William and Alexa’s Engagement photo fun

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The other day William’s sister Heather wanted to shoot engagement photos of us at the Sonora Ranch where we are getting married, so we obliged.  Heather, along with her mom Karran shot over 500 photos of us.  Whew!  It’s funny how if you weed them down, there really are only 5 to 10 stellar ones out of the bunch.  Thank goodness for digital cameras!

I did a little processing work on them and this is the result.  I think they turned out nice.  Only one was taken with my Nikon, but I think they still turned out nice.  I had forgotten to charge my camera so it died during the first 10 minutes.  Kinda dumb that the most important pics are the ones I forget to charge the camera for, huh?

So here the are in no particular order…do you have a favorite?

I like this one too… it’s super goofy!  More our personality than the other ones. 🙂

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

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My new photography spot

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I was about to take a photo for another post in my newly designated photo spot (yes, the one Dexter is sitting in), but I on an impromptu whim decided to tell you about how this has become my new go-to spot for my late night photography.  I so don’t like posting my clutter and mess, but I am trying to be as open and authentic as possible and I frankly didn’t feel like staging a photo! I guess this is a whim, after all.

Full disclosure: I totally spent like 5 minutes trying to get this cat to hold still for this pose.  He kept going to the food bowl, so I told him I would reward him if he was a good boy and posed for me. LOL. So much for a whim, huh?

I recently read a blog post highly promoting and dissing anything but natural lighting for photos.  I agree that natural light looks better for photography. I would choose it anyday over shooting at night; however, I simply don’t get my blogging started till after 8 and the light is already gone by then.  So I work with what I’ve got.

Our new house came with amazing ceiling spotlights and I have been using it a lot for my craft photography. I’m so tired and lazy when it comes to photographing my stuff that I go to it instead of setting up lights or my photo light box (though it does come in handy!).  It’s nice to have a go-to spot where I don’t have to do a lot of prepwork. You may have seen this spot in use in a few of my recent posts: The Magic of Shrinky Dinks and my cute little suitcase.

I must really like this light!  This was the first photo I took when we got the keys to the house.  It’s Frankie, William’s surrogate brother and coolest, most awesome dog I’ve ever met.

Frankie

I am looking forward to capturing more photos in natural light though!  Almost all the rooms of my house are painted. The den is painted a warm orange and has beautiful light shining through in the evenings!  Our yard is currently under construction (it’s all tilled up and needing to be seeded), so eventually I’ll have the nice outdoor space to use as well.

Yay for more photography backdrops and options! Do you have a special spot you like to do your photography at?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

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Raines Family Photo Shoot

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This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to photograph my friend and co-worker Victoria Raines and her family (Husband William, and sons Spencer and Malcom). I wanted to share with you the fun photos. They were super comfortable in front of the camera and they were willing to play around and have fun. Cool and casual and authentic…totally my style!

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you can see the love

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raines portrait

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Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Sometimes I get a little creepy; My spooky photo collection

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8-legged Jesus Freak
My other passion besides Halloween is photography. To most, I’m not creepy (some people would argue this), but from time to time I see creepy things and try to capture the mood. I thought I’d share a spooky collection of images I’ve taken over the past few years that I think are pretty darn haunting and psychologically freaky. The one above I titled, “”8-legged Jesus Freak””.

Fog over Alcatraz
“Fog over Alcatraz”

facing my imminent doom
“Facing my imminent doom”

81/365
“The Carnival has come to Town” (photographed by my friend Gloria)

tears of a clown 2
“Tears of a Clown”

EXIT
“EXIT”

double exposure
“Double Exposure”

curl
“Curl”

proceed with caution
“Proceed with Caution”

So what do you think? Any one jump out at you more than others as creepy?

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Portrait Fun

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Ava

Took a few portraits over the past weekend during my trip home to KY that I wanted to share! I haven’t been taking as much since I started FontCrafts, but I figure I’ll get back to it soon! I go through phases with stuff. Do you do that too?

taylor

peekaboo

rubba dub dub

tasha

eliza

Yep, I gotta get back into it! 🙂

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

Chloe’s Photoshoot

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On Friday after work, I did a photoshoot with my friend and co-worker Chloe! She’s a copywriter at iLoveToCreate and we work in the same department. She just purchased her first home, so she wanted me to capture her with her new place as well as take some other photos of her. Chloe is so photogenic, so it was a breeze and delight to photograph her! Here’s just a few of the photos from the day.

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Chloe silhouette

tousledhair

front-of-window

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Casual Chloe

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Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

My Photo Lightbox

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I can’t believe I never shared with you my new photography toy! My boyfriend William bought me a mini photo lightbox for Christmas and I’ve been using it for a lot of the recent photos I’ve taken! It makes it super easy to light things, something I’ve always had a problem with being consistent at!

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Here I set the white balance to match the white background and this is the result. I had it manually set to 1/50 shutter speed at F/7.1.1 Looks great, huh? And pretty effortless. I love these magnet letters! A craft project is in the works!

I highly recommend a lightbox to anyone who is doing product photography! It can even be great for step by steps! You can use fabric and scrapbook papers in the background for interesting textures. You can find them all over the internet for anywhere from 50 to 100 bucks!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

I’ve been featured in the book Focus:Letters!

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Focus: Letters

Woot! Woot! Today I got my advanced copy of Focus: Letters in the mail!! I’m so excited cause 7 of my photos have been featured in this amazing book by Lark Books. I was featured before in Focus: Love and was contacted again to participate in this book.

My pink SSSSSSSSSSSS photo was featured on the cover in the book.

SSSSSSSSSSSSSS

A fun behind the scenes story…do you know how sometimes you see project samples in craft stores already painted? Well, usually craft companies make these projects and sends them to the stores. This is an example of one of those projects in the works (taken at my last job). They basecoated all these pink S’s and then painted flowers on them. I happened to have my camera with me and immediately thought that it would make a great photo! So glad I did.

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Here’s a sneak peek of another photo in the book. It’s so cool to see my name in print!

The Focus: Letters book is available on Amazon and can be pre-ordered for 9 bucks! What a great deal. It makes a great and thought-provoking coffee table book and also a great gift for yourself or a photography-loving friend!

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

News from my world

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Tonight I helped my friend with some graphics for her blog. Here is the results. It’s not often that I pull up Illustrator to use at home (I use it all the time during the day), but these were fun little graphics to make and it felt good to help her out. In the near future, I’ll send you a link to her blog, but it’s not quite ready to go live just yet.

And in other random photo news, yesterday before I went to get my taxes done (this is the most last-minute I’ve been to do my taxes ever), I totally plopped down in the grass to take this picture. I know I look like a freak to my fellow apartment dwellers, but oh well! I am always a little bit afraid though when I do this kind of thing that I’m going to land in a big pile of dog crap!

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And how cute is my Pixie cat? She is super skiddish and I find it incredibly funny when she gets inquisitive and out of the ordinary. Here she is trying to lift up the blinds to look out. She went at it quite a while. It was so adorable.

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Until next time Swellions!

Alexa