Gainesville Florida children's photographer: Laurel Housden Photography » General Photography

Guess where I’ve been?

Laurel — Sun, 04 May 2008 04:10:59 +0000

Benjamin + The Housdens

Laurel — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 21:53:20 +0000

I posted some pictures of my new nephew Benjamin a few posts ago. I have finally finished editing the rest of the photographs from that weekend. We all enjoyed meeting Benjamin for the first time as you can tell from these pictures. Make sure to check out the rest of the pictures in the slideshow at the end of this post!

CLICK HERE TO SEE A SLIDESHOW OF ALL THE PICTURES!

Using a Neutral Density Filter

Laurel — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 14:20:28 +0000

One of the items that was suggested that you bring on Moose Peterson’s Digital Landscape Workshop Series is a neutral density filter. The one that Moose uses is the Lee .9 graduated filter. I wanted to be prepared since I was spending so much $$$ on going and I did not want to miss out on any important shots because I did not bring the recommended equipment. I had no idea how or when to use the filter – and really still don’t – until I stumbled across this fantastic article over at The Travel Photographer Network that explains all of the ins and outs of using a Neutral Density Filter. Check out the article here!

A Day At The Beach

Laurel — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 02:37:35 +0000

Day 5 of Spring Break and we decided to go to the Beach. Stuart took the day off and we headed to Crescent Beach which is just south of St. Augustine, Florida. It was a beautiful day and the waves were above average in size. Aidan was so excited to feed the seagulls. He talked about it on the car ride there and even saved half his sandwich so he would have something to feed them.

Dude Looks Like A Lady

Laurel — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:48:43 +0000

Here are pictures of my adorable little 5 year old boy. He is the biggest HAM of them all. We have been home this week on Spring Break and as you can imagine – it can get pretty boring after the first day. The other day I was hard at work on my computer (not really work…editing pictures) and Aidan kept on running in to my closet and running back out. He did this about 5 times over a span of 30 minutes. O.K….all was calm so I’m wasin’t the least bit concerned. Until I found out what he was doing in my closet. As I peaked out to check on the kid-lings I poked my head inside my 10 year old daughter’s room to find her giving her little brother a complete make over, including nails, toes, and face. It wasin’t bad enough that she was putting makeup on my son – but – she made him PAY for it. He was getting coins from my closet! I was literally standing in the doorway with my mouth hung open ready to catch flies when this cutie of a boy looked up at me and said, “Mommy, look at my makeup it only cost me 50 cents!” “My toes only cost 75 more cents!” I seized the moment and remembered a chapter in Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book about getting great light from a North facing window. Here are some pictures captured using the D300 and my North Window…and a beautiful model!

I have been testing the Lightroom 2.0 Beta and this is my first series using the new program. All of the edits were performed in Lightroom (except the textured picture of Aidan). I especially love that you can now sharpen on export with three levels of sharpness (low, medium, and high) as well as the abilty to choose either glossy, matte, or screen as your final output.

If you like the Black and White pictures above of Aidan, I have created a Lightroom Preset for this effect that you can download here: bw-with-sepia.zip - Let me know what you think. If you don’t know how to import Lightroom Presets into the Develop Module check out Matt Kloskowski’s Lightroom Killer Tips Blog and a video on how to import presets here.