I am gearing up for another “SHINE ~ Unleash Your Awesome” workshop, and I’m so excited! When I first started out with photography, I had no idea how to edit an image. I relied on actions and a lot of guesswork to get an okay image. Over the years, through lots and lots of practice and lots of trial and error, I found what worked for me. It took me a long time to even consider using Lightroom but I now am so comfortable editing in Lightroom. It is so easy to edit one image from a set of images and then just sync them all. I save SO much time now. I’ve always loved teaching (all my siblings are teachers) and so this workshop for me is a chance for me to teach something that I love doing: taking images and processing them.

If you are ready to take control over your editing and get the results YOU want, then this workshop is for you.

In this image, I loved the interaction but the colors were drab, and dang it, I wish I had noticed that the little girl’s dress was hiked up a little bit too much. No worries. I can fix all of that. I did most of the editing of this image in Lightroom, and then brought it into Photoshop for some final touches.

Who doesn’t love a good sky? I know I’m obsessed with them. A blown out sky can be so boring and adding a sky can make all the difference. Problem is, it’s hard to get a sky looking believable. Learn all my secrets of how I add a sky while keeping it looking natural. And yes, that is my foot in the original image. This was shot with a 15mm fisheye. When I first shot this image and all the ones shot that day, I was really disappointed in my SOOC’s. The color was so drab when I looked through my viewfinder. I remember driving home really upset. But once they were edited, they popped right off my screen! They went from drab to fab. Here, I achieved beautiful rich colors in Lightroom and then brought it into Photoshop to improve my framing by adding another tree. I also flipped the image and will talk about why I did that in the workshop. And please excuse my son’s expression. He wasn’t so thrilled with me making him hold his sister’s hand. Ha!

I loved the action in this, but regrettably, I had cropped off more of the bottom than I would have liked. No problem. Photoshop to the rescue! And that fence? Meh. That had to go.  And thank you Lightroom for making it so easy to get my colors just the way I wanted them, rich and warm. And then, boom, sync all of those images from the series, and I’m done and playing with my kids, instead of fretting in front of my computer.

I loved his expression (he saw a bee!) but again, the color needed work, and that road behind him really was distracting. No problem. Want to see more from this session? Right here.

This workshop is just around the corner. Don’t miss out, because honestly, I don’t know when the next one will be.

Interested in learning more? Get some details right here! 

And be sure to read the reviews. Makes me proud. …

I’m so excited to be starting a new blog circle adventure with this fabulously talented group of photographers! We want to push ourselves this year with exploring light. Each month, we will pick a different type of light, and post images that we have shot using that type of light! This month, our theme is window light! We chose window light this month since for many people across the United States, the weather has been less than sunny and warm, so shooting indoors seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately for me, I was busy shooting outside since the weather has been fabulous. So, alas, I didn’t have too many window light images. Thankfully I had a cooperative cat.

Let’s get started!

These were actually shot on Christmas day, but seeing I didn’t have too many of my kids in window light, I’m including it.

I visited my sweet friend who just so happens to have a darling son and a gorgeous kitchen with lovely window light. Score.

This cat spends most nights outside all night, and then sleeps on our bed all day. Silly kitty.

And I think these count as window light? A couple of quick shots of my little dude after picking him up from school. He’s in the car with the window up. I liked the hazy look of them.

Next up is the multi-talented photographer, designer, illustrator, editing genius, Lynn Nalty of Square Balloon!

Go check it out!

And if you want to see more of my work, check me out on Facebook!

Want to be sure you hear the latest Laura Morita Photography updates on my workshops, mentoring, or other such photography related awesomeness? Sign up for my newsletter!

 …

The holidays have ended and things have simmered back down. I finally have a little time to blog some recent favorites.

First, my family. My insane, crazy, chaotic, annoying, hilarious, perfect perfect family. This Christmas the entire Morita family converged upon the same area all at once, for the first time ever. We have never gotten a family picture that included every member of our family…until now. And this was no easy task. We had to figure out a color scheme. We needed to coordinate without appearing matchy matchy. We needed a location that accommodate our big family. We needed a miracle. And um, yeah, it helped to have someone who just so happens to know how to photoshop, as multiple head swaps were in order. Go me!

The favorite family member is on the far left, in case you were wondering.

Dang, I love those people. Every single one of them. I am beyond blessed to have such an amazing (and beautiful) family. They make me whole.

Getting pictures of my kids lately has been entirely tricky. They know all my tricks, and simply aren’t interested in supporting my photographer obsession. Shame on them. So, I get what I can get, and sometimes I get lucky.

If it looks like my son is enjoying being hugged by his sister, trust me when I tell you, he does not. Lol. He’s more cringing with a smile on his face. And since I like to show off my picture editing, here’s a little before and after. The grass was a little icky, seeing that it hasn’t rained here in, oh, I don’t know, forever.

 Here’s how my son really feels about holding his sister’s hand. The pure torture I put him through.

And another before and after. This was mostly edited using Adobe Lightroom. I love how easy it is to edit one image, getting the color how I want it, and then syncing all my other images with the click of a button. Lightroom has sped up my workflow tremendously! I only brought this one into Photoshop to add the tree on the right. I just felt like it helped frame them better.

How about a couple pictures of my family? I’ll be back later to post more. But for now:

My brother and his daughter. Father and daughter. Perfection.

When he blew the bubble, I was expecting it to be much much bigger. My niece’s reaction simply didn’t seem appropriate for the size of the bubble. See what I mean? I think my Photoshop tricks payed off here, wouldn’t you say?

My beautiful nephew:

My handsome nephew:

His beautiful twin sister:

And one of my kids where for whatever reason, they just cooperated. Wait…was I begging? Threatening? Bribing? Yeah… probably.

I’m hoping to be better at blogging this year. We’ll see how that goes, seeing that my kids have ALMOST put an entire boycott on me and my camera.

If you are looking at these images and wanting to get color like I do, then you should definitely check out my SHINE workshop. You’ll learn how to better use adobe photoshop and lightroom. I promise. For more information, CHECK IT OUT RIGHT HERE.

And just in case I don’t get better at blogging, you can always follow me on Facebook! …