If we live good lives, the times are also good. As we are, such are the times. ~ Saint Augustine of Hippo
I have this lovely bloggy friend. Her name is Puna and we “met” each other a little over a year ago. She has such a lovely family and I’ve gotten to know them a bit over the last year through Puna’s fun blog posts. She takes gorgeous photos and I’m so glad we found each other!
Puna has a fun contest going on over at her blog this weekend, Hello Love – Family and she’s giving away a 16×20 canvas from Hello Canvas! All you need to do is enter a photo that best best illustrates “Hello Love – Family” to you.
So here is my entry. These are my two sweet girls. They can get on each other’s nerves like crazy. They can fight like little wild animals. They can get each other in trouble and take immense pleasure in doing so. But, they love each other so much. They love to rough-house with each other and wrestle. They love to make each other pictures with love written all over them. They are best friends. They are sisters. This is an ultimate love that, if you care for it, will last forever.
This is me and my sister, Misti. We are best friends and I’m so lucky to have her. I want my girls to have this kind of relationship with each other when they grow up. 
(This photo isn’t for the contest…I just wanted to share. )
It’s time for Fix-It Friday again at I Heart Faces! What a fun theme this week! I love these color themes and I was going through the kindergarten school photos I took of Autumn in June (I know, I was so late!) and thought this one might be fun for Fix-It Friday this week.
I went pretty simple on my edit for this photo. I wanted to keep the beautiful colors, but give a bit more warmth and extra pizazz.
The first thing I did was add a Levels Adjustment Layer and grab the two outside sliders and drag them in towards the middle just a bit. This gives the colors a bit of a boost and clears up any digital haze.
Next I created a Curves Adjustment Layer and selected the Red Channel. I pulled down on the red a bit to reduce some of the red in her skin. She is naturally very pink and translucent and I normally keep that in, but it was a little hot that day and she was flushed. She also has darkness around her eyes that is a family trait, so I kept that in too!
I then went back to the RGB Channel and slightly lightened the entire image.
I added a texture from Florabella, Frou Frou. I set the blending mode to Soft Light and left the opacity at 100%. I added a layer mask and lightly removed some of the texture off of her face and skin.
Finally I sharpened the image. And that’s it! Pretty simple steps, but I love the results!
The final image:
Michelle Johnson is a fine art photographer and the co-founder of Love That Shot, a website for photographers with tutorials, workshops and fun products! Find her at her blog, My Two Seasons, and her website, Love That Shot.
It looks like there is a wildfire burning out of town this afternoon. I looked out my backyard window and saw what I thought were storm clouds, as we had had some storms this morning. Then I look closer and they don’t look like clouds, more like smoke clouds. I checked the news and sure enough, there is a fire out there. It’s burned about 400 acres so far. I hope they are able get it out soon.
I have been inspired one of the Creative Team Members over at my photography website, Love That Shot! Kelsey Anderson‘s black and white photos are amazing. One of her amazing shots placed 3rd at I Heart Faces last week! Here is the series that had me get up and try it out for myself today. Aren’t they just incredible?
Now, my model, a.k.a Autumn, was not available for me this morning so I had to grab the one who despises me and my camera, Summer! I only had about 30 seconds to work with before I woke the badger who’d gnaw my face off… Remember that commercial? That is totally Summer when she doesn’t want her picture taken!! Evidence here.
Well, I couldn’t get her to look at the camera and the couple times she did she was glaring at me. I’m not posting those because she doesn’t have any catchlights in her eyes and they didn’t look good. Oh my, yes… I am such a photographer. 
Anyways, here is my photo inspired by the lovely Kelsey. Oh, and I say rare in the title because black and whites are so hard for me to pull off. I am such a color girl, but I love a good black and white now and then.
