Beach Maternity - Shired Island Florida.

Celebrating Dad.

It was a quick snap but my favorite from the days session.

I captured this moment of my Father In-law and his 3 sons during a resent trip to GA....While I photographed the children at the waters edge I looked up to see the men patiently waiting at the picnic table for us to move to the next location.

Even as grown men they still all look up to their DAD...He is a wonderful man, mentor and roll model for so many over the years, not just his own boys...40+yrs as a high school principle and many years as a little league couch, he has been a positives example of what a man can be to hundreds of young men over the decades....Truly blessed to have him as the Patriarch of our family.

June Photo Challenge: Dads

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Family Session in the Mountains of GA

This past week we snuck away for a 4 day weekend in the mountains at my Mother and Father in-laws home...Since this was the first time in 6yrs most of the family was able to gather together in one place a family photo session was in order.

The beautiful Meeks Park provided a wonderful backdrop....and despite leaving the part of my tripod that attaches the camera to it at home, I did manage to get myself in a couple of the shots thanks to a well placed picnic table and my BIL lovely wife Melissa...The above photo was obviously not one of them lol.

My gorgeous husband, our littlest daughter and myself....Thank you Melissa, we will treasure this photo always. xox

Our littlest daughter and her 2 cousins meet for the first time during this visit.

Love this photo, she looks so sweet and angelic, even though moments before it was taken I removed her from a group set-up on the bridge because she was acting out...*sigh*

Can't wait to finish editing the rest of the photos and get them up on my walls.

Blessings Kelsie

Family Photoshoot

I love when a family entrusts me to capture their precious moments for them.

I love even more to see the dad's relax despite the camera being pointed at them.

And the kids have so much fun they don't want to leave.

I love seeing parents and kiddies enjoying the time together with no stress or pressure.

There really is something wonderful about spending time together outside in a rural environment that makes it all feel like a family fun day.

And I would not have it any other way...

Thank you to Jason and Sarah for allowing me to photograph you and your gorgeous children.

Blessings Kelsie

Photoshopping Chickens

Recently while doing a family photoshoot the 2yr old was getting little bored and cranky, as 2yr olds are inclined to do when a strange lady is pointing a camera at him and trying to coax him to smile.

Solution...Send my 3yr old to go get a scoop full of chicken feed and put the family to work at the afternoon chores.

Since this was not planned as part of the photoshoot the area next to the chicken pen was ummmm lets just say "in it's working farm" condition.....But I snapped some photos anyway....

Now one of the problems with working with chickens is they do not tend to stay still and hence often you get what I refer to as "blurred chicken head" in the shot...So first thing I did was removed the 2 white chickens and half of black/white chicken from the shot...I then copied the ground from below the red chickens (because it was at the same scale as what I needed and I hate the look of just cloned areas side by side) and placed it in the gap left by the white chickens....merged the layers and then used the cloning stamp to blend the edges of the  orginal ground and the newly placed ground together....ta-da....you can't even tell where the chickens had been....I then also using the cloning stamp removed the wood chipper and other assorted odds and ends out of the barn.

Lastly I cropped it give me my final composition, did a few little touches here and there...Blurred the ladies and the barn to add a little more emphasis on Dad and the little ones...Gave it a lovely warm glow.

I LOVE the end result

Blessings Kelsie

Celebrating LOVE

February is the month of LOVE...

And to celebrate Rock the Shot is holding a photo contest.

www.rocktheshotforum.com

As soon as I read about the contest I knew just which photo I wanted to submit.

SISTERLY LOVE

I snapped this photo during a family photoshoot at my farm...These 2 sisters are so cute together and you tell by the looks on their faces how much love they have for one another....It was truly a privileged to be able to capture it with my camera....Sisterly love is a very special bond that will last a life time no matter what.

Blessings Kelsie