Happy Veterans Day! I plan to remember, honor and pray for our troops at home and abroad~ past and present. Thank you to for your service to our country. That I can walk down the street in relative safety is a blessing. When I put my child to bed, I do not fear bullets coming through his window. I can make my own choices and destiny. All of this because of the hard working service men and women... past and present. Thank you for all you have giving to me and my family.

Sugar and Spice

Roll Away Bride

Beautiful Bride

I shot a wedding this weekend. It was lots of fun. The bride was beautiful even if the weather wasn't! LOL

Sugar and Spice

Sugar and Spice and everything nice, that is what this little girl is made of.

I had such fun shoot this little one. She is full of fun .... with a serious side. Love to capture both!

I DO!

I was honored to capture some wonderful moments of this beautiful wedding. It was a cold day, but all the love warmed my heart. m

Which Camera is best?

HI everyone.
I have had more than one email asking me about cameras and which ones are best. So here is the scoop according to me:

The top two digital cameras in the world are Nikon and Cannon. The rebel is a great camera. I won a photo contest once and top prize was a rebel. I used it a few times, just to check it out and then gave it to my brother. He has done wonderful things with the camera.

Both cameras have won an equal amount of awards and you will be happy with either.

The cannon has an edge on color correction within the camera.

Nikon has an edge on Clarity.

So you just need to choose which one is more important to you.

I shoot with Nikon and will not switch now because I love it and because all my lenses are Nikons.

On the road again.

HI Everyone,

I am on the road again. Just want all of you to know where I am going and when so if you want me to do a shoot for you or your family we can hook up.

April 18th I will be in Phoenix AZ

May 1 and 2 I will be in Provo Utah area.

June 8 and 9th I will be in Utah.

June 9th and 10th I will be in Id and Montana.

June 11th through the 23rd. I will be in Spokane Washington area.

June 24th through the 26th I will be in Montana and Idaho.

June 27th through the 29th I will be in Utah.

If you live in any of these states and you are interested in a photo shoot, please contact me and we can set it up! Thanks, Mechelle

Photo Tip of the Week

Photo Tip: the Old Rule of Thirds

Here is a photo tip about composition. Putting all technical stuff aside for now, just put your attention on how you see the object you’re trying to capture in the viewfinder of your camera.

The idea is that you can make your pictures so much more interesting if you focus your conscious awareness on how you “frame” whatever-it-is-you’re-trying-to-capture before pushing the camera trigger.

There are many aspects to this, for now let’s introduce the first rule in the book:

1: Rule of Thirds!

Imagine you divide the scene you see through the camera’s viewfinder into three parts, both vertically and horizontally, like this:

- it is really much easier to show than to explain in words.

Note that the intersection of two lines falls right near the middle of the woman’s face! And feel the tension and sense of movement created by all that mysterious black space to the left!

The idea behind this old rule is that a picture usually becomes more interesting if the major, dominating, elements are a bit off center.

The Rule of Thirds is a simple tool to help you avoid the boring habit of putting everything smack in the middle of every picture. Instead, keep imagining those lines, running as shown above, and try to place your object of interest somewhere along those lines.

This will introduce a sense of movement to your pictures. Imagine a picture of a person for instance. Put her right in the middle - what do you feel when you see that? Is she going anywhere? No, it seems she has already arrived! Ho-hum… But put her off center, at either of the vertical lines. Then what? Well, she may be on her way into the picture, or disappearing out of it (depending on which way she is positioning her body).

Every time you are about to snap a picture, ask yourself: “How can I use the Rule of Thirds to make this picture more interesting, with more of a sense of movement?” Keep doing that and I’m sure your photographic skill will improve visibly.

Here is another example:

The Winners

OK, here we go, girls and guys.

The time has come.


I would like to say that I really appreciate all your interest I hope I can work with some of you in the future and I look forward to meeting as many of you as I can.

I wish you could all win. But I am so busy already that that would just not do.

The way I selected the two winner: I put all the entries into the random selector thinging and had my 15 year old daughter watch me. Kallie is VERY honest and can be trusted completely. She is my witness. (if you know Kallie, you know what I am saying right?)

SO

With out dragging this on any longer


The two winners of my photo shoot give away are:







Bren over at Luv Ur Kids (don't you just love that name of that blog?) Isn't she cute!?! Call me girl. Lets set up a date to do the shoot. I will travel to you. That was the deal. So my bags are packed and ready to go.


And the Second winner







is







drum roll








I don't know why I did two. But I think it had something to do with how fun that random number selector was to work.




so






here she is, wish it could be all of you. But it is









The Russell Family

Give me a call D and we will plan when we can get together. I will travel to you. So just let me know when and I will be there to capture some wonderful moments for you to treasure forever!!!




Thanks to all of you. This has been such fun. I appreciate all you following me. SO for everyone that has entered this give away, I will give you 50.00 of free photo processing or 50.00 off the purchase of a disk with all your portraits on it. Hope that helps the sting of not winning if you are not D or Bren.

Give Away Time!

I am coming to Utah...

HI,
I just found out I am going to be in Utah, Provo area, the weekend of the March 21st.

I have one (maybe two) photo shoot opening(s) left for that Saturday. If you live in that area and are interested in a shoot please email me ASAP.

My email address is: gr8photo@hotmail.com
Thanks, Mechelle

The Eyes Have It.

Photo Tip:
A person's eyes can grab one's attention and often speaks volumes for his personality without him having to say a single word. Because of this, nothing has more influence over the mood of a photo than the eyes.

In this photo, Holden's hat frames his face and brings attention to his eyes. This is just one trick to try and improve the family photos! Try it and come back and let me know how it worked! Thanks Mechelle

Boys!

I have been so blessed to work with this family of four boys! Guess what? There is another baby on the way. Will it be a boy? M

Photo Give Away Time!

To celebrate .... HUMM ... what the heck am I celebrating? Life! March! Happiness! Really I just want to increase traffic here on the old Photo Blog so here it is:

I am giving away a photo Shoot!

You heard me ... a photo shoot!

Just become a follower and leave a comment here and you are entered. Go ahead and enter even if you are not living in AZ. I travel a lot and would love to have an excuse to come and see you.

If you link me up to your fab blog, you get another comment!

If you are a return customer, please leave a third comment about the work I have done for you.

Make sure you get entered by noon on March 11th. (Which is my son's birthday!) I will post the winner on March 12th. (Which is my brother-in-laws birthday!)

Please leave an email address if you do not have a blog. Everyone is welcome!

Thanks guys! You are all the best. m

Full of Mischief

This one is sure full of Mischief! But lots of fun to shoot.