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I love transformation

I think I am slightly obsessed with transformation!  I love watching television shows with my family about all types of transformation.  Our new favorite is The Deed on CNBC.  Not only does Sidney Torres transform old beautiful houses in New Orleans into fabulous new home, but he also helps transform the people who need his help by teaching them to become better real estate developers.   My obsession doesn’t stop with real estate, although I do love anything on home design, I also love shows that transform food or even transform people.  Another favorite is, The Profit, because I love how Marcus Lemonis transforms business people and helps them become profitable.

For me, March has been transformation month!  My wonderful husband volunteered to help transform my Laguna Beach studio into the studio of my dreams.   He converted my loft space, which was primarily being used to dump old studio props, into a full on shooting wardrobe space that my clients will be able to use to create the photography session of their dreams.  He also utilized the space to build a work station for our fine art printing.  It looks amazing and I am so excited to have it fully functional.

He didn’t stop at the loft.  We have all new lighting, a new professional hair and makeup station, several new gallery walls and he fixed all of the Ikea furniture that I put together to make it now fully functional (I have to admit, the drawers didn’t work on anything).  The cherry on the cake was definitely the new blue roll up door and front door, perfect not only because it is blue, but also because we can now use it as a new shooting area.

March is also transformation month, because we are doing our Mother Daughter makeover special complete with wardrobe, hair and makeup.  Here is a sneak peak at the new blue door with the gorgeous Gill kiddos who can now say they were the very first family to shoot on the blue roll up door.  Enjoy.  More beautiful images of the studio to come, once it has been completed!  

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Exist in Photographs

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Do you have an excuse about why you keep putting off getting portraits of yourself and your family?  Are you waiting to look perfect, have the perfect body, skin, hair, etc.?   While you continue to put it off for one more year, your family is missing out on beautiful images of YOU!  

That is what exist in photographs is all about.  I absolutely understand that there is a lot of work that goes into planning a photography session.  Sometimes it seems like it just isn’t meant to be, but believe me it is.  Take me for example.  My busiest time of year is October and November.  I work an average of 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.  In the middle of all that craziness, is my own family that needs portraits for the year.  For me, I need to find one of my friends that is a photographer, and also really busy, to agree to take a few images of the whole family together.  I can handle the portraits of my kids and my kids with my husband, but I feel like it is really important for me to also get into the portrait every year.  I don’t want my kids to look back in 10, 20, or 30 years from now and say, “where was my Mom”.  Or, “my Mom was always behind the camera, and looks like she was never around according to pictures”.

I want to make it easy for you to say yes to a portrait session this year by doing the follow:

  1.  Having a hair and makeup artist available for you to look and feel your very best.
  2. By having a shooting wardrobe, that I can mix and match with your own clothing to take the hassle out of planning for the outfits for your session.
  3. Creating a fun environment for you and your family where everyone feels comfortable and is actually having fun.
  4. By guiding your posing to make you look your very best.  I can take off at least 10 pounds with good posing!
  5. By using photoshop to finish your portrait and make your best just a little better.
  6. And finally, by inviting you to our studio a week after your session for a personal reveal of our top images from the session.  These images will be fine art prints, fully retouched, mounted and matted ready to take home that day.  All of the prints also include the digital file of the edited image.  In addition, we will walk you through the rest of our beautiful portrait products to help design wall art and other keepsakes.

Do you have someone you love that you want to capture forever in portraits?  Take advantage of our makeover special this month.  For more details, email us at kristin@blueskysstudio.com.  Have a beautiful weekend and enjoy this unbelievably beautiful mother and daughter duo!

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What is your Child’s story?

I am an avid reader.  I mean, I absolutely love books.  Each morning I start the day walking my dog and listening to a business book on audible.com.  Each night, before I go to sleep, I get lost in a good novel on my Kindle.  And really, I have been this way since I was a small child.  My favorite thing to do growing up with my Dad was go to Crown Book Store (remember than discount books store?).  I would go through the books for literally hours.  He would always give me a limit, like, you can buy three books and that is it.  Somehow, I always talked him into five.  I would take those home and dive in.  My punishment if I didn’t finish a task, was to take my books away…..

One of my very favorite books when I was a child was “Where the Wild Things are”.  I probably read it at least 100 times.  So when Brittany asked me to do a styled session with her boys inspired by the book, I was all in.  I think these type of sessions are perfect for kids of any age, because it help tell their story and define who they were at that period in their history.  Also, looking back on those sessions, it helps your child know that you wanted to capture images that defined who they were in their development.  It opens up dialog and great memories.

So here is our Where the Wild Things Are” session with these two gorgeous boys and seriously the red hair kills me! Enjoy!

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Rent the Runway; tips on picking a portrait wardrobe

My goal has always been to not just photograph a family one time, but to build a lasting relationship and document your family each year.   This is the best way  I know to build a family history and to make sure your children can look back at the entire family over the years and see the close relationships and defining moments throughout their childhood.

One question that comes up repeatedly among my clients, especially when we do a family session each year, is “what should we wear”?  We love to work closely with you to put outfits together that not only compliment each person in the portrait, but also have the look and feel of the location of the session.  And, it is extremely important, to make sure the images compliment your home.

We are now in the process of building a more extensive shooting wardrobe.  Watch for future announcements on how you can get involved helping us complete our shooting wardrobe.  Since I love vintage dresses and accessories, we definitely have those in our studio and we are always on the lookout for more.  But for the gals in the family, I high recommend using services such as www.renttherunway.com to access one of a kind beautiful dresses and outfits at a fraction of the retail cost.  For the holidays this year, one of my favorite families, decided to go all out and rent formal red outfits and combine this look with an organic setting.  The results were stunning!   I also love that they rented a tux for their gorgeous son Daniel!  What a great sport.   Here are some of the
images from the session.  Enjoy!blueskysstudioportraits_0030blueskysstudioportraits_0022blueskysstudioportraits_0023blueskysstudioportraits_0024blueskysstudioportraits_0025blueskysstudioportraits_0026blueskysstudioportraits_0027blueskysstudioportraits_0028blueskysstudioportraits_0029
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To book your portrait session, you can email us at kristin@blueskysstudio.com or call at 949-510-3862.

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Your Blue Sky’s Studio portraits as art for your walls

Did you know that there are several studies showing that children’s self esteem is improved by seeing portraits on themselves and their families on the wall?  

A revealing study was conducted in 1975 with a group of fourth graders at a Tennessee school by Tulane University. During a five week period, the children took Polaroid instant photos of themselves with provided cameras in a variety of assigned poses, compositions and expressing various emotions. The children worked with the printed images of themselves and created scrapbooks once a week over those five weeks. Testing of the students and teachers at the conclusion of study revealed a significant increase of 37 percent in the students’ average self-esteem behaviors. This Murfreesboro Study shows some evidence personal photography of children seen and enjoyed in a specific way can help boost a child’s self-esteem.  This according to an article published on Design Aglows blog.

“It lets children learn who they are and where they fit,” says Judy Weiser. a psychologist, art therapist and author based in Vancouver. “They learn their genealogy and the the uniqueness of their own family and its story. When a child sees a family portrait with them included in the photograph they say to themselves: ‘These people have me as part of what they are, that’s why I belong here. This is where I come from.‘”

For some reason, this does not translate for digital images and seems to really be focused on tangible images on themselves and their families.

One of the reason I am so passionate about photography is that our time with our children is so fleeting and really it passes in a blink of an eye.  I really can’t believe my son is already out in the world on his own.  It seems like only yesterday he was crawling into my bed in the middle of the night pleading with Bob and me to let him stay with us.

That is why we want to show all of our clients what their portraits will look like as art on their walls.  Believe me, it is easier than you think to have an actual picture mocked up on your wall with our software

  1.  Take an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper and take it to any wall you think will work for portrait art.  

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2. Take a picture of your wall with your iPhone and text it to us.  Just make sure you are standing straight in front of the wall and not at an angle (that makes it more difficult to line everything up).

 

 

blueskysstudio_13.  Select a picture, or two or three and we will mock up several examples on your wall with everything at the appropriate size to show off in your home!blueskysstudio_3blueskysstudio_4blueskysstudio_5blueskysstudio_6Order the product and we will have it shipped directly to your home.  We will even come and help you install your wall art.  So now there is no excuse not to have beautiful walls covered with your amazing family!  To book an appointment email us a kristin@blueskysstudio.com.