Well, I can get a turtle to smile at me.....

and a blowfish.....



but not Sam! LOL!!



We went to the Dallas Aquarium last week...I've lived in the Dallas area for close to 25 years and have never been there! That's so wrong!! It was awesome....so cool to see all the animals, though I did stay clear of the snakes! LOL!!

One of my favs...













Some of you Aussie might reconize this one....











And Happy Feet has nothing on this little guy!



And what would a post be without photos of Gracie....





Last one...



Goodness, that was a lot of photos!! LOL!!

Just a reminder....

If you are looking to book a session with me, please email me at Bleann@msn.com and not through my contact page on my site. Unfortunately those emails are getting bounced back and I'm not receiving them. I'm still trying to figure out what is wrong so in the meantime, please contact me at the above email. =)

Thanks so much,
Brenda

Little Heartbreakers....

My heart be still......these 2 were so sweet, handsome and polite! I had a ball photographing them! =)

Long time, no see.....

Sorry for being MIA....just been busy wrapping some stuff up, starting new ones and all the fun stuff in between! =) I'm cleaning up my computer again...I let it get a little out of control and I came across this one. She's 5 going on 16.......YIKES!!!



She's definitely working the camera! =)

Oh, I wished she would have looked up here but after I took this one, she bolted!!

sneak peek....

You know, when I took this, I knew I would LOVE it!! Just look at those cheeks!! =)

one bad little dudette....

Doesn't she look tough? I wouldn't mess with her! In fact, our little mini session was done after this one! LOL!!



Inspired by J.CREW!! =)

My website email isn't playing nice!!

I've been informed from a couple of clients that when they email me from my website's contact page that it gets bounced back, so if anyone is interested in booking me, or getting a hold of me, you can contact me at Bleann@msn.com until I can get it fixed. =)

Thanks so much,

Brenda

Just a couple of quick ones.....

We went to a park today to scoop it out for a session I have this week. Of course I brought my little light tester....=)





And guess who came along too? The little stinker...after 3 months of not having the camera in her face, absent doesn't make the heart grow fonder! LOL!! She still hates it!

I'm in the dark and moody mood......

Again, not my usual but it's fun to try new things.....







OK...you girls have a great weekend! =)
Hugs,
Bren

What one chocolate bunny cost me....

I'm having to bribe her now! It's getting sad....before she even does anything she asks me what I'm going to give her......















On another note, a good friend of mine who is sooo creative has opened up shop! She makes flip-flops, bows and as her little girl would say "stylish" headbands! Take a peek at her goodies!

Little Painted Piggies

Workshop.....

I am sooooo excited about this, you guys have no IDEA!

I've drooled over these 2 awesome photog's photos for the longest time, just wondering how on earth they play with the sun and light they way they do. Photography by Detra and Deb Rogo have decided to team up and offer a mentorship workshop. It's in the works...they are doing an online 60 day workshop as well as an on-location one. Here's the information so far....they are just fine tuning the details but sign up is already taking place. At first I believe that they were only planning on doing an on-location one but they got flooded with emails asking if they would consider doing one online, so don't wait to sign up. The classes are going to be small so they can focus on giving cc, answering questions and checking our homework (LOL).

WORKSHOP

Going through some oldies.....

Some of you may or may not have seen these but I'm making a slideshow of my work so clients can see it. I've been going through some older photos and redid some of them before I created my b/w2 action.....I like them much better now! LOL!!

This I have to say is my fav, I'm getting this one on a gallery-wrap canvas....I just love it sooo much! =)

Sorry some of these are soooo small, I wish you could seen them bigger but I had to size for the blog without jacking up all the side links. =(



Another fav...she was twirling away in there. =) I've got to learn to take more candids of her.



Another possible gallery-wrap! =)



And I don't think I've ever showed this one before. It's fun going back and looking at old photos because I always miss some the first time around. =)



I've gotten a bunch of questions about my conversions lately. I'll answer some here to help you guys out. =)

"Do you use your own b/w action on your photos?" Yes, I use my b/w2 conversion on all my b/w photos. Sometimes I stop it mid-way through, and othertimes I run it all the way.

"What do you do to tweak your conversion?" Honestly, I do maybe 3 major things...I adjust the levels at the first stop. And sometimes I'll add a duplicate Shadow/Highlight layer and play there. It really depends on the photo. Othertimes, I will make an adjustment curves layer and click on each eyedropper and make a slight s-curve.

"How do you get that brown tone?" It's in the action but you can just click on Hue/Sat and put the numbers 30, 8, 0 in. It really depends too....with the second number, I usually stay between 4-8 meaning 8 brings more brown tones in and 4 makes it a true b/w.

"What opacity percentage do you usually use with your vintage action?" I stay right around 40%.

"I like the look of the b/w gradient map in your vintage action, do you have any pointers on that?" Yes, there are a couple people that I know that run the color booster action all the way to the vintage action and don't adjust the layer opacity to bring color back in. A tip that you can do is just click on the gradient map adjustment layer and click on the map bar and bring your black slider over to your right. That brings out the shadows a bit and darkens your blacks.

"Are you going to make actions for PSE users?" I sure hope so....since my actions uses elements that PSE does not have, I'm trying to make them as close to what I have. I may have to do a .psd file and that really leaves no tweaking for you which I don't like. I want you guys to be able to make it your own. With an .atn file, I can't support it, I have no clue how to load them and I don't have PSE either so I can't try to figure it out. I don't want to sell something that I can't back and support so I'm trying to come to a happy medium with them. Just bare with me. =)

I think that's it...let me know if you guys have any other questions.

Have a great weekend,
Bren

Another bunny pic.....

I missed this one...not sure why but happened upon it again. The bg is a bit lopsided and annoying but I just can't pass up that sweet look she has. =)