What a BLAST! 

For this shoot, I decided to hire my dream equipment...Nikon D700 and the Nikon 35mm 1.4 lens. Testing it out allowed me to see if this was really what I wanted to blow my savings on.  Decision - YES!! This shoot has further encouraged me to save and keep fighting for that camera. I will make it happen! Who needs food and toilet paper, right? :)

I taught Millie synchronized swimming for a while and always knew that her and her vivacious little sister would be good subjects to photograph.  We finally found a gap in their busy schedules and I squeezed an afternoon shoot into it.  Because we were under time constraints, we decided to do the shoot at their home, and man am I glad.  It allowed us to go crazy with outfits and props, and the light that filtered through the big windows through out the house was every photographers dream.

Both girls were a little shy at first and wouldn't allow the other or their Mom to watch, but they soon loosened up and Libby turned out to be an amazing assistant to Millie. I said to Libby, "When Millie's a famous super model you can travel around the world with her assisting on shoots."  Absolutely horrified, she put her hands on her hips and with a frown responded, "But I'M gonna be the famous one!"  The photos below certainly show a little super model in the making.

Caroline was great as well - although she wouldn't allow me to photograph her, she fed me wine: "To allow the creativity to flooowwwww!"
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Libby, ready to help her big sis at any moment...
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Great Idea to spin the umbrella - but I forgot to warn Libby of the dangers....
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While Millie was having her turn, Libby was told to wait inside - she made sure not to miss out on ANY of the action!!
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I love re-experiencing old photos.  I was fishing around to see what I had brought with me to Singapore on disc and I found this beautiful photo of my sister and her daughter.  (If anyone is interested - I did a blue, a yellow and a pink fill layer - set the blending modes to 'overlay' and then played with the opacity until I was happy).  

It's lovely going back and applying new techniques to old photos.  I can't believe that this special moment between mother and child almost went lost between hundreds of images on a random CD.
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Oh I'm so excited.  I was supposed to go to the gym during my lunch break today for a Zumba class, but it was pouring with rain and I have a head ache and I thought...naaaahhhhhh! So instead, I googled away and came across this really cool tutorial on Duotone in Photoshop.  I had never heard of this method for creating black and white images and I LOVE it.

  http://www.jakegarn.com/duotone-tutorial/

I'm so happy that I learnt something new today.
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