Happy Valentine's Day!

First off, Happy Valentine's Day!

I couldn't resist doing a holiday photo shoot with everyone. I wanted to try doing a high key background, and have wanted to try for a while. But backdrops are expensive, and so are studio lights. Turns out, I don't need them. I ended up picking up this white backdrop from the fabric store. It was $6.99 per yard, I picked up three yards, and used a 50% off one item coupon, so ended up paying just over $10 for this backdrop.




I also don't have studio lights, and I don't know if I will ever have the money to invest in them. Or if I would use them enough to make it worth the investment in the first place. I don't even have a bounce flash. Instead, I used mostly window light, a reflector, and a four bulb lamp that I moved off to one side to try to even out the light on the background.




The pictures came out looking okay in RAW, but not awesome. So, I went into Lightroom and did a first ever for me. I invented my own preset. I named it "Bright White Valentine" because it basically made the backdrops bright and white and brought out the reds in the balloon (from Dollar Tree) and the red heels (from a thrift store in Toledo, OR on my birthday for $2). I still have a ton to learn about Lightroom, Photoshop, and editing in general, but I love how these pictures turned out.

Of course, I couldn't leave it at that. I ended up experimenting some and coming up with a few other favorite edits. I may have gone a bit overboard. If you are interested in seeing all of the photos from this shoot, look me up over on Flickr.

I can't decide which edit I like the most. Do you have a favorite? Like the clean white look above, or the faded vintage below? Whichever it is, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!