without the bridge so long as I have my other bits and pieces so I'll not complain too much and hopefully when CS3 comes out I'll pay the upgrade fee, I noted today that it was only $199 which when converted to the pound isn't that much, better than paying the $649 for a new version!

Oh and I've also just bought Elements 5 which makes a great add on, I really love some of the photo effects like the one up above, it's far far far easier to use than CS2 so if you want some decent editing software and you are Photoshop phobic then Elements is the one you want, plus you can pick it up really cheap with the exchange rate, I got it for just under £30 which is £39.99 off the RRP, Bargain!!

So it's the weekend and for us that means a bit of R&R, it seems to have been a crazy week and it's mostly passed in a blur, I think we're off out on Sunday for a whole day of family fun, not entirely sure where as it depends on the weather but it's been requested that we either go somewhere with animals or to an aquarium so you know, I guess thats what we'll do!

OOh had some brilliant news this week, Iain has had all his Special Educational Needs lessons cancelled as he's been signed off for being too clever, Way to go Iain!!

Happy Friday Everyone

A good end to the week.

Well I have to say that this week has ended far better than it began, at the start of the week my head was swimming with just what I was going to do in the future, I have too much spare time and since Lyn sadly had to scale down Happy Scrapper due to health reasons I've had even more spare time.

Thankfully it seems I have found the answer - ahh yes well it's only really been the last couple of days that people are finding out that not only am I a portrait photographer but I'm doing photo editing and blog design too.

By the way if you're interested in the photo editing just email me with the photos and tell me what you need, I do cosmetic stuff such as spot, blemish and wrinkle removal and I also do black and white conversion, colour popping and high key, I can do other stuff too but thats the basic, I can do any number of photos and I aim to turn them around in the quickest possible time, however as we do have busy lives it could be 1-7 days, in the case of a client earlier today, my turnaround time was a mere couple of hours. Again if you're interested email me and we'll discuss!

For blog design you're looking at approximately the same time scale depending on your requirements but plenty of email contact ensures you receive the blog template you want.

You can pay me in craft products or cash via paypal depending on the size of the job and of course the joy of all this enterprise is that it can be done remotely so even if you on yonder side of the world I can still perform these services!!

Happy weekend everyone and remember as lovely old geordies say "Shy Bairns Get Nee Sweeties"

So I was thinking....

That maybe I would do a short course in web design, I have now taught myself enough of the basics to get along fine and since I'm getting there with my HTML and CSS and am also pretty nifty with photoshop I don't think it would prove to be too much of a challenge and I reckon it's one of those things which could end up bringing in some extra pennies and with three children they would come in mighty handy.
I'm already thinking of designing some blogger templates although thats more about it being fun and a learning curve more than anything else. If you like my template and you fancy having something custom designed for your blog why not email me (column at the side --->>>>) and we'll see together what we can sort out, I can always be bribed with the promise of a few scrapping goodies in exchange for setting up blogs and designing templates.

Don't get me wrong I love being a photographer but there's absolutely nothing wrong with having even more strings to ones bows. You know the best bit of all this is that up until a few years ago I thought that I wasn't very good at anything and of pretty much no use to anyone and now I see that was all just part of damaged me. I know now that I'm pretty darned good at lots of things and I can turn my hand to just abot anything I set my mind to, doesn't stop me doubting my abilities of course but hey I'm still recovering! LOL

Ooh did I mention that I can also edit photos?!!! Looks like I might just be in demand sometime soon!!

An argument....

has broken out at Chez Charlton this afternoon over whether any photoshoppery should be used in portraiture, it was actually this photograph which sparked the debate, it's a self portrait and to be honest it hasn't had loads done to it, I removed a couple of red spots, twinkled my eyes, trimmed my bushy eyebrow and then desaturated and finally a total unsharp mask, couple of other tweaks but I think I really love this photo, Paul says it's not me and yet usually when I edit photos of him I perform the same things and he never complains when he looks amazing, does he think that the world should see me as a spotty mess or is it the case that he really thinks he's all that anyway and already looks amazing, I would kind of go with that as my husband is quite the narcascist, he spends far longer preening in the mirror than I do and he has self esteem by the bagful and when were talking football he becomes positively arrogant, I know that to get ahead in life we all need a little self loving, I just wish that I could tap into some of it, then again when I happily reveal myself to the world which doesn't happen very often why does he make me feel like a fraud just because I removed my spots and a nobble from my nose which I particularly hate.

I know that it's answers on a postcard please with this one and perhaps we'll never really agree and the funny thing is that when I perform my magic on photos of the children he doesn't say a word. I do love this photo of himself from this afternoon and actually it's the way I see him anyway, I do see the twinkliest eyes and pretty much utter perfection. Perhaps I, myself am partly to blame for his high opinion of himself but I just wish that I could tap into it and have some for myself!

Anyway I don't really want to dwell because we both agree that when it comes to photos of the children I do a fabulous job and i have been out in action again today grabbing every last second of brighter light which if I am right in thinking must have happened for all of half an hour this evening. You could tell the rain had finally stopped after 7 days because the children could get out the house quick enough and it wasn't long before Abigail and Looby were making mud pies in the back garden, isn't it great that the children have such optimistic spirits, soggy no problem lets make mud pies. So anyway this last photograph I took with my Sigma 70-300 out of the livingroom and I got the children to look up as I pointed down into the garden, got this cracking candid of Looby and I totally love it!

Even the Worst Days....

Have some good things in when you're a Charlton, today these are my good things!! Taken in the whole 15 mins of good light we had today and then fiddled about in with photoshop CS2, today I played with the channel mixer, curves and a little desaturation

And now for something a little different...

We went off to Seahouses for some real traditional fish and chips for tea this evening, by the time we had finished dusk had fallen and I had a quick wander to the harbour whilst hubby and kids finished their teas, to be honest all was quiet and there wasn't really a lot going on but I spied this pretty boat next to the lobster pots and had to photograph it, To be honest I only had my 5omm f1.8 on the camera but I have to say that I'm really pretty pleased with the end result, for some reason it just looks better in black and white, oh and if you're wondering the steps between the shooting in raw and the black and white end, it's basically, curves, levels, channel mixer, Unsharp mask with a couple of tweaks in between, all of course done in Adobe Camera Raw and then CS2. This is a removal from my normal portrait stuff but I do actually enjoy taking photographs of anything and everything, thing is though and here we go back to a previous posts about whether your work is good or not, because I don't take loads of this kind of thing who knows whether it's fabulous or not, it may be laughed at in certain circles but I can tell you from my perspective, I love it and dear reader I hope you love this little snapshot from gorgeous Northumbria too!

When I'm feeling a little lost and low

I play with photos, well what else really? This afternoon, I did this, it's St Marys Church on the Fountains Abbey Estate in Yorkshire, I'm not sure why this was one of my favourite images of last weekend but I do love the light and shadows and now that I have a chance to use some new Raw conversion software and a little photoshop jiggery pokery, I'm quite pleased with it as I'm not a landscape photographer, I couldn't handle the early mornings LOL!!

Just watching!

Another Looby photo today, I was playing with my 70-300mm, not much else I can do as it's freezing cold outside though not enough snow to do anything with and Abigail has ulcerated tonsilitus and Scarlet Fever, my doctor hadn't seen Scarlet Fever for years and I've had to inform school so they can send letters out to everyone seeing as it's very contagious, not a nice thing to have so I'm hoping that we don't all end up with it.

Anyway back to the photo, as I was testing out my lens I managed to get a few without Looby even noticing, my favourite sort of photography, it was shot at 800iso as it's so dark indoors today, after taking it in raw I processed it in photoshop, first applying a sepia filter, then adding a layer of gaussian blur, then using the channel mixer to turn to black and white and finally adjusting the opacity of the top layer to around 50% to get a really soft muted sepia ish photo which I think adds to the dreamy feel of the photo. What do you think, I would love to hear!