Ashley’s Bridal Session

Ashley and Johnny are getting married in 25 days! Usually I have to wait and wait ever so impatiently to show the world the lovely bridal session photos after the wedding. I don’t mind doing this, in fact I completely understand. However, Ashley was just as anxious to show the world her pictures as I was! So yay! Here she is looking ever so radiant in her wedding dress. I am surely excited to see it again at their wedding next month!!!

Baby Kaila

Last week I had the pleasure of taking pictures of a very beautiful newborn baby girl.  Her parents and big brothers are so happy she’s here!  Look how sweet she is!

Bryanna

Hello everyone!  I love spring and I’m so excited now to have such great weather!  It means more photo sessions for me and this season started of with an energetic one!  Two year old Bryanna is such fun!  She danced and hopped and sang for me, and she didn’t seem one bit distracted by the camera or my presence.  Take a look at this little cutie pie! (loving her curls, btw!)

It’s hard to choose, but I think this is my favorite:

Adams wedding album

Hey there!  I am getting so stoked for the upcoming wedding season!  On Thursday UPS brought me my first sample album and that has me all the more excited!  You’ve got to see this, so I’m gonna show you…

This one came in a matching fabric box.  Both the box and the album have a metal cameo on them.  The album is handmade by Forbeyon.  The design is by yours truly!

Spine shot, it is embossed in gold.

The flush mount pages allow for virtually seamless spread design (next two pictures).

Designs and covers are completely custom, options are limitless!  If you are still shopping for your wedding photographer, let’s set up a time to meet so you can see this in person!

Hey Buddies! How’s your day?

So if you happen to run into our not quite two-year old daughter, Sophia, this is something she will probably say: “Hey buddies! How’s your day?”  We’re not sure where she gets this from, but we think it’s awesome.

I just picked up Sophia from preschool and as we are driving home, she asks me: “How’s your day?”  I turn off the radio and say, “My day was good.  I spent a lot of time working on the computer.  How was your day? What did you do?”  She says to me, “Colored. Poo-poo potty.”

Backtrack:

Last week was spring break for her school (she goes 5 hours a day twice a week) and one of the last free weeks I had on the calendar for a while, so I decided it was time to potty train.  I found a method I felt good about: 3 Day Potty Training, by Laura Jensen. And on Monday, we began.  We quit diapers cold turkey.  She had 14 accidents on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, and 8 on Wednesday.  Those were a yucky couple of days.  There wasn’t a whole lot of successes.  By day three she was not potty trained.  I was frustrated, discouraged, and covered in pee.  But I had planned on sticking with it all week.  If there was absolutely no progress by Saturday I was going to go buy some pull-ups and just work on that for the next few months.  One of the great things about Laura Jensen’s plan is that she offers mentoring along with the e-book.  After a hell of a first day, I took advantage of this daily. Her help was so amazing.  All sorts of problems arose and everyday was a new challenge and she gave me the advice I needed to handle each one appropriately and effectively.  On Thursday things started to click and we gradually got down to 1-3 accidents a day.  I was worried all day about how it was going with her training at school.  I packed 2 backup pairs of clothes for the teachers and asked them not to put a diaper on her.  I told them Sophia should tell them when she needs to go, but they may  need to remind her to tell them.  I worried.

When I get her bag, this is inside (think I may frame it):

And that brings me to this question, “mommy, how’s your day?”

Super!  I’m so proud of her!

Photography 101: Framing

Good morning!  Paul just left to take Sophia to preschool and I have designated the next few hours to getting mucho caught up on work.  To start off the day however, I would like to share another compositional tool that can help dramatically improve the look of your photos.  It’s called framing and is pretty simple but takes some practice.  The goal is to “frame” your subject.  It can be with something that is in the background or foreground and you can get pretty creative.  Usually, you need to move your body to get these shots, so don’t ever hesitate to move around.

To illustrate, here are some examples:

Let me know if you like getting tips like these.  Happy shooting!

Now on to work!

-Jillian

Invites too?

In case you didn’t know, I also offer invites and design services to my brides and grooms as well.  I just got this lovely new invite from an even lovelier couple in the mail last week.  I worked with Kelly on the design to get it just right for them.  These are 5×5 tri-fold invitations and 4×5.5 response cards.  Each are printed on premium pearl paper (shiny and environmentally friendly!).  Many other sizes, styles, and paper types are available.

Here’s a look:

Photography 101: The rule of Thirds

I’d like to share a tip that can help you take better pictures.  It’s called “the rule of thirds”.  Generally, following this rule gives your photos a more complete composition.   Often, amateur photographers will try to bulls-eye their subject into the very center of the frame.  This may be okay sometimes, but it is usually best to visualize three vertical and three horizontal segments.  Like this:

You should try to get your focal point to hit at least one of those lines.  Hitting an intersection (where the arrow is) is even better.

Here are some examples:

I was reminded of the awesome benefit of following this rule the other day when editing the last of Brittany and TJ’s pictures.  I had this picture to start with.  Nothing special about it really.  While I liked it okay, it was bulls-eyed and boring.

I almost closed this one up and moved on.  However, I decided to experiment with the cropping.  Knowing that I wanted the ring to be the focal point I just tried to blow up the picture until it hit an intersection.  What I got was a picture I am so in love with!

And all I had to do to make this picture go from meh to YEAH was crop!

Baby Draven

First of all, I would like to apologize to everyone who checked the blog on Tuesday to find these pictures.  I had some scary issues with my computer that seem to be resolved now, but I was unable to access the pictures to work on them.

But surely this sweet baby boy is worth the wait.  Draven really did amazing in his first photo shoot!

Be sure you leave your comment congratulations to Draven’s proud parents!

Until Tuesday,

Jillian

Hess Family Portraits

Andrea is one of my favorite people in the world.  It’s fun to chat with her, we seem to have an endless number of things in common. Her family is also quite adorable.  Unfortunately, we don’t get to see each other often.  I was glad I could take family pictures of them while in Hawaii, they are quite a special group and I wish them nothing but the best!