Daisy 2 Months

You probably remember little Miss Daisy who broke out of the hospital last week.  This past week, I went to her home to take her 2 month pictures.  Even though Daisy is 2 months old, I approached this session as a newborn session.  Daisy is still very much curled up and cuddly.  She also seems to sleep a lot still (I have one picture with her eyes open).  And lastly, sweet babe is still under 6 pounds. 
I did more experimenting in Photoshop with these pictures.  I found more and more wanting to take the picture from Lightroom (after doing basic fixes) into Photoshop to really polish things up.  I might need to upgrade our Photoshop if I continue doing this.  I'm running Photoshop CS.  That's right, the original Photoshop CS, not CS 8 or 9 (which I believe is the latest version).  I'm like total old-school over here.  Anyway, here is a little sneak peak of Daisy's second session with me.  She completely rocked it!

Miss Daisy Breaks Out!

This past week, I had the opportunity to shoot my most unique session yet.  My friend Rhianna was expecting to give birth to her baby girl this August.  Little did any of us know, little Miss Daisy had other plans and arrived on May 28th at 28 weeks gestation.  Right from the start, she was feisty and a fighter.  Most preemies are in NICU until their original due date.  However, Daisy did so well that she was able to go home after just 7 1/2 weeks.  I was so excited to be part of this special day for the Stafford family and I hope that I was able to capture their excitement and joy at bringing their little one home.  

 

Love this moment of bonding

Two beautiful ladies

Bianca meets her little sister for the first time

I think she likes her ;)

Thank you Rhianna and Stan for letting me capture the memories of this day for you!

Ezra Two Month Preview

Earlier this week I got to work with the adorable Ezra again.  He and mommy Kim came to my house for the session (can I just say how much I love the southern exposure I get in my living room?).  At first, Ezra seemed pretty wary of me.  Who can blame him?  I'm some strange lady waving a big black camera in his face, meanwhile making silly noises and faces.  I'd be scared too.  Seriously, Kim and I were doing everything we could think of to get him to smile.  A few times we got really close but Ezra really enjoyed sticking his tongue out at us.  

However, once we moved outside, things totally changed.  This little guy hammed it up.  It was great!  I had a hard time narrowing down which pictures to polish.  I look forward to many more sessions with this cutie!

I call this "The Many Faces of Ezra"

And the piece de resistance.....

Kim and I both had seen this idea on Pinterest.  We wanted to try it with his newborn photos but someone was just a bit squirmy.   So we tried again with this session and Ezra was still squirmy (clearly he does not like keeping his feet still) but with a little under the sheet help from Mommy, we got his feet in the right place so that I could make this:

If you're like my husband and you can't tell, his feet are the "v" for "love."  (seriously, Walker said he thought I had just forgotten to put the "v" in the picture).  I admit I spent a lot of time on this in Photoshop.  I was very, very picky about the way I wanted the letters to look.  I wanted them tall but not thick.  There is no font like that in photoshop so I created my own letters using the line and elliptical tool.  I guess I've now entered the world of editing in Lightroom and finishing with Photoshop.  Watch out world, I'm moving up!

Ezra and Family

Over the weekend I took pictures of a darling newborn, Ezra.  To be honest, whenever someone asks me to do newborn pictures (which hasn't happened all that often!) part of me goes "eep!"  I consider newborn photography right up there with weddings.  Well, okay not as major as weddings (FYI, I do not do weddings!) but still pretty darn important and difficult. 
I'm sure you've read/heard that newborn photos are best done within 10 days of birth.  The reason being is at this stage, newborns are still very much curled up and they tend to be pretty sleepy, making them easier to work with.  Notice I said easiER, not easy.  Any mom knows how unpredictable newborns are.  I would advise (can I give advice considering I'm an amateur?) making sure you have lots of time.  Unfortunately, with this session, I did not plan well. I could not give Ezra and his parents all the time I wanted to.  Naturally, when I got to the house, Ezra decided it was time to eat.  After that, he wasn't really interested in sleeping (so no precious sleeping shots...well I got one) but it worked out because I got some wonderful pictures of a calm, awake baby.  Granted I only spent a little over an hour with him, but he seems to be a really good baby (lucky Kim and Kyle!).
My other challenge with newborns is...well they just kinda lay there.  They don't really have facial expressions and it can be really hard (at least in my opinion) to get them to look at the camera.  I have a suspicion this is why we see so many sleeping shots of newborns...
 So I guess it's up to the photog to get creative with angles, and concept shoots.  A concept shoot would be like an Ann Geddes photo.  Yeah, I don't have the props for those!  I did have a brilliant idea using our picture frame turned chalkboard which you'll see below.  And I think boys are harder than girls in the fact that with girls, you can put them in headbands adorned with big bows or flowers, wrap frilly tutus around them, etc.  Boys?  Not so much.  Perhaps I need to spend a little time on Pinterest finding some good ideas for posing baby boys.  So even though I was lacking in props, and I didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted, I think I was able to capture how sweet this little guy is and how much his parents are in love with him already.

 gah...stupid watermark covering baby's face!  good thing it won't be there on the actual photos the parents get!

Addilyn

Last week I had the extreme pleasure of photographing my friend's little girl, Addilyn.  As you can guess from the "3" on her shirt, she will soon be 3 years old.  Before this session I read all sorts of articles on photographing toddlers and I scoured Pinterest for pose ideas.  All of the articles cautioned me about expecting toddlers to pose (yeah like I didn't know that from trying to take pictures of my own toddler!) but this was not an issue with Addilyn at all.  She was a complete natural and was so happy to pose for the camera.  After we'd snap a few pictures in one location, she'd look at me or her mom and say "okay, what's next?"  So cute!
We took the pictures at U of I's Arboretum.  It is definitely one of my favorite places to do pictures.  When you're surrounded by beautiful gardens, it's nearly impossible not to get some good pictures.

Her mom was trying to get her to say "Being 3 rocks!"  I love how happy she looks here

At the last minute I thought to grab this "A" off the wall of my daughter's room- it turned out to be a cute prop!

I brought bubbles thinking we could get pictures of Addilyn popping them.  Those didn't come out but I got some great shots of her blowing the bubbles herself

I experimented with the sun in a few pictures- something I've never been brave enough to try before.  I really like the shafts of sunlight coming in through the bench

Addilyn did this one all on her own; no prompting from me!

Dandelions can be fun props too!

I went for a different perspective here.

I used the "Direct Positive" Lightroom Preset on this one; it really made the colors of her tutu pop

Isn't she just the sweetest?

Introduction

My little intro on the left side pretty much sums everything up.  I really like taking pictures and working on them.  Mostly, I take a lot of pictures of my girls Taylor and Lucy.  Occasionally I get asked to take pictures for friends and family.  I definitely prefer "lifestyle" photography but I also enjoy taking pictures of nature.  I am not a professional; I'm just having fun.  I want to have a place to share my pictures and the thought process that went behind them.  I'm looking to experiment with new techniques and going outside my comfort zone with the hopes I will grow as a photographer.

You might be wondering about the name "LeighLee Studios."  Well my husband and I both have the middle name of Leigh/Lee (everyone altogether now....."aawwwwww!").  Of course mine is spelled the "girl" way and his is spelled the "boy" way.  When I was trying to come up with a name (this was back when I was contemplating starting a small business- what was I thinking?) I went through many ideas.  I finally decided on LeighLee Studios because I do photography and my husband does video.  So if we ever decided to make a business of it, that's what it would be called.  And by the way, Walker makes really great videos.  I will probably post links here to ones that he does.  In fact, I should find the link to the ISAT prep video he made for his school- it's really creative!
Anyway, that's where I got the name.  LeighLee for our middle names and Studios because between the two of us, we can offer both photography and video services.