My anemones

My sister in law gave me these anemones last weekend. I was meant to go out today but I'm a little bit under the weather, so I decided to stay in instead. But I needed to do something productive, so I took the opportunity to take photographs of these beauties. 

Happy Wednesday!

Meant to Be - digilift

As we are preparing to leave China in the next week or so, we have been getting together with all our friends for farewell parties, play-dates and last minute goodbyes. I always bring my camera and I try to capture the last moment my children spend with their friends, which is very moving, but also very happy because they've been having fun together.

I wanted to create a digital page to share with their friends, but with packing and paperwork to sort out, I didn't have time to chill and let my mind go and get creative, so I had to resort to a little trick: digi-lifting. Digi-lifting is 'stealing' a digital scrapbooking layout from another designer and adapting it to your own needs. Always giving credit and links, if possible.

Here's a page layout I recently lifted from Paislee Press' digikit Meant to be (here). I purchased the kit last year and although I've been looking at it for some time, I didn't have an image to go with it. Sometimes it happens like that, I purchase a kit because I think it will go well with something I have in mind, but I don't know exactly how I am going to use it.

I like its minimalist simplicity, subtle colours and elegant layout. Delicate like J and N!

A little Valentine's card

Little girl dressed in ballerina clothes, wearing fairy wings, letting monkey out of the bird cage. What's not to like?!

Credits: Flergs sockmonkey freebie background paper and monkey  from www.flergalicious.com, great stuff! Photo by moi

Legend - A bit of sunshine

Last autumn I had a portrait session with R, who very kindly spent a couple of hours posing for me as part of her CAS programme for her IB diploma course. It was a beautiful afternoon, and we went to the compound next to Dulwich College. The gingkoes were mellow gold and the maples had turned rich, burnt copper. The sun was reflecting on the artificial lake, and the light was warm and kind. We had a good laugh! 

In the image above I was trying the camera settings, we were not quite ready yet. The image below had the same sort of natural, golden light, created by the sun bouncing on the lake. I wanted to give it a rich look, with an  elegant feel, so I applied a split-toning preset in Lightroom, then adjusted contrast with the tone curve panel. Once I got the tones I wanted to show off R's beautiful features and dress, I opened the image in PS CS6 and I blended the image with a background paper (Giving, black paper) from Summer Driggs here. I had to change the colour first with a hue/saturation layer mask, then I changed the blending mode to overlay and adjusted opacity accordingly. Finally I applied another mask to erase the texture from R's face and dress.

Bougainvillea of Vietnam

I visited Vietnam with my family over the Xmas break, I made some portraits of my youngest daughter. These are two layouts for one of the images. I also wrote a very short photo essay on my other blog here.

The first version has a very vibrant arrangement, but I don't think it goes very well with the subtle effect that I gave to the portrait.

I prefer the second one, which keeps a hazy look altogether.

Credits: Joanne Brisebois overlays from the OScraps shop - edited in photoshop CS6.

How clients become friends

I have been blessed with a series of wonderful clients who approached me to make portraits and imagery for their business websites, to record important moments in their family's life and to shoot amazing events. For me, it is always a pleasure because through the photography sessions I get a chance to know them more deeply, to be a part of their lives and to share wonderful moments.

This is a show-case of some of my 'clients' - now friends. The image above is one I made for Kathryn, who has a Life Coaching and Development studio: The Life Creative. She is fun and lively, elegant, down-to-earth, sensitive AND sensible! To find out more about Kathryn, see her website here.

Digital Scrapbooking Day

For these two layouts I used the same photograph (my favourite), I only had to clip the photograph to the mask. By Paislee Press, Gallery Album 3 templates (see here), so gorgeous.

Minimal, easy and nice. Which one do you like best?

Don't forget to visit here and here for this weekend's Digital Scrapbook Day to grab some freebies, take part in the challenges and have lots of fun!