Birthday Party Scrapbook Page

I have finally gotten around to scrapping Rachel's birthday party. I took the photos at the party and I had a little idea in my mind while I was shooting. I wanted to try to get a photo of every girl who attended the party on the page. They are all in the cluster at the top and then there is a group photo at the bottom. Miley Cyrus is even in the cluster at the top because I took a photo of the screen at the very beginning of the movie. The pics look pretty small here but when I print it 12x12 it will look fantastic I'm sure! I used a photo as the background and only shapes and type to create the graphics. The fonts are suede and Amanda's Hand in case you were wondering. So I had to download no kits to make this cool page. Bonus!

White Background

Wow do I love, love, LOVE this white background! Such a neat way to shoot a simple photo.

Senior Portraits

I spent the morning in the studio taking senior portraits. It was a lot of fun. Hunter and Hayden were fantastic models and we got a ton of amazing pictures. We are planning to shoot some outdoor portraits later in the week but for now here's a sampling of the indoor stuff.

Hunter's Casual and Cap and gown pics

Hayden's casual portrait

Another Engagement Photo

Did I tell you about the Gallery night? Well it was great. The students were all dressed up and we had about 350 people show up to see their photographs. It was a silent auction as well and after all is said and done we will have raised about $1500 to donate to charity. Most of the photos got bids of $10 but a few brought in $50 each. Great for student work and a good lesson for the kids to learn to give of themselves to help others.

Last night I worked some images for Kelly and Lindsey and this is one of the ones from out session they liked. I like it too. It's casual and fun just like they are.

New Business Cards

I spent the evening working on my new business cards. Last time I made cards we were really looking at only shooting weddings but I've really branched out now that I don't work at the Star-Telegram so I decided to redesign my cards to add all the other stuff I do. Let me know what you think... the top photo is the front and the bottom photo is the back of the card.

Engagement Photos

I love this picture! Isn't it fun! The color and the framing and the playfulness of it all combine to make it wonderful. Oh the Save the Date card I could make with this one!

What a great couple! I photographed Kelly and Lindsey this morning for their engagement photos. We spent a few hours walking around trying out different backgrounds and these are a few of my favorites. Kelly and Lindsey are fun to work with and I can't wait to shoot their wedding!

Wedding Today

I'm photographing a wedding today. It should be fun. I'm actually the assistant photographer which I like because there's a little less responsibility. Granted there's a lot less money, but I still get to take pictures of happy people having fun and that always makes my day. I'll try to post a photo after the wedding.

Have I told you about my students gallery show? Well we've been working to put it together for about three weeks now so this weekend I am frantically trying to get it finished for the show Tuesday evening. I'm sure it will be a great show and a good learning experience for all the kids but boy am I stressed about it! I'm a little worried we won't get all the photos hung in time...

Bluebonnet Page

Here's my bluebonnet page! This was a quick one. I made it in record time, just under an hour! Wow! ...of course I've been thinking and planning in my head all day, I just had to put the elements together on the page to make it happen.

Thanks and credits for this page go to Andrea for the background paper from her Awesome Freebie Kit, Atomic Cupcake for the chrome action, Amanda Laborde for the rubberband from her After the Rain Kit, and Vicki Parker for the heart charm from her Baby Boy kit.  And of course I used my favorite font, Amanda's Hand from Kevin and Amanda.

How did i get so busy?

Seriously. How did I get so busy? I only have one job now and I'm working more than ever! I don't have a picture to post today even though I did photograph an eight-year-old birthday party. Yes it was at the Hannah Montana movie and yes It was fun. The girls did a conga line through the theater! Pictures will come another day as I must go try to make a scrapbook page for a gift this evening. Laters!

Family Scrapbook Page

Yesterday I showed you a cute family photo I took and I desaturated, so today I will show you the scrapbook page I created for that photo. It would be easier for me if I could use all the parts of one digital kit, but I just can't find one kit that's perfect for me :) There are so many cool designers out there who create gorgeous kits that I can't choose just one!

I used parts and pieces of several different kits I have downloaded from the internet and I did lots of fun stuff in Photoshop including making a cutout and using overlays. I even went in with the eraser and erased part of the handwriting font so that the worn folded paper shows through. I think it gives it a little bit of realism...
Thanks and credits for the elements used in this page go to Rachel at 1905 designs for the background paper from her Color of Water Paper Pack: Laurence at Nini-lolo Designs for the worn paper from her Girls Dreams Add on; Tracy Lykins at retrodiva designs for her Tangled Roses Alpha; Nicole at Digi-Designs by Nicole for the bulldog clip from her Dream Big kit; Shel at Shel Bell Scraps for the flowers from her celebrate love kits which I resized and recolored to match my layout; and Kevin and Amanda for Amanda's Hand font.

What do you think?

Selective Color

Last week I took some family photos for a friend and as you can tell her little girl was not too into it. This was one of the few photos where she wasn't screaming, and I think it's cute. It totally captures their family and the innocence of their little girl. I've played around with it in Photoshop and I can't decide which version I like better. The first photo is full saturation and the second is a combination of a partially desaturated image with the denim pulled out full saturation to highlight the blues...I'm thinking of making a scrapbook page on a blue background so I might use it for that. Which do you like better, the full color version or the desaturated one?

So my friend, Mercedes, above, likes to digital scrapbook too and she's good at it. She's made this amazing book about her daughter's first year and she just finished making a photo book from her sister's wedding photos, which were taken by me of course :)

To see some of her pages go here.

You can see my pages here.

Finished Birthday Page

I finished the page! Here it is. I spent all day deciding what I wanted to do, what colors I wanted to use and making a cutout of my niece for the page, but I'm pretty happy with it. I liked the yellow tint of the candlelight from the cake photo and the off white of her sweater so I went with some earthy tones that brought out those colors. I know the big trend in scrapbooking is to use one photo, and I can't decide if that's because most people only have one good photo from an event or because it's so much quicker to scrap a page with just one photo on it...I like so many of my photos and I like working my pages like a little puzzle so I used 8 photos on this page. Get it...eight-years-old, eight photos and thus the title "Eight".
I used quite a few "freebies" I downloaded from the internet for this page. Thanks and Credits go to: Angelica E. for the paper from her Rough Solids Paper Pack, Amy Stoffel for the flowers from her Summer Dreams Freebie, Sara Belmont at Sweet Blossom Designs for the yellow stamp from her Bee Happy Kit, Louise Williams from eidou for her Mistletoe & Wine Alpha which I recolored to match the flowers, Nicole at Digi Designs by Nicole for the bracket from her Funky Love kit that I recolored to match the flowers, and Kevin and Amanda for Amanda's Hand font which I downloaded from their free font site at http://kevinandamanda.com/fonts/fontsforpeas/

Want me to come take photos at your child's birthday party? Pricing can be found on my website at http://www.ellmanphotography.com

Rachel's Eight!

If you know me at all you know that I am completely addicted to digital scrapbooking. Today I am working on a page for my niece's 8th birthday. Her birthday was a while ago, but I'm just now getting to the page. Here's a photo of her with her cake that I took at dinner on her birthday. When I finish the page I'll post it here so you can see what I do with it on the page. 

Markus and Kristi

Today is a school holiday so I've been organizing my computer a bit. It's amazing how many images I have stored on my hard drive :) 

I've been photographing a few weddings lately and I came across this photo I took about a month ago. It was a small backyard wedding and there were lots of nice images to make. Maybe I'll look through my wedding folder and find some more to share with you later today!

Can I come to the party too?

I just found this cute photo of my friend's puppy peeking through the fence at the birthday party. He wanted to come out and jump in the bounce house too, I'm sure! I jumped in the bounce house and I also went down the slide head first. Yes I did. Poor puppy he just wants to join in the fun.

Birthday Party Scrapbook Page

My hobby is creating digital scrapbook pages. I have done many for myself but today I created one for my friend who invited me to her three-year-old's birthday party yesterday. While he was opening his presents I was inspired by one of the gift bags. After the present-opening was done I moved the gift bag into better light and photographed it to use as the background for this scrapbook page.

If you are interested in hiring me to photograph you child's birthday party, you can contact me through my website at http://www.ellmanphotography.com

Baby Portraits

I love babies and I absolutely LOVE taking pictures of newborns. There are just so many beautiful photos I can make of brand-new tiny babies. Last week my friends had a little girl and they were nice enough to allow me to stop by and make some photos. I have so many good photos from the session its hard to pick just a few to share. Baby Viv is just gorgeous, don't you think? 

And her parents look fabulous!

Thanks for letting me spend an hour with you taking photos! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did!

If you are interested in having me come take beautiful photos of your new baby, you can contact me from my website at http://www.ellmanphotography.com

Welcome!

Hello. Welcome to my new photography blog. I plan to post photos I take that make me happy here. I hope you enjoy your stay on my blog and I hope my photos make you happy too!

A few days ago I took some photos in the bluebonnets for a few friends. Their kids were great models and I enjoyed spending the morning with them.

Here are a few of my favorites!

Addisyn

Julia

You can hire me to take photos of you kids too! Pricing and contact info can be found on my website at http://www.ellmanphotography.com