jessicadowneyphoto.com

Project Ten – Soft

Jessica Downey — Fri, 10 May 2013 05:57:39 +0000

She’s known as Beatrix the Beautiful Bunny and she’s a favorite around here. And she’s sooooft… Hop on over to Raw Footage Photography to see Sohie’s take on the theme.

Vintage Kitchen – Workshop

Jessica Downey — Wed, 01 May 2013 18:45:47 +0000

At my beginners DSLR workshops we do a lot of hands-on learning! I teach each concept by explaining it, showing lots of photo examples, showing everyone how to do it on their own camera, and then we go out and DO IT! This series of images shows off the set up we used at the last workshop to practice the technique of focusing on still subjects. It’s a great way to put my ever-growing vintage collection to work!

Project Ten – Books

Jessica Downey — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:00:10 +0000

I have a thing for books. I have greatly enjoyed losing myself in a book ever since I was very young. These days I rarely have time for that luxury, but I do very much love to see these vintage beauties decorating every room in my house. And do you know what else I love? Project Ten! It has been so refreshing and invigorating to plan photo shoots for myself, outside of my regular client sessions. I have just been having such a great time with it. And the excitement and anticipation to see what the other photographers will come up with is the icing on the proverbial cake! So without further ado, here is my interpretation of this month’s theme – “books”.

Don’t forget to hop over to Alana Harris Photography to see her “books” post!

Blossoming – Child Session

Jessica Downey — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:22:07 +0000

Some of my favorites from a recent session. There’s just no way to not love a little girl in a vintage pink dress in an orchard full of blossoms! Add in some magical sunlight and a delicate crown of flowers and you can’t help but swoon.

Cropping Ratios – Photography Tips

Jessica Downey — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 02:49:51 +0000

When you print a photo as an enlargement, you are not only changing the size of the image, but changing the shape as well. Just like wide screen and full screen movies have different height-to-width ratios, so do different standard picture sizes. Take a look to see how different picture sizes will affect your image…

Any DSLR (with the exception of a medium-format or large-format camera) shoots in the 4×6 ratio. This means that when you make a 4×6 print, it will look exactly the way it’s framed in-camera. But if you enlarge it to a 5×7, you can see that some of the height will get cropped off. With an 8×10, even more height is lost. So if you had something important at the very top it would get cut out. And you can see the ratios of other common sizes in the diagram as well. In the 20×24 size, the the colorful lanterns get completely cut out of the image. This is definitely something to keep in mind while taking pictures. I usually try to frame my photo the way I want it, but then zoom out a bit to leave some extra cropping room. If you’ll be making enlargements, this will really pay off in the end.

Avery’s Strawberry Party – Personal

Jessica Downey — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 07:20:05 +0000

In our family we’ve always just had very informal birthday celebrations. The “party” consisted of a cake with our immediate family and sometimes a few extended family members as well. But my daughter Avery was getting to the point where I really thought she would enjoy a bona fide party complete with a beautiful dessert table, guests and games. And being able to work on occasion with Kim of the TomKat Studio had given me the motivation and inspiration to plan a wonderful party for Avery’s fourth birthday!

I got together a few theme ideas and from those, Avery chose the strawberry theme. Since it was my very first party planning venture, I thought it would be best to keep the guest list small – just her classmates from preschool and church. We had a lot of fun coming up with all the beautiful elements for the dessert table, and I’m SO happy with all the talented vendors and the wonderful work they did to make this party really special! Be sure to check out the links after you feast your eyes on the pictures! And don’t forget to check out Kim’s sweet write up about the party on the TomKat Studio blog!

Cake and cupcakes – Cuteology Cakes - Vanilla bean cake with fresh strawberry filling and Swiss meringue buttercream.

Party supplies – The TomKat Studio – Milk glass cake stands, wooden spoons, jute twine (for the parfaits), strawberry candy cups (for the yogurt covered pretzels), and berry baskets (for the heart cookies).

Shortbread heart cookies – Made by Life Created, recipe can be found here.

Avery’s top was custom made by Hustlemama Handmade.

Party games – Hustlemama Handemade – old fashioned bean bag toss and charming little matching game.

Doily banner – Pebbles in my Pocket

The other treats were made by my mom and I, and you can find the recipes here: strawberry parfaits, cheesecake stuffed strawberries (made with the same filling recipe as the parfaits), strawberry pistachio bark and strawberry mousse.

Project Ten – Treasures

Jessica Downey — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 03:06:56 +0000

Things my little girl treasures: her first trip to the beach, the sand under her toes, the mezmerizing aquamarine waves and perfect delicate sea shells. I treasure her… the wind playing with her hair, the sun warming her ivory skin. So blessed to witness her sweet fascination with an experience that I sometimes take for granted. I treasure these images… Make you way over to 505 Pictures for more treasures.

Joy – Family Session

Jessica Downey — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 04:16:40 +0000

Getting a little teary over what this sweet mom told me:

“I want to tell you something. I was anticipating this photo shoot all the way since August. I had been admiring your work and I was SO excited… I put a lot of effort into hair-cuts/outfits/styling. My hopes were so high that this shoot would capture the magic that is our family.

And you nailed it.

The images that you captured are such a beautiful, warm golden example of my beautiful girls. I cannot thank you enough. We will treasure these photos forever!”

Project Ten – Pink

Jessica Downey — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:30:32 +0000

I’m so happy to be part of the Project Ten blog circle - four other amazing photographers and I interpret a monthly theme and post ten images on our blog on the tenth of each month. I’ve been looking forward to this shoot all month (I always love working with Hillary from The Beauty Mark) and I hope you enjoy viewing these images as much as I enjoyed creating them. And when you’re finished here you can go over to Red Rubber Studio to see what Julianna has been up to for this months theme!

Voyagers – Family Session

Jessica Downey — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:49:44 +0000

I first met this family about 10 months ago when I photographed their little guy as a newborn. After that they moved away to China, so when they were back in town briefly, of course we had to fit in a special photo session as well as a mentoring session for mom! You can see pictures from our wintery mentoring session on my Facebook page….