It’s been pretty quiet around here! I have been working hard on some exciting updates to my website for photographers, Love that Shot, and one of those changes will affect my blog. I will no longer be blogging here, I’ll be blogging at Love that Shot! I’m so excited to merge my blog with my business and I hope you all will follow me over there when we’re ready!

Anyways, on to the fun… It’s I Heart Faces’ 2nd Birthday this week and they’re celebrating with an awesome theme – SMILE! Birthdays always make me smile. They’re such fun and happy times! Here is my interpretation of “Smile,” my baby girl being silly! She always makes me smile and I love the little smile on her face. She’s so proud of herself for coming up with such a great disguise!

Hey everybody! Remember me? These past couple weeks have been so busy, I’ve barely had time to breathe! But, it’s been a fabulous couple of weeks with some fun news.

First, I’ve been a busy bee getting my presentation ready for the I Heart Faces Dream Big Workshop coming up next week! Wow, I can hardly believe it’s almost time! I can’t wait to meet everyone.

Next, I’m a new Auntie! My brother and sister-in-law had their baby yesterday. I was blessed to be able to go see them and hold and love their incredibly precious baby girl. She is a tiny little one at 5 pounds 13 ounces! It brought back sweet memories of my little preemie baby Autumn when she was born. She was just 4 pounds 13 ounces and tiny!

Finally, I have some fun news about my photography website, Love that Shot…  We are on Facebook now!!! And we’re celebrating with a party! Come “like” us and stay update on all the fun Love that Shot happenings and be entered to win some awesome prizes! Be sure to visit our party blog post to see all the details and leave a comment to be entered to win.

It’s time for Fix-It Friday at I Heart Faces!

This was such a fun edit this week! I love how Angie caught a sweet moment of her son at play. The motion blur adds so much personality and I really love how she composed the photo. I love the depth of field and the leading lines and the color… this is just such a cool image! I really wanted to bring out the gorgeous fall colors that are somewhat hiding in there and bring the focus right to Angie’s son.

1. The first thing I did, as I almost always do, is add a Levels Adjustment Layer. I brought the two outside sliders in towards the middle just a bit to give a little color and contrast boost and lift the digital haze.

2. For the next few steps, I turned to my actions and Photo Veils from Love that Shot. All of the actions I used are available free to Love that Shot members! First I ran the Technicolor action. This really gives a nice boost to the colors, more than the Levels adjustment.

3. Next I thought the photo could be a little warmer so I ran the Warming action.

4. Then I applied three Photo veils: Brave, Northern Lights and Serenity. I set them all to Soft Light blending mode and adjusted the opacity on each.

5. I ran the A Little Lighter action, used a large, soft brush and painted over Angie’s son to bring him out of the background a bit.

6. Finally, I sharpened the photo using the High Pass Filter.

And that’s it! I love falling back to my Photo Veils when I want to do a quick and easy edit! They’re so fun!

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.

This week at I Heart Faces the theme is Beef! Yum, I love beef!

A little while ago, I did some experimenting to try and recreate a black beans and rice dish. This is the closest I came to it and I had to get a picture!

*Edited to add… Due to popular demand here is the recipe!

Black Beans and Rice

3 tablespoons olive oil
4-5 cloves garlic, chopped
1 to 1 1/2 pounds stew meat or any cut of beef you like, cubed
2 teaspoons oregano, divided
2 teaspoons ground cumin, divided
2 (16 ounce) cans black beans, undrained
Salt & pepper
Pinch chili powder
Juice of 1 lime
3 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 cups white rice
Chopped green onion

In a large pan, heat olive oil over medium heat and add garlic. Saute for 1 minute. Increase heat to medium high. Add beef and stir until cooked. Season with salt and pepper. Decrease heat to medium, add 1 teaspoon oregano and 1 teaspoon cumin. Simmer for 1 minute.

Add black beans, remaining spices, and lime juice. Blend and simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. While beans are simmering, bring broth to boil in a pan. Add rice. Decrease heat to simmer, cover, and cook 20 minutes until rice is fluffy.

Serve the beef and black beans over rice. Garnish with green onion. Enjoy!

Check out all the yummy beef dishes at I Heart Faces and enter for your chance to win a $250 gift certificate for Nolan Ryan’s beef!

Today is the last day to enter our Love Your Shot! | Link-Up! We have nearly 150 entries already! Thank you all for excitement and enthusiasm. It’s been a pleasure to see all of your favorite faces!

If you haven’t had a chance to enter, you’re not too late! You have until 11:59 pm tonight to get your links in. Check out the fun interview we had with Angie and Amy of I Heart Faces. They are such fun girls and it was a blast getting to know them a little better. They are our guest judges this week and their winner will receive a $100 gift card to Florabella Actions and Textures!

Here’s one of my favorite faces… my sweet little Autumn. She always has something going on in her head. When she gets this look… watch out! She’s got trouble brewing!

I took this picture in the morning before school. We were in full shade in front of our house with the sun rising behind Autumn. The sky behind me, and in front of her, was bright and lit the houses across the street from us. This gave her some really nice catchlights. If you’re shooting in full shade, try to position your subject to the very edge of the shade. This will allow you to get some of the bright light beyond it and create bright catchlights in the eyes.

Click here to enter your favorite face(s) photo!

Canon Rebel XSi | 50mm lens | f/1.4 | 1/800 sec. | ISO-100

It’s time for Fix-It Friday at I Heart Faces!

This is such a cute picture of Keli’s little girl! I love the angle and the direction of light. I really wanted to lighten and brighten this one and draw the focus right to that sweet little face! My edit was pretty simple, not too many steps.

1. First, I added a Levels Adjustment Layer and brought the two outside sliders in towards the middle a tiny bit. This took the digital haze off and gave a little boost in contrast.

2. Next, I added a Curves Adjustment Layer. I clicked in the middle of the graph and pulled up and to the left a little. This lightened the photo.

3. Now, I wanted it to be brighter so I added a black and white Gradient Map Adjustment Layer. I set the blending mode to Screen and the Opacity to 50%. This really gave a nice brightening effect!

4. I wanted to add in a little warmth to the photo so I ran my Warming Action from Love that Shot (it’s coming very soon!).

5. Next I ran my Darkening Action from Love that Shot (also coming soon!) and brushed around the edges of the photo. This brings the eye straight to the subject.

6. Finally I sharpened the photo using the High Pass Filter.

And that’s it! Here’s the before and after:

To see more great edits of this photo, visit I Heart Faces!

And don’t forget to enter our Love Your Shot! | Link-Up at Love that Shot! Angie and Amy of I Heart Faces are our special guests and there is a fabulous prize from Florabella! The link-up is open until Wednesday, October 6th.

Misti and I have an exciting surprise planned for the Love Your Shot! | Link-Up on Thursday, September 30th at Love that Shot. There’s going to be a theme, a couple of guest photographer judges (you may know them pretty well), and a fabulous prize for the winner! You’re definitely not going to want to miss this one…

Tell all your friends to join us on Thursday for the Love Your Shot! | Link-Up…because hey, what’s a party without the guests, right! Oh, and if you’re not quite sure how the link-ups work, click here for the FAQ page, or click here for the Link-Up archives. We can’t wait to see “your favorite faces”, so get out there and start shooting!

It’s time for Fix-It Friday at I Heart Faces!

This is such a touching photo from my fellow contributor Julie Rivera this week. A tender moment between father and daughter before he leaves for deployment. I really wanted to keep the emotion in the photo and just enhance it a little bit.

1. I wanted to lighten and brighten the photo first, to bring the focus into the family. I did this in two steps. First, I added a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer and selected the preset, Black & White with Red Filter. I set that layer to Screen blending mode and the Opacity to 25%.

2. Next, I added a Curves Adjustment Layer and brought the overall lightness up.

3. Then I added a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. I selected Colorize and chose a sepia tone. I set that layer to Soft Light blending mode and the Opacity to 35%. This give a nice contrast and tones down the reds.

4. When I lightened the photo, some of the noise stood out that was hiding in the darker areas. I thought it kind of added an intriguing detail so I added some more to make it look deliberate. I made a duplicate layer of the layers I’ve added so far and added a noise filter. I clicked on Filter > Noise > Add Noise. I set the Amount to 7.16% and the Distribution to Gaussian.

And that’s it!

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.

Have you heard?

Angie and Amy of I Heart Faces are hosting their second annual Photography Workshop in Dallas, Texas, at the beginning of November and guess who’s going to be teaching a section in the Beginners Class… ME!!!

I would totally love to meet our Love that Shot/I Heart Faces readers, so register if you can!

I Heart Faces “Dream Big” Photography Workshop • November 5th and 6th, 2010

• Choose one day of a fun filled workshop. Advanced Photographers (Friday the 5th), Beginners (Saturday the 6th).

• Over $1,000 worth of amazing door prizes!! Fabulous swag bags!

• Advanced Photographers get an entire “Dream Day” of learning, pampering (yes… they plan to pamper you!), fabulous gifts, tools for business and amazing photo shoots for portfolio building.

• Beginners will come away from the day with a ton of knowledge about how to use their camera and take better photos. Practice what you learn with hands-on help from the I Heart Faces team.

My fellow I Heart Faces Contributor, Rachel Durik, is the featured instructor for the workshop for Advanced Photographers, and Angie and Amy will be teaching throughout the workshop. They are also expecting several surprise guest photographers to pop in too!

So if you are a beginner photographer wanting to learn how to get out the auto modes and into using the manual modes, if you want tips on how to help your photos look spectacular, and great lessons on editing your photos, or if you are an advanced photographer looking to be inspired with a high-stylized photo shoot and business information, come on over and register now! The spots are filling fast so don’t be left out!

And don’t miss me! I would totally love to meet you all!!

***Edited to add: The Advanced Day is sold out! But if you are a beginner/amateur, there’s still room for you.

Smirks is the theme over at I Heart Faces this week! And boy, this girl of mine can sure smirk! She’s always got something going on in her head and when I see this look, it’s usually followed by some sort of mischief.

Join in the fun over at I Heart Faces and share your “Smirks!” And check out my photography website, Love that Shot, for a fabulous giveaway… Enter to win one of two $50 gift certificates to Madilu Designs!