Chihuahua puppy Pepe Council Bluffs Ia

pepe and mommy

pepe sparkles!

Chihuahua's can be challenging to photograph. They shake and shiver an if they happen to be fresh and young, they'll have a sense of wild uncontrollable energy that can be tricky to shoot. They have a mind of there own and are motivated by food. But, I was able to capture the warm and fuzzy and cute and adorable personality side of this guy. Pepe is a charming fine boy who reminds me of a famous cartoon character that I ADORE like crazy: Ren.

Beagle and Yorkie pet photography Council Bluffs Iowa

jojo

stella

Stella and Jojo have so much personality that I had to include these 2 furry friends during the Chihuahua photo adventure because they are also a part of the family. I've made it a tradition to photograph Kay and Dan's pets about every year or so just to keep up with the newbies that arrive. They are hard to resist. Just look at those special personalities. Stella looks kinda romantic but timid amongst the spring flowers and Jojo has this run wild and curious Beagle energy going on. Love it.

Playful Black Kitty Cat in a box Omaha

Don't move a muscle

 

Empty box + playful young cat = Ultimate JOY! I now love cats even more after this event. The more playful and inquisitive they are, the BETTER! Each pet has their own unique personality and I love to capture that in my photographs. Searching for the PERFECT caption for this shot in particular. 'For your eyes only' 'Here's looking at you kid' 'Always keep focus' 'I'm living in a box'. Love it.

Chihuahua puppy pals backyard adventure Council Bluffs

chichi

pepe

First look at a couple of super duper cute Chihuahua puppies that are the newest addition to proud puppy parents Kay and Dan. This is my first attempt at shooting 2 puppies who have an enormous amount of non stop bubbly and wild energy! I had some idea of what to expect when it comes to shooting puppies, but the level of energy these 2 had was as if they were happy drunk on red bull! These images make them APPEAR to be calm and inquisitive. I am sooo excited to post these 2 beautiful puppy shots and will have more later! Stay tuned!

Blonde pomeranian one shot buttery pet portrait Omaha

furby

While spending some serious time focusing on the cats yesterday, Furby was begging to be a part of the shoot. This look is truly sincere. It's one shot and his eyes are speaking wonders to me. Natural light. Fast shutter. Large aperture. Desaturated colors. Creamy and dreamy and buttery soft blur on the edges always reminds me of my Macbook Pro button. THAT'S what it would feel like! And sharp as a tack. Love it.

Handsome black American short haired cat Omaha

Spooky is calm and mellow and a typical American short haired black kitty cat. He answers to no one except when Leia chats back and forth with him. This month he will turn 13! :( Those kitty cat years don't mean a thing to this charming man). Suuuper fast shutter speed shots (1/500 or 1/1000) at f1.4-this lens continues to shine in low light. Love it.

Vintage Hansel and Gretal ceramic wall relief

If Hansel and Gretal were lost, this is where they would go-through the enchanted foerest. I know nothing about this other than it spoke to me. I can see it hanging on my grandma's wall from the 60's. A great piece of vintage ceramic art for a mere 2 bucks. Love it.

High ISO pet portraits

Just spending a lot more time on practicing this new 'used' lens. These were shot using natural light of course, hand held-NO tripod, at 8pm and very high iso (3200). The noise is practically minimal. Blows me away what this camera can do in extreme low light. I prefer the shot of him where he is split in the middle. The black/white contrast with a lot of grain gives this image good balance. I like.

Teen Portrait Natural Light at home

Leia has NO time for portraits taken by her mom. Although she takes the time and gets all gussied up in her bestest finery's for herself in her spare time. Just sit down, give me 2 minutes and I'll create a classic teenager photograph. SASSY.

New designed blog header

I worked on this all day yesterday and am pretty happy with the final results. (Heck, I spent all day and night typing paragraphs and designing the header til late-check out the faq and favorite things-I was on a major roll). I didn't know exactly how I was going to go about and design it, I just sorta kinda had an idea. I think it flows and is somewhat balanced design wise. I chose my all time favorite images (that's HARD!-cuz I luuuv a lot more of them!) Included a person, some human feet, color and black and whites and shot from various angles of different COLORED pets. I also did not want to clutter it up too much. My favorite color is green, but I seem to like the ice blue or even orange. However the green color was easy to read and draws your attention to the name-which is critical. The bottom 'TM' slogan is my latest-and I LUUUV it! I feel it sounds catchy and is perfect for what I am striving to do in OMAHA! I luuuv my new font and think the logo will be fine for now, until I come up with something else snazzy. It's fun. It's modern. And I like it.

What to do with your fine art pet photos?

My favorite project to work on is creating a fine art pet photography book. I can spend hours on this project in order to make it just right. They belong on a coffee table for the ultimate in conversation pieces! Receiving photographic prints in the mail is the ultimate joy. From 4X6 to 16X20 (framed above). This is something to look at and cherish every day forever!

Blonde pomeranian pet portraits

All shot with my 50mm 1.4 lens in natural light at home. ISO 100, lightroom edits such as exposure, clarity, vibrance, saturation, sharpening, noise reduction, vignetting and grain. Some edits for that 'fine art' look that I truly luuuuuv. Minimal cs5 levels, sharpening and cropping. These are common steps I take to create a pro image that I like. My style. My look. It's what makes these images uniquely mine.

Burke High Prom Omaha Nebraska

 Junior prom is and event most teenagers do not want to forget. So much prep is involved in this special event-like they're getting married or something! My fave shot is the one above where Leia is tilting her head and looking at the camera with the framed mirror in the background. Stunning and sharp. This lens works well in low light and best on a tripod and when they seem to be all settled and mostly calm. If there is a lot of activity-the shots tend to be blurry-but hey, I'm gettin the hang of this guy fast  and am quite pleased with almost every image so far!

Royal Haeger pottery photography

When I stumble across this type of pottery in thrift stores such as the Goodwill, my heart goes pounding. I have this thing for it. It's that it is unique and unusual and absolutely stunning to look at. I discovered this guy and paid $5 bucks for him. This is the first photograph of my small collection (I own 2 pieces) of Royal Haeger Pottery. Not all Haeger is cool to me. Just the ones that SPEAK to me. This one spoke loud.

black lab shot with 50mm 1.4 lens

Kenobi has a serious scab on his face that he continues to scratch an then it gets worse. Hot spots and allergies-tis the beginning of the season. To capture him yawning in action was great-except that it didn't quite focus fast enough-converted to b&w-i love capturing the 'whites' in his eyes. And all the gooey creamy dreamy warm soft focus surrounding the purple ball? This lens oozes with buttery goodness.

pitch black spooky low light photography

This image was created by using practically no light. Back light from hall and the room was VERY dark. Plus the fact that Spooky IS indeed black should have made this photo virtually impossible to expose. At a high iso of 1600 their is minimal noise. And a shutter speed of 1/160.-Yes-(!) and the aperture open a full on 1.4 this lens gobbles light and totally blows anything in the past that I've shot with away. The effect of the orange light and the blue wall balances his black color. And the white sparkle in his eye makes this a priceless shot. He's a jet black cool cat.

In love with my 50mm 1.4

This is a test shot using my 50mm 1.4 lens for the 40d camera. It truly is a lovely lens and one that is possibly love at first sight. I didn't realize the possibilities with a lens of this stature. (?) It is top notch and exceptional and worth the investment indeed. I had been debating on which one-the 1.8 or 1.4. Well, I splurged and know that I made the best decision. This is an important step in building my photography biz. A back up camera is a MUST and a sophisticated lens is a necessity. When you upgrade your equipment and don't skimp on the quality, you photographs produce absolutely professional images. Winning.