Lisa Hensley Photography

I am so glad that I got to photograph this new family! I have known this brand new mama since she was “7″ years old, I was there for her wedding day and today I was privileged to capture these wonderful Family Portraits!  Congratulations to both of you on this amazing little girl that you have brought into this world!

A Brand New Family!

This family always makes me smile! I have been photographing them for quite a while now and have watched these girls grow up into beautiful teenagers, well at least 2 of them anyways, the youngest still has a few years yet.

I woke up Sunday morning feeling very ill, stomach flu to be exact.  By the time 12:00 came around I was really not feeling well enough to dance  around in the desert with my camera.  So a phone call was made to mom to see if tomorrow would work out okay for her, however mom quite firmly told me that she had just spent $175 on hairstyling and her oldest daughter had just spent hours grooming the horses.  Sooooooo, I translated that into a Big Fat NO on the rescheduling.  ”How about if I am not feeling well by 3:00 I will give you and call?”  ”That sounds like a deal!” mom said… with a tone! Come on Beck you know there was a tone!!!  So I drugged myself with Tums, Pepto Bismal and some Ibuprofen and just decided whether I felt better or not I had better start packing up the car!

As I pulled into her driveway I found Brooke putting the finishing touches on her horses, one last pass down the mane and a few squirts of Armor All to the hooves for a spit and polish shine. (Disclaimer…it probably wasn’t Armor All that she squirted on their hooves, but that is what I squirt on my tires to make them shiny and since I don’t own a horse I didn’t have a proper name to actually call the spit n shine liquid.)  If you don’t know me, let me share a little secret with you…I love to make up stuff to suit my needs, it just makes me feel smarter if you know what I mean!  Don’t be a judger just roll with it or I might make up a song and start belting out a mash that I just came up with on the spot.  See don’t you just think I am a little cooler now that you know that little tid bit???

Now look you made me ramble on, getting back to my story.  The girls walked their horses down to the end of the street into some State Land that was graced with some majestic Saguaros and mountain ranges.  I just fell in love with the spot the second I stepped out of my car.  Ahhhh, and then the sound of bickering as only 3 girls could sing…”Stop it, your to close to me!” “Get away from me, your going to make my horse kick you!”, “Girls knock that crap off, Lisa drove all the way out here to take our pictures and we need to be nice!” Whatever Mom!”  Now this kind of language might frighten some people but I grew up with 2 sisters and I had 6 girls of my own.  So I didn’t even hear it…it just made me smile to think I am not alone in the world when it comes to sisters being mean to each other.

As they each settled into their own comfortableness (I just made up that word, I don’t think it really exists!) the bickering sorta stopped, and I fell in love with these girls all over again.  They each care for their horses so much, it shows in there eyes, it shows in the way they hold their faces in their hands.  But in addition to the girls love for the horses, the horses loved the girls right back!  I am a firm believer that the love of an animal can change a person, it can soften their heart and make them be better people in general.

Well enough of my story lets get to some photos…thank you P family for letting me share in another Christmas memory for you.  I am glad I wasn’t sick and I am really glad we didn’t postpone it till the next day, as that was my dreaded dog bite attack.

Speaking of  my Dog Bite attack I have to send all of my love out to Ali Hohn, as she reached out to me and helped me edit like 20 photos from this shoot (the ones posted today were my edits ) so I could get Christmas Cards ordered in time for this family.  It made me cry, it made me happy it made me realize how many wonderful woman I have been blessed with in my life.  SO many people stepped in and showed me their love over the past 3 weeks and I will forever be humbled by it!  Our talents are our gifts, share them freely with your loved ones, friends and family alike!  I decided a long time ago that a ROUGH PATCH is just easier to deal with, with a smile on your face.  Bad luck is around every corner and most likely it is always my corner, but with that said I am just going to be happy that I have any luck at all.

Happy Holidays to all and a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2010

Last Sunday started out to be a wonderful day, I woke up bright and early excited to capture the glorious colors that have blessed our Arizona Deserts for the past couple of days.  My alarm promptly went off at 5:30 playing one of my favorite songs and I jumped out of bed hastily knowing that I only had about 30 minutes before the sky changed from black to glorious shades of crimson, coral, blush, orchid, mauve and purple.  I gathered my camera bag that I had carefully packed the night before and headed up to my favorite hiking spot.  But after surveying my surrounding desert canvass, I decided to hike off the trail to some grand saguaros that would produce statuesque silhouettes against the impending sunrise.  December 5, 2010 will go down in my memory as one of the most breathtaking sunrises that I have ever had the pleasure of photographing.  Here are just a few of my favorites from that morning…

Sunrise 2

Sunrise 3

Don’t you agree that these images were definitely worth waking up early for?  Most of the time I just lay in my bed and argue with myself that I will just get up early tomorrow or maybe I will catch the Sunset instead.  I hate cold and I hate wind…but as I thought of my friends living in Utah and Minnesota I decided that I really didn’t have it that bad and it was worth getting up early for.

As I drove home my thoughts turned to my daughter Raygen and her dog Thrill that she has been caring for over the past several months.  Thrill is a Samoyed that we bred to our Male Denahi, she was supposed to give birth on Friday and was 2 days overdue.  So, we were all concerned that maybe a C-Section was in store for her that day if she hadn’t given birth by mid-day.  As we pulled into the driveway I saw Raygen poke her little head out of her camper door and proudly announce that she and Thrill had birthed 2 puppies, a boy and a girl.  With my camera still swung around my shoulder her dad and I strolled over the 15′ to her camper and headed inside to see the proud mama and her new puppies.  Raygen picked up the little girl and showed her off proudly to her dad and I while I took a few not so great pictures of them.  After all my camera was set up to take pictures of Sunrises and not brand new puppies.  Wide Angle lenses are not the best lens to use for close up portraits, but that is beside the point and I will do my best to stay on task.  Scott took his turn patting Thrill on her soft white fluffy head and congratulating her on a successful birth.  Although the whole time she kept peeking around at me as if it was her first time seeing me, but we both knew that I had taken her on walks and came in several times to let her out to go potty.  I even checked on her while laboring even taking the time to kneel beside her with my head on her whelping box and talking softly to her.

I thought maybe my camera equipment was scaring her a little so I took it all off and set it off to the side so it wouldn’t bother her so much.  As Scott finished up his congratulatory pats on the head and made his way back over to my side, I decided it was my turn to congratulate our new mother to be.  As I kneeled down by her whelping box and folded my arms on the side of her box, she was still looking at me just a little puzzled…but I ignored it as I was definitely not a stranger to her.  She reached over to me slowly as I figured she just wanted to sniff me and out of no where she just bore her teeth and latched on to the left side of my face.  At this point I felt her pulling me into the whelping box, dazed all I could think to do was reach around with my hands to try to open her muzzle and release my face from her grips.

The mind is a wonderful thing as I don’t remember any pain or the bite itself, thank the Lord for “Shock!”  I only think it took a few seconds but the damage was definitely done and I knew it was bad…”very bad!” I saw a paper towel laying on something “again my memory is a bit fuzzy” and I grabbed it to cover the blood that I knew had to be spilling out of my face at this point.  I layed down on the bed that had been converted by Raygen as she awaited the birth of these puppies, that just yesterday was Raygen kitchen table.  I remember crying and thinking that the damage must be horrible as I couldn’t feel anything on the left side of my face and my eye was almost swollen shut.  I removed the towel long enough for Scott to take a quick peak, he assured me that it was only a couple of puncture wounds and I would be just fine.  But as I was swallowing pints of blood, I knew that there was more damage than he could see at that moment.   We rushed to John C Lincoln Hospital where my throat continued to swell and breathing became extremely difficult.  My eye was almost swollen shut and my cheek felt like if it swelled anymore they were going to have to cut it open to relieve the pressure.  I didn’t want to see, I didn’t want to think that I just been disfigured, but that darn visor just kept looming at me.  I knew there was a mirror on the other side of it, if I just wanted to flip it around.  Scott kept telling me to not look and that I would be just fine…again they were just puncture wounds.  My tongue was telling me a much different story however, I felt holes and gashes in my gums, I felt a huge tear in my lip.  My towel that was given to me by my daughter to replace the blood soaked paper towel was also now soaked in blood.  I just had to look, just one quick little peak…I would deal with whatever fate and that stupid dog had just dealt me.  “HOLY CRAP!” was all that came out of my mouth, my face was so swollen I hardly even recognized myself.  I had two big gashes across my cheek and 5 puncture wounds under my chin.  At this point the crying became much louder and the breathing became much more difficult, as Scott turned to see what was going on he flipped that mirror up and told me “I would still be beautiful no matter what!” Well, let me just say that, he did not calm me down any…cause that kind of spousal support might work on a guy but not on a girl!!!

As we swang into the Emergency entrance I was greeted by a nice young gentlemen who could tell I wasn’t there because I had a splinter in my finger.  He promptly escorted me to Triage where I was then promptly taken in a wheel chair to a bed! This gorgeous surgeon came in and seduced me with promises of morphine, warm blankets and a charming smile.  As I was pumped full of morphine, 20mg to be exact and 6mg of Adavan I came to the conclusion that pain relief was just not coming fast enough for me.  Apparently, I am immune to morphine as it provided no comfort at all for me…next were facial x-rays just to see if any bone fragments were floating around in my cheek.  Mr. McDreamy told me that I had tendon and nerve damage in my cheek and even though he had trained under a plastic surgeon my injuries were much more extensive than he felt comfortable sewing up.  So I was transported by ambulance to another John C Lincoln Hospital about 20 minutes south of where we were so an expert Plastic Surgeon could close the hole up in my cheek.  So into the hands of Dr. Vasif Sabeeh I went hoping he would make me whole again with his Plastic Surgeon hands.  I don’t remember much after this as I was finally given some wonderful drugs to put me in a twilight sleep while he sewed me back up again.

It has now been 8 days since my traumatic experience, my swelling is all mostly gone and I hardly even had any bruising.  I consider myself very lucky that my injuries were not any worse than they are.  The left side of my face is totally numb, I cant lift the corner of my upper lip up and my cheek has limited movement.

So every morning when I look in the mirror I look at my crooked smile and wonder if I am still beautiful?  Yesterday, I decided I didn’t want to go to Church because I didn’t  want anyone staring at me…but then about 3 hours later I came to the realization that beauty comes from the inside.  No matter what happens to us in life we always need to project our inner beauty. That is what defines us, it isn’t how we smile or what we look like.  When I die I don’t want people to say I was beautiful, I want people to think I was “A Beautiful Person!” So this injury has taught me that life is fragile and you never know when you are going to be given a “Crooked Smile!”  So with my “Crooked Smile” I shall go forth and enjoy life and I hope I will be more beautiful on the inside!

I am only showing these photos because I want you to see what I saw when I first looked at myself and possibly understand my emotional and physical trauma that I suffered just 8 short days ago.

Lisa 1 day post Surgery

Lisa after day 1 and day 6

I decided to only show a portion of my face as I felt the whole image was just to graphic.  Most of the damage was to the inside of my mouth and gums. I also received stitches in my upper lip and under my jaw. The nerve and muscle damage that was done to my face and gums could take up to 2 years to heal and then again depending upon the extent of the nerve damage to my jaw I might never get feeling back in my face.

But I will heal and I will be happy! I can’t wait to get back to my camera and feeling 100% again, so until then thanks for visiting and sharing a little piece of my world with me.

And this last photo is of Thrill…she doesn’t look harmful does she?  This image was captured about 10 minutes before she bit me.

Thrill

I have to admit that I am an “apple” junkie, I love my ipod, ipad, MacBook Pro and my iMac.  When I stumbled across this amazing video I was blown away that my ipod and ipad could create such beautiful music.  If  I could afford it I would buy ipads for all my kids and we would create our own iband! All of the apps that they used to create this amazing music ensemble can be found on this blog post http://reidgreven.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/north-point-iband-apps most of the apps are under $3.00 so have some fun with your ipad or ipod and get creating some amazing music. So click on this link to enjoy this fantastic You Tube Video… http://www.youtube.com/northpointministries#p/a/u/0/F9XNfWNooz4

apple ipad

Since I posted a “Before & After” using “NO” Actions I thought I would share an image with the use of Actions.  I love to use actions created by Annie Manning with Paint the Moon Actions.  She is amazing and is always there for you if you get stuck or have any problems trying to figure out how to use a particular action that you have purchased from her.   You can find all of her actions here http://paintthemoon.net/blog but be prepared she is like a “HOT FRESH FRENCH FRY” from McDonalds…you can’t just have “one!!!” The other actions that I use are from Totally Rad Actions you can find them here http://www.gettotallyrad.com I love there Dirty Picture Set which is what I use for my Texture Overlays.

Again the image on the left is SOOC and the image on the right is post editing…

This image was captured with my Canon Camera with my 28-70 lens ISO 500/ 2.8f / 1/85 Shutter Speed

I shoot in RAW and import into LightRoom3 for basic corrections then export to Photoshop CS3 for Creativity

Open Photo in LR and adjust fill light and Brightness

Add some Clarity and bump up my blacks to taste

Crop to Taste

Export to Photoshop

I used Picture Perfect Portrait Mega Set from Paint the Moon Actions

Run Banish the Red Blotchie Action, Erase off of Flower and Lips, Flatten

Run Baby Smooth Action and follow directions per the action…reduced to 31%

Run Pure Color Snap Action, Turned off Make it Lighter Layer, Eraced Popper Layer off of Skin, Reduced to 50%

Run Natural Vignette

Flatten all Layers

Duplicate Layer run a High Pass Filter, Set blend mode to Soft Light

Run TRA Action Dirty Pictures added Sapphire Velvet then reduced opacity to 78% and eraced off of Subject

Flatten then Duplicate Layer

Used Burn Tool around edge to taste then Flatten and enjoy!

Side Note…you can tell the photo is not overly done the changes are suttle and that is how I like it.  This image was also shot in my home with natural window lighting.

Please leave me some feedback if this helped you in anyway…MUAH!

I thought since I had a new blog going that I would start a new tradition for me as well. How about we make Thursday a “Before and After Tutorial”, day! I know for one I am always curious how other photographers make there images look so great.  There are many ways to achieve amazing photos in Photoshop…but first and foremost do your darndest to get it right in camera!!!! Yep, that is my best advice and you should it take to heart, Photoshop can fix a lot of your mistakes but my behind is telling me, I need to spend more time running and less time sitting on my behind editing! And besides the better you get the shot in camera the more shoots you get to enjoy outside! So let me say it again “get it right in camera!

Editing is my creative outlet, I edit how I like my photos to look! I try to be very consistent and make sure that my photos pretty much look the same all of the time.  I love bright colors and textures…again this is “my” style and not necessarily “your” style.  There are many ways to edit, this is just how I do it. I have actions and I love them very much, but you should not use actions unless you understand how to achieve the same results without the actions. They should not be used as a crutch to fix crappy photos, with that said there have been numerous times when I forgot to change a setting on my camera and it was a great shot with poor results. I was able to recover the details or fix a blown out sky by using Photoshop and Actions.  Hopefully, you got my point and I haven’t offended anyone.  But if you are going for artistry then Actions are way fun, they can change a photo to Black and White or turn a High Contrast Photo into a Vintage Work of Art! So just use actions creatively and not as a crutch to fix your photos because you don’t know how to use your camera.

So here is a photo that was pretty good straight out of camera (SOOC) but I needed to lighten in a few areas and add some blue back to the sky. I also punched up the color and added a Texture. With the exception of the Texture there were no actions used.

Shot with my Cannon Camera, 28-70 mm lens, ISO 100, 2.8f at 1/500 Shot in Camera Raw on Manual Mode

My Editing Steps done in Photoshop after minor corrections were done in LightRoom 3 and then Exported to Photoshop CS3…

Open File then duplicate Layer add a High Pass Filter change blend mode to Soft Light then Flatten

duplicate layer again add a Gaussian Blur then change blend mode to Soft Light, add Mask then erase Blur off of skin and hair then Flatten

add Levels Adjustment to darken vest then I inverted this layer and only painted it on the vest

duplicate the layer again and use burn tool in sky, grass and to taste in other areas in photo

duplicate the layer again and use dodge too to bring back the clouds in the sky and to taste in other areas in photo

Flatten

Added a texture from TRA Dirty Pictures (Foxy Laurinda) set blend mode to Soft Light, used mask to paint off texture on subject and other areas of the photo to taste

Unsharp Mask then flatten and save

And Voila a much brighter and artistic image!

…if you find any spelling errors it was done on purpose, because I am a Photographer not an English Teacher!  My brain thinks faster than my sticky keyboard can type…cause if you are a fan of mine on FB you would know that a few weeks ago I spilled a glass of tea on my MacBook Pro keyboard, which I don’t recommend EVER!  So keys stick, my brain thinks faster than I type which lends to deleted words, and I just am a poor speller.  So there you have it my pathetic Grammar apology!

Please leave me a comment if you liked this post and if it was helpful or not!!!

Add Mas

So did you know that I love to sing? I sing in the car,  I sing in the Shower, I sing when a word reminds me of a song that I used to love when I was 15.  I even have been to known to busta-rhyme when my kids make up stupid words.  I have even sang in my church choir once or twice around Easter and Christmas time, because I am a harmony junkie!!!!  So when I came across this video posted on Facebook today I thought I would share it with all of you…how come this never happens to me when I am eating lunch a the mall!

Click on this link to view the video … Christmas Food Court Flash Mob, Hallelujah Chorus   SXh7JR9oKVE

Here is a photo of me that my good friend Mandi Nutall took of me…I am wishing I could sing in a Food Court Flash Mob!

Image captured by Mandi Nutall

Britt: “Mom?”

Me: “Yes Britt.”

Britt: “Do you know there is an invasive species in our waters called, Rock Snot?”

Me: “Why do you even know that?” or should I have said “Why do you need to know that?”

Britt: “I don’t know, I just thought it was a funny name for an invasive water species!”

Me: ” What the heck is it?”

Britt: “again I don’t know, I just thought it was a funny name!”

Me: “Britt, you seriously need to get a life!!!!”

So in case you have a science child who wants to be a Biologist when he or she grows up and if they ever ask you if you know what “Rock Snot” is, impress them with this definition.

Rock Snot

The Definition…

Rock Snot grows at a furious rate. It kills fish and threatens rivers and streams everywhere. It sprouts tendrils and looks like the sludge from your worst sanitation nightmare. It’s disgusting. It’s rock snot. And it’s invading New York.

Okay, so I was angling for the whole B-movie trailer voice over effect there–but it’s all true. Rock snot, or what’s officially known as Didymosphenia geminata (Didymo for short), is a single celled algae that’s spreading across rivers and streams across the world. And it’s spreading fast.

Rock snot was first confirmed in New York two years ago, according to the NY Times, but it’s already made its way to some crucial streams and waterways. It seems to have a knack for stowing away in sport fisherman’s gear and boots–that’s how it’s widely believed that rock snot suddenly appeared in New Zealand in 2004, with no previous record of its existence there, ever. And over the last five years, the snot has wasted no time doing serious damage to the Kiwi ecosystems:

Sammy: “I hate Science! Mom can you PLEEEEAAAAAASE help me with my homework!

Mom: “Sure Sammy I would love to help you with your Science…what seems to be the problem?”

Sammy: “What is an Owl?”

Mom: Very puzzled look on my face????? “What?” Now I am just laughing hysterically.

Sammy:  “What???” “Wait, I know what an Owl is I need to know if it a mammal or a reptile?”

Mom: Still laughing hysterically!

Sammy:  “That was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”

Mom: “Yep!”

Sammy

…and because I hate a post without photos, here is a recent one that I just took of my beautiful daughter! She isn’t normally dressed like this, but we did a lifestyle family Christmas photo and the attire fit  the theme! She had just found those Steve Maddin Shoes at Savers that morning while we were out and she desperately wanted a photo of her wearing them.

I had this blown up into a 16X16 wall canvas collage and it is now hanging in my studio.  I love to create collages with a variety of images from my clients shoot, this is a great way to display multiple images when you have very limited wall space.