Makin' It Work ~ Shooting In Tight Spaces

Are you ready for the next fab post in my series about Makin' It Work?
Of course you are!

Head on over to Texas Chicks Blogs and Pics and I'll tell you all about the shooting situation that absolutely gives me nightmares and how I've just had to Make It Work and ended up with some beautiful artwork...like this lovely portrait...

And in case you missed the first posts you can find them here...

Makin' It Work ~ Using 1 Studio Light

Makin' It Work ~ Using Window Light

Enjoy!

Anatomy of....Dreamy Senior Girl

I've had so much fun this summer getting to photograph lots of High School Seniors!
I like to get all the fun poses with my Seniors but it's great to get a little bit Glam too with the girls!

Here's a portrait from a recent session that I just thought was lovely and it was very easy to edit.

First, I opened up my image in my brand new Lightroom 3!!  I've just started working with this program and it's quickly becoming part of my regular workflow.  The white balance adjustment is wonderful but so far my absolute favorite tool is the CROP tool!  It Rocks!  ...you know I love me some good cropping ~


I would never have been able to figure out this program though near as quickly if I hadn't taken Erin's online LR classes...they were incredible!  I learned in 2 nights what I'm sure it would have taken me months to figure out.  Run quickly and sign up for those classes!

I adjusted the white balance in LR on my original photo...

Then I added a Jessica Drossin texture at about 65% to add some dimension to the background.  But I didn't want it on my girl at all so I lassoed around her entire body and chose Filter - Blur - Gaussian Blur to keep the coloring but blur the texture on her skin.  The coloring was a little too much still so I erased lightly part of the texture off completely...that's what the gray part is on the layer mask:

Next I wanted to add some contrast so I ran a new *fab* action by Patti Brown...Oil Painting.  It's thebomb for portraits!  I reduced the opacity of the Oil Painting layer to 25% and erased even more off the eyes so they stayed somewhat sharp...

Finally for just that extra pop I ran the Coffeeshop Vivid 2 action and chose the Soft layer for a little extra brightness...

And here's my final ~ lovliness ~

Honestly every image of Kayla was pure perfection with or without any editing I may have done...she's just such an incredible girl and WOW! what a fantastic model!  

You can check out below her cool little video I made that shows more of her lovliness:)  Enjoy!

Warning: the music on this one will stay in your head ALL DAY!