Click on the title of the blog post to view the entire entry.
Oh My WOW! This was one of my most fun shoots yet!! Courtney is umm…STUNNING! I am really at a loss for words on this post. All I can say is that I think I am going to push my business in this direction as well. I love photographing babies and children and always will but I am now going to start taking photographing High School Senior as well. I am so excited!
It was so much fin Courtney! Enjoy your sneak peek.
Meet Jude
Last week my daughter came home from school asking to buy a present for one of her classmates. My first thought was that there was yet another birthday party to attend, but my daughter explained that this was actually for a child who would be leaving school on the first of May to have his 4th Open Heart Surgery. (She has such a big heart) My first reaction was to offer this child’s family a free shoot. Jude’s teacher was able to put me in contact with his family and we scheduled a time. Shooting this kid was just so much fun, he’s an amazing child and his presence lit up the room!
Please take the time to keep this brave little guy in your thoughts, I know his family would be so grateful.
So a couple of days ago my daughter came home with a nest of itty bitty hummingbirds, she said that she and her friend found them in their nest in the street…
poor little guys…. so she brought them to me and asked if she could take care of them..I told her no she couldn’t because they had a mommy who missed them.. The little guys looked hungry so we did some research on humming birds and with them being that young they can’t eat the man made nectar for more than 24 hours or it will harm them..and apparently they also need to be fed like 4 times an hour..so we called some hummingbird rescue numbers (5 to be exact) and no one answered..Sigh…
Well after all that we went back to where we found them and looked for a place to put them and we finally placed them in a bush, sheltered from the wind, but off of the ground and we really hoped momma hummingbird would come and take care of her babies (we were hopeful) but we knew that they had a better chance out there than they had here..I felt terrible. They were so cute.
Being the animal lover that I am I really didn’t sleep that night thinking about those little guys so about 5:30am I went outside to check on them and one baby had been EATEN BY SNAILS!! They were up pretty high so that was crazy…but the other one was alive so I scooped him up and brought him home..I thought that it would be better for him to die with me than be eaten alive my carnivorous snails…so we fed him sugar water and he was doing really well..super feisty little guy! We finally got in touch with Project Wildlife and drove 30 mins up the road and gave him to them…I am so glad I went and checked on him.. 
I took a couple of pictures of them..I couldn’t help it. hehe..Its not often you see a Hummingbird up close especially babies…They are sooooo small! About the size of a prune.
So here they are. My custom actions. We’ve all been there, processing away, getting frustrated with skin tones that are over saturated and working with actions that aren’t adjustable. So I started making actions on my own.
These are the actions I use on my own photographs. I have had awesome testers, as well as hundreds of satisfied customers, and everyone loves them… especially since everything is super adjustable.
I thought I would share two of my favorite actions – Vintage Haze and Colorlicious.
Just a little side note. I now have a flickr group for sharing your photos using my actions.
I would so love to see what you come up with!
The entire collection for just $45.00
Ashley’s action set is a set of 30 fully customizable actions for Photoshop
Included in your purchase:
- 2 color pop actions for that extra punch of color
- 5 black and white actions that can give you a variety of different looks from a light black and white to a dark black and white and I also have some tinted black and whites.
- 4 cross processing actions
- 6 vintage/haze actions These actions can give you that soft dreamy look or a vintage feel depending on how you adjust the layers
- 1 paint with light action
And a variety of other useful goodies such as:
- add light
- add contrast
- enhance
- resize for web
- and border actions.
Click to continue reading “Photoshop Action Set – Ashley McNamara – San Diego Photographer”
I read this article on my good friend Deb’s blog I really wanted to share it…
From REAL SIMPLE’s website…
Note To Self
Get Professional Photos of Your Children
I’ve never forgotten an invaluable piece of advice that I heard from an older friend right after my first child was born. She told me, “One of my greatest regrets about my children’s childhoods was that I didn’t have more professional pictures taken.”“You didn’t take many pictures?” I asked.
“I took tons of pictures,” she said, “but the fact is, professional photographs are so much better than even the best snapshots.”
I absolutely agree—professional photos are better. And keeping her advice in mind, ever since my daughters were born, I’ve been zealous about getting their photos taken professionally at least once a year.
While it’s a lot of fun (and also a pain) to take pictures myself, it’s terrific to have some pictures that are truly excellent. These photos don’t take the place of the on-the-spot pictures that I take myself—I still take scads of photos at birthday parties, first days of school, on the slide, with a popsicle—but these pictures memorialize my children’s childhoods in a different way.
Plus they make great family gifts. I can never figure out a good present for the grandparents and great-grandparents, but they always love to get a really great photograph—especially the relatives who don’t often get a chance to see the girls in person.
Also, research shows that one way to boost your happiness is to reflect on happy times, and looking at photographs helps keep memories more vivid.
It’s a splurge, of course. Professional photos aren’t cheap.
However, I figure that the money I spend on these photographs will strengthen family bonds, enhance happy memories, and capture the fleeting moments of childhood. They give me more pleasure than practically any other purchases that I make. That strikes me as pretty good happiness bang for the buck.
A friend’s family had another great photography tradition. For her whole life, at every milestone, her parents took a picture of her and her brother sitting exactly the same way on their front stoop. It’s fascinating to see them change through the years. Along the same lines, the artist Nicholas Nixon took a photograph of his wife and her three sisters once a year for 33 years. The collection of these photographs, The Brown Sisters, is riveting.
Getting professional photos take is a great example of the tiresome fact that happiness takes thought and effort. These photographs are easy to arrange; in the scheme of things, not terribly expensive; contribute greatly to our family happiness—and yet it probably never would have occurred to me to do it if my friend hadn’t suggested it.
Rubin, Gretchen. REAL SIMPLE.
http://simplystated.realsimple.com/life/2008/03/unforgettable-a.html
Ok, I know I am just a couple of weeks late with this but I have had the busiest month! I attended the Secret Workshop San Diego, WPPI, and The Brianna Graham San Diego Workshop all in less than a month It was amazing but busy!
Last year I told myself that THIS was the year that I would attend WPPI and then 2008 came along and it looked like this was just not going to be my year.
About a day into WPPI my friend Marie calls me to rub err…tell me what an awesome time she is having and I cracked! I was on a plane to vegas the next day with the help of two good friends who babysat for me and I had THE BEST TIME!! I met so many wonderful people. I wish I had made it just one day earlier because I heard the Blu party was a lot of fun.
If you have not gone to WPPI you really should..there is so much to learn and so much to see. I just wish I had more time. I still cannot believe how much I packed into just one day..hehe…
Here are a few pictures from my trip.
This is my good friend Marie Cox, Me, and Jamie Schultz
I love this picture of Marie and Jamie..they might kill me for posting it though. 
Most Frequently Asked Questions: “What camera do you have?” and “How many lenses do you own?”
As a primary camera body I’m using a Canon 40D and can I just say that I love it. Awesome colors and clarity every time, it’s great! One of the reasons its my most used camera body is due purely to ISO performance. Lets face it, sometimes the light just isn’t there and you have to bump that sucker up to ISO 1600 and my 40D handles like a champ! As a backup I have a Canon 30D, it’s another great canon product and one that I highly recommend any new photographer invest in. (But with the XSI coming out, I might be changing that recommendation)
As for lenses, my first lens purchase was the 50mm 1.8. Compared to my kit lens, I was in heaven. Pictures were just so much clearer and it really forced me to think about my composition. I haven’t found myself using it quite as much these days, but I keep it in my arsenal. The wallet friendly price tag makes it another newbie must have.
The next lens was the 24-70 2.8 L . After almost 3 years it is STILL my favorite lens. I use it on almost every shoot. Its a super versitile portrait lens.
After that I bought the 70-200 2.8 L and to be quite frank, it’s rarely used. I’m still trying to fall in love with it, but the opportunity to use it properly rarely presents itself. To be used on my 40D (which is not full frame) I have to be like a million miles away from my subject and as a portrait photographer I rarely need to be more than a few feet away from the subject. Having said that however, I have quite a few friends who swear by this lens and say that is works just as well for shooting toddlers.
The Novelty purchase came next: The 15mm Fisheye. I held out on this one because I had gotten mixed reviews.It wasn’t something I “needed” per se, but I’d always wanted it. One day the bug got me and I bit the bullet and bought it. Now that I have it, I’m not sure how I lived without it! It is sooooo much fun! It went from being a novelty purchase to a staple in my camera bag. I use it on almost all of my shoots. Not being full frame works to my advantage. I can take family pictures (like this) and it doesn’t have a really distorted look to it.
Last, but certainly not least, came the 50mm 1.4. This wasn’t actually purchased as much as it was traded for a Jill-e bag from my friend Marmalade. And let me just tell you it was one of the BEST trades ever! I’d been on the fence about getting this lens, Kept telling myself that I already had the 1.8, why do I need the 1.4? HA! Oh, how simple minded of me. LOL Seriously, guys this is like a whole different lens. Its like butta.. Love it!
As for my camera bag, I carry everything in my Crumpler 7 Million dollar home and yes…everything fits. 
It took quite a bit of trial and error finding the bag that worked best for me. I’ve been through many (tamarac backpack, a shootsac, a Jill-e bag, etc)and my Crumpler is still the only one I find myself using.
So if the blog looks wonky its just me! Hopefully it will be normal again by saturday!
Because no post is complete without a picture here is a shot of my little girl. She asked me if she could get her hair cut short a couple of weeks ago and we got 5 inches cut off!!! Its taking some getting used to but she loooves it!
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of hosting and attending the San Diego Brianna Graham workshop. Knowing Brianna before the workshop and knowing how fabulous she is I just knew that the workshop was going to be awesome and IT WAS!!! If you have not gone, you should!
Now moving on…I spent a couple of days hanging out with B after the workshop and we did a trash the dress session..This is my very first TTD session and its something very different for me but its good to get out of your element sometimes..especially with photography. We did not have a lot of time because we were distracted by urban outfitters on the way out..sigh…so we had to shoot in about 20 mins.
Shot in Full sun…obviously..
Brianna is going to be so mad at me for this one. hehehe.
That’s the going rate to take a toddlers picture..or at least its my kids going rate. I suppose it could be worse.
I have decided that I don’t share enough of MY kids on my blog. I mean they are pretty cute or at least I think so.
I want to share a couple of pictures of my little guy…When I found out I was having a boy I told myself that he would not have long hair. When I imagined long hair on a boy I imagined the bowl cut…there was NO way I was going to let that happen so I told myself that when he was old enough to have a hair cut we would give him a buzz cut and we did…
This year though I decided that I was going to grow it out..I mean after all we do live in Sunny San Diego and I figured that we would go for that little surfer kid look this year…Let me just tell you..I am LOVING it. I really wish I had done it sooner. He has had a buzz cut for so long that I didn’t know he had curls!!! I spent the last two years wasting those curls. Sigh…
