13 Feb 13 \\ 2 comments

February Session Spotlight | Tina Hunter

One of our favorite things over at the Bloom Forum is the monthly personal project groups many of us participate in together. Our groups range all the way from fine art projects, 365 projects to lifestyle projects. In addition to the comradare, these group projects are a great way to motivate each other to get out and shoot more for ourselves so we can grow and remember why it is we fell in love with photography to begin with. This month’s featured session is from Tina Hunter and as soon as I saw the first image, I knew this series was perfect for the middle of this crazy winter we’ve been having all over the United States.

In Tina’s words:
I am participating in a group project called “what ____ looks like” and our theme last month was winter. Since I typically stick to photographing my kids, I wanted to shoot this theme without them. It was fun to head out solo with my camera. I was able to slow down and take the time to look for things interesting enough to photograph. And I rediscovered that the process of just me and my camera out on a date was highly therapeutic!

The only downside to photographing these pictures was I procrastinated on the project a bit and then there was no snow for quite some time. Fortunately, the week we were posting we got quite a bit, which was great, but I think the high temperature on the day I took most of these was around 10 degrees F. It was cold!

Find more of Tina Hunter’s work, including previous “what does ___ look like” posts here:
Photojournal
Pinterest

23 Jan 13 \\ 3 comments

January Session Spotlight | Rachel May

When I saw this session, I instantly fell in love. The simplicity and softness won me over completely. Those lips. That soft newborn hair. And that tie! As always, Rachel of Rachel May Photography captured the essence of the first few days of life in these images. Here’s what she had to say about this session:

My sweet nephew, Daniel, was just 15 days old the day of this session. He reminded me so much of when I had my son and gave me a strong sense of that motherly desire to capture him just as he is. His small features and sweet soft baby skin were mesmerizing. These photos remind me of just how wonderful of a blessing he is. I could have cuddled him and photographed him all day long.

Gorgeous, huh?
You can find Rachel here:
WEB
FB
PINTEREST

29 Nov 12 \\ 4 comments

November Spotlight Session | Ginger Unzueta

Coming from a family of girls, I can completely appreciate the beauty of little girls playing dress-up. Ginger Unzueta captured the magic of childhood during a family sessions she shot. I adore the lifestyle approach of her photography and wish I had someone capture my sisters and I when we were that age dressed in our mother’s fancy dresses and high heels.

Here’s what Ginger had to say about this session:

I just loved the light we were able to capture this night when taking the pictures outside of the family’s house, but when we went inside and the girls got to play dress up with mama…I came alive. I just loved watching this family together.

To see more of Ginger’s work head HERE.

31 Oct 12 \\ 2 comments

October Spotlight Session – Halloween Style | Holly Bown

When I saw this session on the forum from Holly Bown of The Enchanted Photo, I was so excited and knew it would be the perfect session to feature on our blog on Halloween. Ghosts sessions are so fun and can add the perfect festivity to one of our favorite holidays. If you haven’t done your own version of ghost pictures, give it a try next year and let your imagination and creativity run wild!

We want to wish everyone a happy and safe Halloween and also let those on the East Coast, who are affected by the storm, know that our thoughts and prayers are with them.

Here’s what Holly had to say about the session:

I love Halloween, always have. I love the costumes and being scared (but only on Halloween!), and the decorations – oh my! I was one of those kids who went trick-or-treating in high school – yeah I said it, and I’m not ashamed!

This year I wanted to do a photo project and was inspired by Bloom’s own Wendy Vonsosen. I styled my kids with the intention of wanting them to look like they could be from the 1800-1900s, so that they really were ghostly. My daughter had this fantastic rag doll that worked perfectly! I think the location really adds to the feel of them, and as you can see, the lighting was amazing there!

I shot these all using my Canon 5d MII and 24-70 2.8 lens. To get the ghostly effect I used a tripod and took two shoots for every image – one with the subject in and one without. I then brought both images into Photoshop and then lowered the opacity of the kid layer until it looked good to me. I then edited them to make them look like they were old photos, possibly shot with an old camera.

All in all this was such a fun project! I have loved the results, and so have my little “ghosts”!

To see more of Holly’s work:

WEBSITE

BLOG