I had the pleasure of photographing this sweet 7-day-old newborn boy today. He belongs to a very special friend of mine. This is their third child and first little boy. He was so incredibly good for the whole session. He might have been the sleepiest baby I have every photographed. He gave his mom and dad a hard time the night before and hardly slept. I think he was waiting for me to come so he could sleep the whole day He was so good I just couldn’t stop photographing him. I got so many great pictures. Here are a few of my favorites, but there are many more to come.

This week’s theme at I ♥ Faces is dramatic black and whites. I don’t usually take very many moody black and white shots. But I have a few from a class I am currently taking. I have two that I really like. I had a hard time choosing, but in the end I decided to enter this one of my son.

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

It’s Friday and that means it is time for Fix-it-Friday at I ♥ Faces. Each week they post a photo that was taken by someone who follows the blog at I ♥ Faces. Then a few contributors edit the photo and then they ask anyone else who would like to play along to edit the photo too. It is great practice and a fun way to learn new editing tricks.

Here is this week’s photo:

This is a really adorable photo. The angle is cute and the focus is tack sharp. The main problem with it is that it was underexposed and the white balance was off–the skin was too blue. The first thing I did was use a curves layer to bring up the exposure and brighten the image. Then I used another curves layer to adjust the blue and red channels to fix the skin tone. After that, it didn’t really need much. I sharpened the eyes just a bit and brightened up the catchlights a tiny bit. Both of those things can really make the photo look better, but if you overdo them you can ruin the photo too. Here is what mine looked like when I was all done:

Be sure to check out I ♥ Faces to see all the amazing photos that were entered in this week’s contest.

One of the most frequent questions I get, especially for family sessions, is “What should we wear?” I have decided to start publishing one post per month with some ideas on what to wear for your portraits.

I love it when families coordinate colors, but do not all dress alike. It looks best when you have some variety. Many photographers recommend solid colors, but I love patterns. It works really well if, for example, one person has a busy or patterned dress or shirt and you dress other people in colors that you pull from that pattern. You can see that in my example below. The little girls dress is a cute pattern and the other family members are dressed in solid colors that coordinate with the dress.

I love layers and textures. Think about sweaters or jackets with shirts underneath. Corduroy and denim jackets are always great. I also love accessories like ties, scarfs, hats, boots, petti skirts, headbands, and anything else that adds a little something to the photos.

Enjoy!