This Tuesday I will join a group of enthusiastic moms for the first of three classes on camera basics.

The class is created especially for parents who want to take better pictures of their kids and have made the investment in a nice camera but are now feeling overwhelmed by all the controls, dials, and settings it offers.

The three week course will cover understanding your camera and it’s many functions, getting off of the “auto” mode and into manual, how to get a correct exposure, how light affects your photos, and tips and techniques that will help you to compose images you are excited about. We will demystify terms like aperture, shutter speed, and ISO and get you familiar with all your gear. Most importantly you will learn how to capture images of your family that you will love!

I will be holding the course starting June 12th and have spaces for 8 attendees. Please call me at 936.697.1726 or email me at leah@thesaltedimgae.com to find out more.

I can’t wait to show them the rest!

Nonetheless, I am very excited to announce that spring is finally here (that is, if I ignore yesterday’s snow) and The Salted Image’s (figuratively) closed-for-winter-doors are finally being flung wide-open. Flowers are blooming, flip-flops are showing up with pedicured toes, the days are warming and new color is all around! Since I feel like celebrating I will be including an 8×10 print for all sessions booked through May. I have one or two openings left in April and several spots for May so get in touch with me soon to pick your date.

In other news; today is my sweet daughter Adalay’s 2nd birthday! Although part of me can’t wait to see her grow up and become the incredible woman she is sure to become another (somehwhat larger and more selfish) part of me just wants her to stay her little, impish self forever!

As for my final bit of blog catching up…

Let me re-introduce the 52 Week Project. I have been hit or miss with this endeavor and I am relieved to post an image for Week 10: Texture. I just won’t mention I am a week late and may have missed several weeks in a row. See Vikki, my fellow 52 weekers take on texture here.

Thanks goodness for spring and I can’t wait to work with my new spring clients!

Since this week’s Project 52 theme was Around the House it was a no brainer for me to highlight my week of sewing…

Be sure to check out Vikki’s Project 52 image here.

I thought this weeks theme of “Warmth” was a perfect juxtaposition for the reality of the frigid tempertures outside.

I took a more figurative view on warmth with my two kids cuddled up together (and yes, bribes were offered).

I usually do not use many actions but I wanted to warm this picture up quite a bit and I used several actions from Peta Mazey’s Childs Play Actions set.

I am hopeful that the worst of the weather is over and spring will be here soon. I am booking up for March and April so if you would like to do a session get in touch with me soon to reserve a spot.

Now go check out Vikki’s blog to see her take on “warmth”…

And it was cold.

Bone-chilling. Breath-taking. Cold.

The day before the negative degrees hit I got this picture of Adalay.

I am going to cheat and use it as the image for my 52 Week Project, “Illustrate a song”. The song, well Dean Martin’s classic, Baby it’s cold outside (although I might just prefer the version from Elf).

I feel like it is cheating because I did not take the picture with the project in mind. We were stuck inside the rest of the week due to the temperatures and I used the weather as an excuse to not get creative. I mean really, how can anyone be creative while inside a house! Sad, so sad. Here I am doing the project to push myself creatively and I flopped the second week!

I guess I will have to bring it big time with next weeks project.

In the meantime it has warmed up and I care not if I ever see a temperature with a “-” in front of it again.

Be sure to check out what Vikki posted for her second project here.

I had the great pleasure of meeting Ellie and her parents to photograph images for Ellie’s first birthday and their family pictures. I am working on getting the rest of their session ready and I wanted to be sure to celebrate Ellie’s 1st birthday today, with a sneak peek from their recent session.

Happy birthday sweet girl!

Rob and Christine your pics will be up in the next couple days!

This was the day after I arrived back from Nichole Van’s Lighting Workshop and I was eager and excited to put my new found lighting skills to use. Josiah cordially obliged and we made set up on top of a parking garage so we could get some good shots of the approaching sunset. After setting up my lights, I fired off several shots…

This image is straight out of camera.

At this point security drove up and politely kicked us out. This was a first for me and I felt as if I had arrived as a “real” photographer. Silly but true.

Josiah, thanks so much for giving me so much of your time! I appreciate what a pleasant, genuine, and bona fide (Dustin picked out that word for you) guy you are! Good luck with your senior year and I know I will be hearing great things about you in the future!

This is Dustin.  Yes – Bona Fide.  Absolutely authentic.  Its awesome to see how you have grown over the past few years, and I am excited to see how God uses and grows you at Wheaton.  Take luck.

More seniors to come this week!

Thanks to each of you for being so easy and fun to work with!

Go Lions!!

Willing to do some major work for this location…

I have not even had the chance to look through all the pictures from this day. I can’t wait to see what is on our cameras!

I will continue the post soon…