Happy New Year!!

This morning I woke up to the smell of posole cooking in the kitchen. There's only two occasions my momma' makes this Mexican delicacy--well it's not really a delicacy but that word just sounds cool. She either makes it on Christmas or new years, and yes, today is new years eve and a bowl of posole was a great start to my new years resolution diet. NOT!!! 2012 was a great year full of changes, surprises and awesome experiences and I seriously can't wait to see what 2013 brings along. It's a bran new spankin' year coming up so dream big and live it up with your friends and loved ones. As for me, a second round of posole awaits me in the kitchen and for this past year, I am sooo thankful for:

New friends that have challenged me
Family that has been there by my side
Old friends life would be empty without
I found out I'm going to be in aunt in 2013!
Awesome clients that make me realize I can actually do this whole photography thing.
My mom's posole.

Happy new year everyone!!!! :)

What I've been up to....

It's crazy how busy life gest.  One day your chillen' on the couch eating a Twix bar watching Netflix and then all of a sudden your having to write ten page papers every week, budgeting gas prices, and reminding kids at work everyday your name is Miss Fernanda, not Miss Fernandez. What can I say, I've been  super crazy these past couple of months. With school, work, church ministry (yes, church can get cra cra too, but in a good way) and my new boyfriend, I kid internet--mom, sorry if you got excited-- I haven't had time to pick up the camera or post anything on this bloggity. BUT, good news blog-ateers! I have a few shoots lined up in the next couple of weeks that I am super excited about. I have two new seniors that will be featured and a family that will soon rock it out for the camera. School is over for the time being, and I'm off from work for two weeks.(ThankYouSweetBabyJesus) so that means more Twix bars and reality television. Aaaaaand, Christmas is right around the corner and I've seriously been a scrooge by slacking on the Christmas shopping. But since we're in a recession, I've decided everyone is getting socks this year. But not just any socks, no no, that's just too boring. Seriously, what says Merry Christmas better than TOE socks right!!?? Hey, it's winter ya'll! But besides my Christmas shopping here are a few others things I've been up to these past few months of completely abandoning this blog and depriving you guys of my oh so exciting life.

I've finally cut sweets off my diet and decided to work out, ok, ya'll know that's a lie
I just bought a new laptop, that's true
I'm letting my hair grow out. My goal is to get Kim Kardashian hair
Jenni Rivera (a Mexican regional singer) died last week. My Mexican family has been in an uproar
I've been trying lipstick lately. SWAG! 
A few weeks ago I became a Jr. high leader at my church. Love it! When one of the girls made brownies for Sunday school I knew that was where I belonged.
I took an online class and I absolutely hated it. I got a C on it, but really, C stands for Cool.
I watched the last Twilight. (spoiler alert, sorry!) I almost thought life wasn't worth living when they made us believe Carlisle was dead. Not cool.
I went to an awesome young ladies retreat packed with awesomeness and the cupid shuffle. Long story internet.
My best friend Mariel is visiting from Texas, which means she'll probably take me to goodwill.
Been listening to a lot of indie music lately. I secretly wanna' be a hipster.
I've been having a lot of dance parties by myself. In my room. To Daddy Yankee 

 

This is still my weakness.

Mariel is in Cali!!!!! :)

 

My co-workers. Taking pictures is part of the job.

 

See, I told you my life was exciting! I mean, who doesn't want to have Kim Kardashian hair!!?? Anyways, stay posted for more shoots and more posts about my love for carbs coming soon! :)

Happy Thursday!

The "OG" look...

The other day I met up with a friend to take a few pictures of him for his business. He wanted some simple head shots and I admit I was kinda nervous because, well, taking pictures of guys is tooootally different than taking pictures of girls, which is what I've been used to so far.  With guys, poses are completely different, ususally much more simpler, and yelling out YOU LOOK FABULOUS!! behind the camera  usually never comes into play.  Yeah, awwwkward! And really, telling a guy to pop your hip! is wierd. So instead of shouting out super girly remarks the first thing that came out of my mouth was Do an OG look!! And for those of you who don't know ghetto talk, that stands for original gangster. Apperantly,  Alex turned out to be ghetto so he totally got what I was saying. After hating on my photography slang a few good laughs Alex looked like he belonged in a lowrider and I was able to capture the image below. So my advice for any photographer who has no idea what poses to use for guys, I'd say the OG look is a good start. Hey, anything to get a good shot.

Post-processing and getting kicked off the bird's nest...

I love taking pretty pictures, but what I like the most is taking those pretty pictures and making them even more prettier through a little thing called post-processing. Editing, in other words. Getting the right exposure, lighting, and ISO down are critical when shooting but after all that's set and done the creativity juices begin to flow when I open up my images in Photoshop. My older sister Arleth is a wedding photographer and she was the one that began getting me interested in photography. She  taught me the basics (exposure, iso, light reflectors, composition etc.) on how to shoot raw with an SLR camera in about one hour with a photoshoot she had me do of her, and after that she pretty much threw me off the birds nest and said "it's all you after this." She gave me a quick run-through in a day on how to import my images in Lightroom and Photoshop and like a little bird barely learning how to spread its wings in the photography little universe I had to pick up where we left off and I realized I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I'm still growing and this little birdie has alot of growing to do.

One of the things I had to teach myself how to used was Photoshop. Looking at some of the first photoshoots I did, I realized, well, I pretty much sucked.  First of all my exposure was off, my pictures we're too dark and and my photoshop skills weren't so great. Ok, they were wack. I was barely learning how to fly cuz' my sister threw me off the nest remember!! I'm kind of thankful she did though. That was I had to learn through trial and error. So far, I'd say my Photoshop skills have improved and now I feel a lot more comfortable in the types of actions I preferably like to use in my images. In this little bloggity post I wanna' show how I use post-process my images and how I use Photoshop to style my images and make them look more, well, pretty.

The actions I use in Lightroom are very minimal. I make sure that when I take a picture, my exposure and my ISO are right on the dot. That way it decreases the work I need to do on Lightroom. I ususally brighten or lighten my images just a tad bit and increase my black to 6. After Lightoom is done, I save my image and open them up with Photoshop.


In the picture below, the left image is the raw image and the right image is the final, edited version. In this particular image I brightened it up a bit, warmed it up with the "warm it up kris" action (15%), "get faded autumn" (10%), "pool party" (%15), "Lux soft" (20%) and I sharpened the image with "boutwell magic glass" (15%)

    ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/100 sec

         (raw image) ISO400 50mm f/2.5 1/125sec

(Final version) In Lightroom: Black vignet. In photoshop, "Detroit black and white" (70%) "Lux soft" (8%) sharpened it with "Boutwell Magic glass" (15%)

(Raw image on the left and final image on right) Brightened it up a bit, "get faded autumn" (10%), "pro-retouch" (20%), "lux soft" (15%), "Flare up golden" (8%), shrpened it with "Boutwell glass magic" (15%).
ISO200 50mm f/2.8 1/125sec

Staying sane...

It's crazy how life can get a little, well, crazy. I've been super busy lately. School has captured me in its web of endless homework and studying, I have a theory my students at work are out to get me, and my car has been running on E for the past two days because I'm too cheap to put gas. Yeah, like I said, crazy. Recently my stress load has gotten' a little more stressful because in just a few weeks I have to take a little exam called the English CSET. I call it the devil. It's a qualification for becoming an English teacher and I'm just taking the first out of three sections. For the next couple of weeks my life revolves around allegorical dictations, anthropomorphism (say what?), the rythmic rise and fall of oral language and other words I didn't even know were part of the English language. So pray I keep sanity in tact.

But in other good news, this past Sunday my sister and borther in law announced they're having their first baby!!! Which in turn will make me the coolest aunt, like ever. Can't wait to see that little face in April. <3

Happy Thursday!

Why I love Fall...

It's that time of year. The time that makes you wannna' snuggle up with a fuzzy blanket, wear toe socks and rock a cute scarf. I looooove fall.  Like a fat kid loves cake and I really love cake, all you readers know that. Today, I looked inside my closet and I saw my mustard yellow knitted sweater I bought a few days ago tucked inside like it was yearning to see world outside the doors of my closet. I exagerate internet, just go with the flow. Southern California weather is funky, and every Californian knows that. Mr. sun  seems to hang out the entire year, so when he decides to let some clouds in, that's when all mustard yellow sweaters break loose and the booty shorts are gone. Yes, I said booty, and no I don't wear them. So what's my point? Booty shorts are hootchie. I'm kidding. I don't have one. I just really like fall because I get to wear cute sweaters and scarves and I just wanted to post it on the world wide web. BAM! Those are the perks of having your own blog. You can write about toe socks and and mustard. With that said, I'm gonna' go buy myself a hot pumkin spice latte and play in a bundle full of fall leaves.

 

Happy fall ya'll! :)

Portraits: Viviana & Evon

They make each other laugh the minute one of them looks at the other. Vivian and Evon are sisters and this past Saturday I spent my afternoon soaking up the Cali sunset and getting my shoes dirty with these two ladies and it was nothing but long laughs and STOP making that wierd face remarks the entire time. Seriously, I love these girls, and it's not because they compliment my outfit everytime they see me even when I look toe up from the flo up and my hair looks like it's never seen a comb. They're some of the sweetest girls I know. We met at church and having them in front of my camera being all rawr n' stuff was awesome.

Viviana and Evon, you ladies rocked the camera and made my job a whole lot' easier. Thanks for being such fabulous models! Love ya!

And for starters, here's Viviana. Work that hair girl, work-it!

Evon, you're gorgeous girl.  

After a quick outfit change we headed back for some more pics, and Viviana, all I gotta say is fierce!

Fierceness all over the place!

And I'll end with my favorite.

M.I.A, my birthday and future contest!

I've been a little M.I.A lately, but that's what happens when a sistah gets a job and has tests to study for and blah blah blah. That's how it's been for the past couple weeks, but no worries my awesome posers (that's my new name for all you Pose Photography lovers. Cheesy, I know), I will be showcasing new shoots soon and I am super excited to post them on the blog. This Saturday I will be hanging out with some gorgeous little ladies for a senior shoot and something tells me it's gonna' be fabulous.  Also, I am in the process of organizing a contest in the next few months. A lucky girl will have the opportunity to be a model for day. You heard right. Model for a day!! The winner will receieve a FREE $50.00 gift card to Forever 21 stores for the purchase of an outfit that will be worn to a FREE photo shoot with yours truly with FREE 40 high resolution images on disc, and awesome FREE hair and makeup will also be given. I love free stuff. Then again, who doesn't? So stay posted for contest dates and more information. Holla!!!

Oh, and because posts are much more better with pictures, I celebrated my birthday this week and really, I couldn't have asked for a more amazing group of friends and awesome family to celebrate it with. On the Sunday before my birthday, I spent my afternoon at Buffalo Wild Wings with my young adult family from church sipping on mango lemonade and drowning our asian zing buffalo wings in ranch dressing, and ofcourse laughing at who knows what. And the other little details that came later this week made me realize I'm a blessed girl and I hope the years to come continue to be full of warm fuzzies, lots of hugs and amazing people around me. Here's a picture of a birthday cake a good friend of mine made me. She is clearly aware of my love affair with chocolate.

And because I love food, here's another picture of how the morning of my birthday looked. Some of my lady friends came over and cooked an awesome breakfast packed with an illegal amount of pancakes, crumb donuts, and Tapatio sauce.

 

Super woman...

Last Friday I receieved an e-mail from my school that said they had dropped me from the courses I had previously registered for. Apparantly my account stated I still owed money from last semester, a couple of hundreds to be exact, and being the calm and collected individual I have always been I simply took a deep breath and smiled. LIES internet!! I freaked out like no other and with the semester starting on Tuesday I wasn't sure if the issue would get resolved on time for me register again and start school. I called student accounts in frantic mode and banged my head on the desk a few times when I had to wait to be the next caller in line. So I waited patiently. LIES again!! I hung up and called again like ten more times until someone answered. And when someone did answer my instant reaction was to morph into Bonquisha and hope the person on the other line could somehow see my index finger moving in the air through the phone. But after a few seconds I calmed down as the very sweet lady on the other line promised she would get to the bottom of the issue. After about thirty minutes on the phone she apologized for the confusion and said their system had made a mistake. I could register for my courses, however, due to their honest mistake I had to fill out, again, a form that indicated I was a grad student instead of an undergrad. I could either fax it to them or bring it in person. I don't have a fax machine so I had to print it out, but it turns out the printer had ran out of ink. So I sat down, took a deep breath and kept my cool. Umm, yeah, LIES!!!!! I ran out the door with twenty dollars in my hand, hair looking like it was desperate for a comb, black nike work out shorts, flip flops and a torn up t-shirt and drove to Staples with my gas light on. I bought the ink in my ghetto attire, went back home and printed out the darn thing and drove to CBU. With my gas light on. I waited an hour at the financial aid office before I handed in my paper work and drove back home with just enough time to get ready for work. With my gas light on. Oh yeah, my little green honda hates me.

Yeah, I know what your thinking. I'm super woman, or I'm just crazy. Thinking back, I could have just called someone to print  out the form for me but remember, I'm not calm and collected. Anyways, I started school today so that means goodbye social life. Between work and school I'll be really busy this semester so pray I can keep my cool and to remember to comb my hair. And put gas in my car.  Labor day was great but now it's back to the real world. Hooray!....LIES!!!!

Happy Tuesday! :)

Little pink piggy banks

We spent ou morning eating blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes at a local Denny's, and browsing through racks of used clothes. One of my best friends was visiting from Texas and yesterday we spent the entire morning and afternoon talking smack, dancing in my car, trying on used up jeans and spending four dollars all together watching Katy Perry's: Part of Me movie at the two dollar movie theatre. My friend, Mariel, she's a budget diva. This girl can have a great time under $20.00 so when she told me she was coming to California  I told her one of the things we needed to do together was visit Goodwill.  She almost died when I told her I had never been there. You see, she doesn't believe in spending more than ten dollars on a shirt and this girl always looks cute. I told her she needed to teach me her bargain shopping ways and when we visited the shoe section I asked her "What if I get fungus!!??" out loud. I was being serious. She just thought I was exagerating. Whatever. I only get to see her about once a year when she comes and visits so the time we get to spend time together is great.

The other day she gave me a little piggy bank she bought back in Tay-xus (you like my southern accent huh?) so I could save up some money to go visit  her. So far there's ten dollars in it because Mariel put them in there to give me a head start. That can get me a pack of gum, a magazine for the flight and like twenty shirts from Goodwill. Just sayin'.

Happy Friday! :)

80's styled shoot: Shiany

Last Monday I attended a job orientation for my new job and what was suppose to be only three hours quickly turned into four. After biting my lip a few times and looking at the clock every five minutes I rushed out the door once it was over and probably broke the speed limit coming to my house. (I promise this story has a point, just wait) For months I had in mind showcasing a styled shoot and when I asked Ally, with glitz and glam if she wanted to partner up with hair and makeup she was all for it. And needless to say, looking at the pictures, she completely brought to life what I had in mind. A hundred times better! And the model? Well, we couldn't have been more lucky and spoiled than to have Shiany on board with us. We met a few years ago at a church youth group we both attended and we've kept in touch ever since. If any photographer out there wants to use her as a model, sorry, I already made her sign a contract saying that she belongs to Pose Photography. I'm kidding internet. But we already agreed she's my go to girl when it comes to future styled shoots. haha Oh, and the theme? tun tun tun.... modern 80's! I wanted something edgy, funky and different for this shoot and needless to say, I think all those three components were present in this shoot.

So, back to my breaking the speed limit story. I had told Shiany and Ally to meet at my house for hair and makeup at 4pm but because of my extra hour at orientation I didn't end up getting to the house till' about 5pm. Shiany was stuck in rush hour traffic and Ally's phone wasn't working so there in my car I died. Figuratively of course.  What if we don't have enough time for hair and makeup? What if we don't have enough sunlight!!?? Luckily, all three of us ended up meeting up at the same time and Ally stuck it out like a pro with hair and makeup. We ended up leaving the house when we were suppose to and the sunlight? Perfect. Ally and Shiany, thank you thank you thank you. I had a blast with you two!

Pose Photography is all about being fierce so I asked Shiany to define "fierce" in her own words. This is what she said: 

"Being fierce is not being afraid of feeling empowered and fabulous." -Shiany.

Well said girl. Go on with yo fierce self! 

   

                                                                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                      Happy Monday! :)

Quick update...

So it's been a few days since I've written a post on this bloggity of mine. I promise you it's cuz I've been busy! I got back from Mexico on Sunday, which by the way was uhhhh-mazing! I had the opportunity to meet some amazing children who sincerely stole a little piece of my heart and gave me a whole different perspective on life. And even though my team and I were rocking the hot mess look for four days our hearts didn't want to leave because we still wanted to soak up the blessings this trip brought to us. Also, I recently just got a new job, which I love, and it's keeping a sista' busy.

The Monday after the trip I had the privilage of being part of a styled shoot I had already been planning for months. Me and Ally (aka, my partner and crime), from glitz and glam, teamed up together once again to bring something edgy and funky to the table with a modern 80's fashion shoot and let me tell you that the shoot was nothing short of amazing. Our model, Shiany, serioulsy owned the shoot like nobody's business and I am sooo excited to showcase it next week on this bloggity! Some of you have already seen a sneek peek of the shoot on my facebook page, but stay tuned for more! :) I'm also in the process of changing up the branding of this little photog business of mine and expanding my pricing a little more and also including some packaging in my pricing for all you who wanna' strike a pose! Get more for your buck, that's what I'm going for! haha :) Along with all that I'm planning on doing a few contests and giveaways. There's gonna be a few changes but I'm super excited for them! Thank you so so much for all you faithful blog readers and pose photography lovers. You guys seriously rock! And I'm gonna' stop writing cuz I don't wanna' get all emotional and stuff. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Happy Friday! :)

Heading out to the mother land....

Yesterday afternoon my mom made some really bomb tacos topped with some home made salsa and my taste buds did a happy dance. And so did my belly. I loooooove Mexican food and this week I am super excited because I'll be spending the week in the mother land of tacos. Yes, Mexico! I'm heading back to ma' roots, ajua!! I'm participating in a missions trip with my church and something tells me I should take like six rolls of toilet paper, and lots of sunblock because we will camping out on the beach while taking care of over eighty kids whose mom's have been victims of trauma and abuse. Caaa-rayyzy! I forgot to buy some dry shampoo so hopefully the kids don't hate me because my hair will be a hot mess. Anyways, our Mexico adventure begins tomorrow so pray for traveling mercies and good hair! I will answering e-mails as soon as I return on Sunday so please bare with me! :)

Happy Tuesday!

Photography humor...

So I'm on an internet search rampage as we speak and I can't help but search for all these photography wearable goodies I totally want because their totally cool and totally funny. This makes sense because  I'm totally cool and totally funny [hey, you, stop rolling your eyes].  Anyways, my birthday is in September. Hint Hint internet! And plus, I wanted to start of the weekend with a little photography humor. Because I'm funny, remember.

"I shoot people" sleeve. Be still my heart.

                                                                                     

This is what photographers say when they're in love.

And finally, my favorite.