Waiting for Baby

My baby sister is pregnant. While visiting from California during the Thanksgiving holiday, I was able to capture some beautiful shots of her in the beginning stages of her pregnancy. Pregnancy is such a beautiful time in a woman's life and many women don't take advantage of capturing this precious time period on film or digitally. This is a shame, as pregnancy is but a fleeting moment in time.

Being a mother of two myself, I know the joys of motherhood and remember fondly being an expectant mother. I, however was expecting long before the days that Demi Moore's pregnancy shots were featured on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1991. Pregnancy photos were not common place. In fact, the photo of Demi Moore, a mere two months from her due date was very controversial. Brittany Spears tries again in 2006 with her splash on the cover of Bazar magazine. Both women are radiant, posing nude with their expectant bellies protruding out for the world to see.

Now I bring it closer to home as I photograph my beautiful expectant sister. Unlike Demi and Brittany, she is currently sporting only a tiny baby bulge. As the months get closer to her due date, I am hoping to see her at least one more time and have the opportunity to capture her "baby beauty."

I feel the "secret" to photographing expecting mothers is to capture a woman's inner beauty. Not the inner beauty you hear all pregnant women have, but the inner beauty each and every woman has with or without being pregnant. If you can capture their essence, then you will capture a beautiful portrait that portrays not only a womanliness about it, but also captures the upcoming motherliness that only a woman who is expecting is fortunate enough to have.

To all the expectant mothers out there...capture this moment of time in a photograph. Place this portrait by your bed stand and refer to it fondly when your new life arrives and has you awake at 2 a.m. Look upon it with love when you feel no other living soul is awake but yourself. Remember that at that specific moment in time, you were filled with anticipation of a life and of a love you could never have even begun to comprehend until that tiny baby bulge is lying warmly in your comforting arms and looking up at you. You will remember fondly when you were looking down with hope. A photograph of your unborn child will be a gift, not only to you but to your baby .

Spot Coloring 101

Spot Coloring Lesson 101

Step One:
Open the photo where you want to lead the viewer's eye with the use of color. Start by pressing Ctrl-J (Command-J on macs). This will duplicate the background.

Step Two:
Next, to remove the color from this layer, press Ctrl-Shirt U (Command Shift U on mac). This is a shortcut to desaturate. Once the layer is in black and white, click on the Add Layer Mask icon a the bottom of the layers panel.

Step Three: Get teh Brush Tool (B) and choose a medium, soft edged brush, making sure your Foreground color is set to black and begin painting over the object you want to have in color. As you do this, the color is revealed on your subject or object.

Step Four:
The rest is easy. You just continue paiting over the area until your desired effect is complete. As you get near the edges, shrink your brush size down. You can enlarge and shrink your brush size by using the Bracket key [ ]. Did you know this trick? If you make a mistake, just press X to switch your foreground color to white and paint over your mistake. As you paint, it will return to it's original photo. Swithc it back to black to continue spot coloring.

That's it! Congratulations on your first spot color treatment!