Anatomy Lesson...Sharon in the Snow

OK, this post is jam packed full of photo goodness ~
Which is translation for {I have gobs of things to share and not enough time to share it all so I'll pack them all into one major post}.


First off I have an Anatomy Lesson for you of one of Sharon's maternity photos.  Now I just have to take a moment and spout off my opinion on maternity photo shoots.  Basically, the majority of maternity photos are, IN MY OPINION ONLY, cheesy.  Do not send me hate mail, it's just an opinion.  Yes, the baby bump is glorious and can never be duplicated so I'm all for getting photos while you're pregnant.


Interesting fact:  I've been pregnant 36 months out of my life and don't have 1 decent photo of me pregnant.  Someone needs fired:)


Anyway, back to my rant, I don't prefer the cheesy photos {you know what I'm referring to} but I do believe it's a fantastic time to get some great photos of the woman.   My philosophy is this:  I want to capture some fabulous images of the lady....who just happens to be pregnant at the time.   I don't think the belly has to be in all of the images because I'm certain that every time that lady looks at those images, she'll know she was pregnant when they were taken.  So there's enough of my soapbox for today...on to the photos...


I opened my original image in Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac:

I think Sharon looks like a supermodel here but I want to direct the focus more on her face so I cropped the photo to a horizontal aspect.  Then I softened the skin.  Now I'm ready to add some textures.

I added 3 textures and erased the effects off of Sharon but left them on the background:

Next I wanted to add a light glow so I ran the Pioneer Woman action Lovely & Ethereal and erased just a bit off of her:

Lastly I ran a light Defog action just to increase the contrast a little and here's my final:

She's 7 months pregnant, hanging out in a blizzard and still looking *fab*....if she wasn't my BFF I wouldn't like her at all~
Here's a few more from her maternity session...

This one was both our favorites....no belly is shown but there's no doubt she'll never forget that she was 7 months pregnant and about to turn 40 when this shot was captured.

So tell me, what's your view on maternity images?  

Also, for those of you enjoying the videos....here's the video of me editing the photo of Sharon in the Snow.  I LOVE your feedback on these and appreciate so much those of you that have watched them, I hope they're helping!  I have to decide in 3 days if I buy the software that captures these videos or let my trial expire....ohh the decisions!!

Just for kicks, I happened to find 1 decent picture of me while I was pregnant.  Here I am in all my baby belly glory, about 13 days before baby #4 was born.  I have no idea who took this or what I was wearing ~

~Enjoy~

Video Tutorial ~ 40 & Pregnant

I've made another video tutorial and it's kinda fun!  
I talk pretty fast though and I've actually tried to slow it down for the videos but then they'll end up being 3 hours long so that's been a challenge for me.  Plus I tend to ramble so I'll just apologize now because I don't think I can stop doing that anytime soon~


This video features a portrait of my Cutie Pie Pregnant BFF Sharon.  She's expecting her 2nd baby girl soon and about to turn 40 so we had quite a memorable day celebrating all the great stuff going on in her life right now.  I'll be sure to tell you all about it in another post where I'll feature a normal step-by-step edit for those of you who aren't fans of the video.  


Also, I've asked a question at the very end of the video about a problem that I've encountered recently with several of my portraits and I'd love to hear your feedback.  I think it's weird to have my reflection in my subjects eyes and I'm wondering if any of you ever experience that?  I've explained it at the end so you can check it out....Enjoy~

My First Video Tutorial!

Wanna know what I learned while making my first ever video tutorial? 

~ It's harder than you think!

It took me about 9 tries to record this thing!  I'm not used to actually explaining what I'm doing and why I'm doing it when I edit so it was really weird for me.  But I tried to make sure to tell what tools I use (like the Liquify tool....the Brush tool) and also mention all the actions I was using and where I got them from.

So if you actually make it thru all 11 minutes of my rambling I would love your feedback!  Let me know what was good....what I need to improve....and what you'd like to see next.  And here's a huge "Thank You" in advance for watching my first ever, super cool, way awesome video tutorial on 

Using Actions to Enhance Your Images!!!! 

{and if it doesn't work just humor me and tell me it was fabulous}