Giddy

I am so beyond happy and proud of myself for the recent leaps and bounds that I've made as a photographer. Even if it's just a hobby for pictures of my kids, I love taking photos of that I am absolutely proud to say, "yeah, I took that picture!" For instance, the day after Dylan's first photo shoot, he actually requested to do another set of pictures the next day. When I first started trying to photograph him, I would get frustrated and he would get frustrated because it was so hard and too me so long to understand all the camera adjustments to get things right in the camera to get any sort of decent shot. And I took forever trying to angle him correctly to get the best natural light. He just wasn't happy with me having to boss direct him around much. So for him to actually ask me to take some more, I was thrilled! And I've learned a little bit more about getting Luke to sit for pictures too. It usually involves candy.

As I was going through the shots from that second shoot, I was just so ecstatic that so many shots SOOC (straight out of the camera) don't need adjusting much or any at all. Some slight brightness or white balance adjustment and cropping. I haven't even been sharpening the eyes very much or at all because I got the catch lights just right so their eyes are just beautiful as is! I feel so accomplished so have worked at trying to learn this hobby for so long to finally feel like I'm getting it. The photo below is one of the photos that I actually had to go back and look at the image SOOC to double-check that I hadn't edited it at all. I was sure that I'd done something post-processing wise to make it look the way it did, but I hadn't!

Now, I will end up lightening it up just a tad, and probably cropping it in a bit. And see if I can smooth out his boo-boo face a bit. But if I had to print it as is, I would totally do it! *Note, he is eating an M&M surprise that I put in the egg to get him to sit for me.

Levels adjustment, spot-removed some of the food off his face, and cropped it

Here's the rest of my little boo-boo face posing/playing with the Easter eggs. And BTW, this adorable outfit is a hand-me-down on loan from Jessica and I am so super stoked it fits him now because it's the cutest and most softest outfit EVER!

Some of my favorite images, I actually cloned out or removed some of his scabs just in case I want to print them, they didn't just magically disappear throughout the session!

And that's when I had to take the stool away

How cute are little diaper buns?

And I'm also giddy that tomorrow is Easter and I'm excited to see what Luke will think of it. He was about a month old last year and this is what he thought of it: