Which brings me to the point of this haphazard post. Life is good. I’ve been so blessed to enjoy some of the most ordinary, yet beautiful things in life. Bon Iver. Fresh mornings. And one mighty good-looking husband. This week in particular has gotten me all reflective and sappy and, if you can believe it, even more Alyse-like. (Case in point: I cried at an Oreo commercial just the other day. Yeah.. I know.) The icing on the cake was receiving brownies from a client’s mother (an absolute stranger to me) who lives more than a thousand miles away. She thanked me for making her daughter and soon-to-be son so happy with their engagement images. That’s it. Just happy. Oreo cookies, or gourmet fudge brownies, you can only assume my reaction..

I am just so thankful to be doing what I do. Often times I get consumed in the editing, the marketing, the planning. And then clients come along, who validate what I do and why I do it, over and over again. I asked Patricia, daughter of brownie-momma, if I could share this message she sent me a couple weeks ago. Because it rocked my world. And because it made me so ridiculously appreciative of my clients, for trusting me to document their love. It is a privilege beyond my wildest dreams. Truly..

“I just wanted to send you another quick note of thanks. The response to the photographs from family and friends has been otherworldly! I have to say I’ve probably gone back to view the pictures 100+ times (and I wish that was an exaggeration).  You captured us… our family so perfectly.  It’s really the response from everyone that means the most…’You can see the happiness and peace… The pictures are so YOU.’ And for you to see that in us… Well it’s a gift, so thank you.”

“It’s hard to see your relationship from the outside, when you are in it, and I guess this is really the first time I’ve seen Mike and I as parents, and as a couple from everyone elses vantage point. And through your photography, I’ve realized even more how special what we have is… Thank you for that gift.”

To my brides and grooms: Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. For including me in your love stories. And for making life so chocolaty-sweet.

I leave you with a few images of the newest sample albums to grace my shelves. If you’ve ever wondered “What, oh what do albums from Alyse French Photography look like?!” look no further than here. And f’real, I’m sure you’ve ALL thought that, right? ;)

And my brownies. :) I assure you, they were gone in no time.

Happy Friday and have a fabulous weekend!!

I’m happy to interrupt our regularly scheduled honeymooning, i.e. drinking of martinis at 9:30 in the morning so we can watch the USA vs SVN game at a local bar, to introduce to you all something my husband and I have worked very hard on and can finally let the world see!

Once upon a time when I was still in college, I was given the opportunity to create a DIY promo for my brand. With me all concept and Dylan all video, we spent close to a month making my vision come to life. And we’re both stoked with the results!

Many thanks go out to Bruce Strong, for allowing me the creative license to see this project through to the end. To Andrew and Adrienne, for being drop dead gorgeous and for trusting us with two huge cameras all up in yo’ faces for an entire day. And to Dylan, for your mad video skillz and enthusiasm in helping me create on a daily basis.

So without further Grammy acceptance speechage.. This is me. :) I hope you enjoy!

Stay tuned in the coming week for more on our wedding and our trip!

On Saturday, Dylan and I realized a massive conundrum in wedding planning (among the many, many at this point). We still needed to get our marriage license, but there were no offices open on the weekend, which is the only time Dylan and I can actually be present together. Props to mom for making some magic happen and connecting us with her good pal the town clerk, who licensed us even without our birth certificates. The funniest part of the whole thing was how many questions Dylan had to answer about himself and his parents, and how the clerk filled in all my answers without asking because everyone in Sharon knows everything about everyone else.

What will I ever write about once this wedding is over with? :) Hopefully you can deal with more wedding drama for the next three Tuesdays!

I have sad news: Mony is being a real jerk lately. :( He’s no longer my sweet little boy. He’s an old crochety man who meows persistently in an extremely annoyed “PET ME ALREADY!” tone. I’m sorry to say Mony, but I think you’re losing it. And you’re making it easier to leave you and get a bulldog named Sully instead. :)

RestorationHardware.com. Once you discover this site, you’ll never go back. I mean, you WILL go back. Over and over and over again. I plan to make my apartment look just like this website. One day…

Yesterday was a monumental day in the life of Alyse: I had sushi I didn’t like. :( T’was very sad.

So, Dylan and I desperately need your help! 1) PLEASE pray for sunshine on June 13th. I keep checking the forecast 20 days in advance, but only see a historical national average of around 70 degrees. Pray for not too hot. Not too cold. And birdies chirping in the air! 2) We are finally assembling our wedding reception play list! Shout-out to my girl Lindsay for footing us her list! Yes, I know, I don’t deserve such things. BUT! Are there any songs that you just could never live without? Comment it up!!

Cue the guilt: this is the shortest Tuesday evaaa. But my to-do list grows longer every day. I will leave you with ONE more sneak of Thursday’s post, if that’s quite alright! I know you must be dying from anticipation, right? ;)

Happy Tuesday! And don’t forget to comment with song ideas!! :)

Meet: Rochelle! Not gonna lie, when I first met Rochelle earlier this year, I immediately started daydreaming about shooting her portraits. It’s not that I’m weird. (Okay, maybe a little..) It’s just that this girl is GORGEOUS. And such a natural. Here are a few from our day!!

Backlight makes me giddy. :)

Work. It. Girl.

Gahh, Rochelle.. Are you for real?

Rochelle making wind look really, really good.

Can’t get enough close-ups of these gorgeous eyes! :)

In love with all of these colors.

New fave:

Rochelle, can you help my hair look like yours??

Accessorizin’.

ANTM Cycle 15 winner, anybody?

Aren’t these two just plain sweet? :)

Last but not least, I leave you with me and Stephie, the brain behind it all. :)

Happy Thursday!!

I have finally assembled my “101 in 1001″ – a list of 101 goals to be accomplished in 1001 days, because yearly resolutions are just too darn intimidating! Now, I’m not gonna lie.. It was definitely a struggle to come up with such a long list, (and I have taken a bit of inspiration from some other lists I’ve read) but I am completely stoked about every single item! Take note, I realize a lot of these goals seem way, way beyond my reach, but that’s why they’re called goals, right?

I’m planning on blogging about each goal once it’s been achieved, and will be modifying this post occasionally to show the dates of completion. The end date is December 1, 2012. Good timing too, as the world is gonna end just 11 days later. ;P

So, take a look! And let me know if you’re interested in helping me fulfill any of these goals! Then, make a list of your own, and let me know how I can help you with yours!! SOO fun! :)

1) Pay off my school loans

2) Paint my nails red at least once a month

3) Hold a Martha Stewart-like dinner party for a small group of close friends

4) Keep fresh flowers in my home as often as possible

5) Finish a whole coloring book

6) Blog at least three days a week

7) Institute monthly FAQ video blog posts

8) Revamp website(s)

9) Design and order our wedding album

10) Give wedding albums to both sets of parents

11) Get a bulldog and name him Sullivan

12) Do one thing every day to improve my business

13) Shoot a wedding in a country I’ve never been to before

14) Shoot a wedding in a state I’ve never been to before

15) Visit Ireland with Dylan (aka, the Morrissey homeland)

16) Vacation in California

17) Convince Dylan to move to California

18) Wear skirts/dresses daily when weather permits/if I feel like it

19) Try out a yoga class

20) Furnish our home with Anthropologie-like thriftyness

21) Sell something on Etsy

22) Do something nice for someone anonymously

23) Randomly send someone some small item they mention wanting

24) Send thank you notes for small, unexpected reasons

25) Give away one free wedding package on the bloggity (through a specific selection process)

26) Invent some awesome photo-business-related thing

27) Be interviewed as an “expert” for an article

28) Second shoot for a photographer that I admire

29) Photograph somebody I admire

30) Conceptualize a shoot, have it styled by local vendors, and shoot it

31) Try a new hairstyle

32) Join a book club

33) Read through the whole Bible

34) Watch a sunrise completely uninterrupted

35) Watch a sunset completely uninterrupted

36) Write, compose, and record a song for Dylan

37) Drink 8 full glasses of water a day

38) Go on a hike

39) Start and maintain a dream journal

40) Develop killer product packaging

41) Develop “after booking” gifts

42) Develop referral gifts

43) Develop an efficient system for submitting to wedding publications

44) Purchase filing cabinets & get organized!

45) Literally count my blessings

46) Book 25-30 weddings a year

47) Institute a regular date night

48) Throw a fabulous birthday party for a friend

49) Learn to whistle with my fingers in my mouth

50) Learn to snap for real for the first time in my life

51) Do something sweet for my boy every day

52) Get published on a wedding blog

53) Get published in a wedding magazine

54) Purchase canvas gallery wraps for our studio space

55) Purchase sample wedding/engagement albums

56) Increase Twitter followers to 500

57) Increase Google Reader subscribers to 500

58) At least double Facebook page fans

59) Purchase 27” iMac for in-office workflow

60) Take advantage of Showit + sites for clients

61) Attend WPPI 2011

62) Network, network, network

63) Start my own workshops

64) Mentor a new photographer

65) Discover a new musical artist for myself every month

66) Take a multi-vitamin every day!

67) Try one new restaurant a month

68) Get married! (Duh! This should have been number 1!)

69) Make some awesome article of clothing/jewelry that I wear all the time

70) Become a better guitar player (haven’t touched it in a while)

71) Buy at least one thing from every flea market I go to

72) Take a class with Dylan in something fun

73) Make a legit cake with fondant and purty decorations just like the Cake Boss

74) Have lunch with someone business related whom I don’t know very well once a month

75) Make daily lists to keep my schedule more organized and productive

76) Take at least one image I am happy with each day

77) Enter at least one photo competition

78) Get some new headshots

79) Write down all my business ideas and put together a legit plan to implement them

80) Update website after every 3 weddings shot

81) Incorporate some form of wedding videography into my photo packages (either outsourced or done myself)

82) Institute an internship program

83) Win a WPJA award

84) Create a consistent email newsletter

85) Go to 3 major workshops

86) Speak at a photo convention

87) Read one book per month to benefit my business

88) Take my sisters-in-law on a fun trip, just the three of us

89) Have people over to our home regularly (practice hospitality)

90) Keep Sundays as a day of rest

91) Get to bed by 11pm on weekdays (gotta be an adult now, guys..)

92) Take a martial arts or self-defense course

93) Become CPR certified

94) Buy something over 100 years old

95) Finish a 365-day photo project

96) Start pre-designing wedding albums

97) Write down the systems of my business – create a manual of what I do

98) Hire Promise Tangeman to re-brand my business

99) Trick out my emails – customize and personalize with my brand

100) Implement surveys to gather client feedback

101) Buy more shoes

This video will explain why waaay better than I can! Give ‘er a look!

If you’re a photographer in need of a blog do-over, I would strongly recommend teaming with ProPhotoBlogs. They have been an absolute dream to work with!! And get this! If you use the discount code ALYFRE288 when purchasing your fabulous new blog, you’ll get $10 off of your purchase! Now, how could you say no to that?!

Happy Thursday!

All jokes aside, GA is one flipping incredible tool that those of us with a web presence can use to pinpoint how people find our sites AND how they explore them. My GA account allows me to see visits to both my blog and website, as well as individual pageviews, how many pages are looked at per visit, the average time spent on my site(s), what percentage of visitors are on my site(s) for the first time, and on and on and on. GA also provides a map overlay that pinpoints down to the town any given visitor’s location. I’m not gonna lie, it makes me feel pretty special to see that somewhere in Nouméa, New Caledonia, someone is taking a look-see at my work! (P.S. Am I the only one who didn’t know New Caledonia existed?)

But my favorite aspect of GA is that it provides a traffic sources overview, where you can see what percentages of visitors find you through referring sites as opposed to direct traffic as opposed to search engines. Besides the obvious benefits this knowledge can provide for adjusting your SEO rankings, it also just makes me laugh! Get ready for some of the most recent, CRAZY keyword searches through which people have found my blog. SO weird. :)

I’m pretty sure this one is due to this post.

A mix of this post and this post, perhaps? :)

This one just makes me smile. :)

I know I’m pretty open about my age on my blog.. But this is a little creepy! Haha!! Psst, I’m 22. :)

And I’ll leave you with the most interesting keyword search. I know I’ve written about bulldogs, but butterflies?

Happy Wednesday!

We’ll start with two pictures you should all be familiar with if you’ve read this post or this post. :) Can’t seem to get enough images of Liz, a true beauty and a new friend I’m so thankful to have met!

There’s just something about this makeshift veil that I absolutely love. So organic and simple and fun.

I cannot get over the Lincklaen House. Will one of my brides please get married there?!

Same door, different model. Meet Lauren. :) Such a natural!

This next image just makes me happy. Could be the accidental backlighting that worked to my advantage, or the combo of Lauren’s cowboy boots and hat. Just adorable!

Our last model is Christina, who has hair and skin I would kill for.

Yeah, I told you.. What a beautiful bride she will make one day!

Major thanks goes out to all those who made this workshop possible!

Organizer extraordinaire: Mabyn Ludke Photography

Venue: The Lincklaen House

Wardrobe: Spy Baby Bridal

Makeup: Donna Cuoco

Happy Sunday!!

It’s no question that Liz already has amazing skin and a gorgeous glow about her. But you can always, always, always do something to enhance an image so your bride feels the most beautiful she’s ever felt! So let’s get to it!

Before getting down and dirty with airbrushing, a little reminder: I shoot raw, convert to .JPG in Photoshop, and use my trusty Totally Rad Actions to get the job done. What results is a much faster workflow, and good, quality images. No complaints here! After you’re done color-correcting your images, always (and I mean always) sharpen them! (It also helps to have a tac-sharp prime lens! Aka, my precious little 50mm 1:4.) As you’ll see, I’ve also enhanced Liz’s eyes just a tad using TRA‘s Select-O-Pop (amazing tool!). The trick is to never use 100% opacity. Always work in layers. And try to stay anywhere between 20 and 50%.

Now for the fun stuff! Airbrushing! Dun, dun, DUN!! This used to be SO daunting to me. (Sometimes still is.) But here is my technique. (Please note that this is only MY technique, and there are a myriad ways of getting the same result!)

First… You’ll usually want to use your spot healing brush to get rid of any blemishes or flaws. (On Liz, I really didn’t have to, but it’s a good habit of using the spot healing brush before going further!) Then create a duplicate layer by dragging your background layer onto the “Create a new layer” portion of the layers palette. (Wow, how many times could I possibly say “layer” in the same sentence?) Once you’ve gotten this far, go to Filter (in your top menu) and then Blur, and then Surface Blur.

After selecting Surface Blur, you’ll want to tweak your radius and threshold settings until you get your desired effect. This puts an overall blur on the entire surface of your image, hence, “Surface Blur.” Click OK!

After this step, it is muy importante to go back up to Filter > Blur and then select Smart Blur, as it smoothes any edges within your photograph without adversely affecting image sharpness or fine detail.

Once there, you’ll again have to tweak your settings. But make sure your preview window is zoomed in on an edge in your photograph!

You may be thinking, “Why is Alyse studying the ‘Theories of Attribution, and Fritz Heider’s Naïve Theory’?” (I was in psych class when this screen shot was taken.. Woops!). Or more likely, you may be thinking, “Why on earth would I want my entire image to be one huge blur?!” Well here’s the coolest thing about Photoshop.. You can create Layer Masks! (More about that in a second.) Go to Layer > Layer Mask > Hide All, as seen below.

By selecting Hide All, you’ve told Photoshop to replace your current blurred layer with an imaginary black layer. Woah, WHAT?!?! Let me try to explain a little more. You will not actually see any black on your image. Here’s how I like to think of layer masks… Black and white are the default colors for layer masks. A black layer mask hides all, while a white layer mask reveals all. You might also think of it this way: Black = darkness = no visibility; and white = light = visibility. Do you follow? If you check out your layer palette, like in the image below, you’ll see your current layer has black layer linked to it. This is your mask. So how do you airbrush? You select your paintbrush tool from the left, use your left and right brackets to increase/decrease the size of your brush, bring brush hardness down to a minimum via the menu underneath File, Edit, and so on, and then simply paint on your airbrush. One word of caution, you must be painting with the color white for any of this to work, because after all, white is what enables you to see your blur layer, and thus, your airbrush. As you can see, I’ve only done one side of Liz’s face so you can tell the difference.

I then tend to take my eraser tool (at around 50% opacity) and use it on most of the edges in my photo (i.e., the nose, the lips, the eyes, dimples, etc.). The final step is to change your current layer from “Normal” (within the layers palette) to “Luminosity.” And then just adjust opacity as needed (especially if you feel like you overdid it just a tad), and you’re ready to watermark and show the world!

And the final image, complete with sharpening, airbrushing, and eye enhancement is..

I know this seems like a long and tedious process. It can be. But if you do it enough, you won’t even have to think about it. If this will help just one person, I’ll be happy. If not, remember, there are tons of different airbrushing techniques, and this is just mine. :)

If you have any questions pertaining to my workflow in or out of Photoshop, or anything else you’d like me to cover, ask in the comment section, and I’ll get to it next week!

Happy Friday!!

Here is an image straight out of camera (SOOC from here on out).

I happen to LOVE the candid emotion of this shot, and the beautiful light pouring onto Ryan and Molly’s faces. BUT, it could still use some work! The lens I was using at the time could only stop down to an aperture of 2.8. I typically like to shoot wide open, because I love the creamy goodness that results from shallow depth of field (DOF). Another great thing about shooting wide open (meaning, shooting at your largest aperture, which is the same thing as shooting at the lowest numbered f/stop on your aperture ring) is the natural vignette it helps achieve. However, here, a 2.8 zoom lens didn’t really cut it, vignette-wise. Here’s where post-processing comes into play!

Before doing anything else, I must always first convert my .nef (RAW) file to a .jpg in Photoshop. (There are many advantages of shooting RAW, but maybe we’ll get into that some other time.) Then, with my trusty little Totally Rad Actions, I am able to achieve my desired effect in a matter of 60 seconds. First, I bump up the color using TRA‘s “Punch Out!!!” at 20%. The key to TRA‘s is NOT using effects at 100% opacity. You have to play with it until it looks natural. Second, I’d like for an even greater vignette to highlight the light on my subjects’ faces. I use the “Burn Out” action at, get this – 70%. I like, NEVER use this action at anywhere near over 30 or 40%. But for this image, I wanted as much of a vignette as I could get without it feeling artificial. Third, I throw “A Better Web Sharpen” into the mix (100%), and then do a little airbrushing (more on my airbrushing technique at some point if anyone is interested). The last step (although, it could have been done at any step in the game, is knocking down the exposure of the entire image by -0.15. Although I love the light in the photo, there’s a bit of harshness that can be controlled by decreasing exposure in post-processing.

And voilà!! Here is the final image!

Recap: Punch Out!!! – 20%; Burn Out – 70%; A Better Web Sharpen – 100%; Exposure (not TRA) – -0.15

I hope this is helpful to those of you looking into different post-processing techniques. To check out Totally Rad Actions, go to: GetTotallyRad.com!!

Happy Wednesday! :)