Getting Into The Halloween Spirit!!

Posted on 10/29/2012 by photospaz

Howdy! (As we say in Texas)

I hope everyone is ready for Halloween! We are!! We moved into our new house a few months ago and I’ve so been looking forward to the holidays. To kick off the season we did our traditional pumpkin carving then onto pictures! I had seen a video post by Brooke Snow http://blog.brookesnow.com/2012/10/22/halloween-photos/ (her site is in my blogroll) about doing photos before Halloween. Don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. What she said made perfect sense. By doing this the girls had much more fun playing in their costumes and giggling up a storm. Now come Halloween, I won’t hear, “Can we just go now, mom?” or “I don’t want to take any more pictures!”. We can head out and they can collect all sorts of Halloween treats!!!!

We will definitely be doing it this way in the future and maybe get even more creative with our background!! What fun would that be!!

Happy Halloween to all and be safe!!

A Day at the Beach!!

Posted on 12/13/2011 by photospaz

So, I’ve been on a bit of a quest lately to find out my style of photography. What I’m realizing is I LOVE to capture “real” moments, hence the name Captured Moments by Mel. It’s been right in front of me the whole time. So as I was doing what another photographer, Brooke Snow, suggested, I went looking back through my photos. These beach photos jumped out at me. We went the weekend before school started (this was the first and only time all summer). I asked myself what it was I liked most about these. I had captured the girls enjoying themselves at the beach. “Real” moments with genuine emotion.

Some of these I used both actions and textures, and some I used only actions. I’ll list where both came from at the bottom of this post.

Textures and actions were used on the ones above. Textures were from Jessica Drossin Textures. http://www.jessicadrossintextures.blogspot.com/ and actions from MCP Actions. (Link below)

Actions from MCP Actions were used on these. https://www.mcpactions.com/actions/all-actions.html

Thought this little guy was so cute people watching!!

Thanks everyone for reading and I hope you enjoyed these like we enjoyed our day at the beach!!!

RSS Feeds & Reader Made Easy

Posted on 11/28/2011 by photospaz

For a long time, the little orange square indicating RSS feeds made me cringe. What in the world is an RSS feed? Clicking on it would take me to a screen with a bunch of text that made no sense at all, further confusing me. How was I supposed to subscribe to a blog when this kept happening?

This is going to be a basic explanation, not a technical one.

An RSS feed goes hand in hand with a Reader. First, let me explain about the Reader. It is necessary in order to utilize the RSS feeds. In a nutshell, the Reader is a place that holds all of your blog and website subscriptions in one location. It helps cut down on the incoming traffic to your inbox. Before I learned about the Reader, I had so many emails coming in to notify me that a new blog had been posted. Now I just have to open up my reader and there is a list of all subscriptions, and any new posts show up on the main page (Google Reader).

Choose which Reader suits you best. These are a few of the ones out there – Google Reader, Feed Demon, My Yahoo! Reader. Sign up and download any necessary software. These Readers are free.

Once you have your Reader opened up, it’s now time to add all of your favorite blogs and websites. This is where the RSS feed comes in. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s an easy way to sign up for a blog or website. The symbol for RSS feed or subscription is that little orange box with 3 curved lines. Some sites have just the 3 curved lines or just say RSS. Regardless of how it is shown, the same thing applies.

1. Go to your favorite blog or website.

2. Find the RSS feed symbol or indicator and click on it.

3. There are 2 options for subscribing to a site.

a. A screen comes up that asks which Reader you are using. Find your choice and click

on it. This will add it to your Reader.

b. If you click to subscribe and a screen comes up with a lot of text that doesn’t make much sense, you will need to subscribe THROUGH your Reader. (ie. Google Reader has a Subscribe button on the upper left of the screen.) Click on the Subscribe button and type in the URL (ie. www.melissa-burns-photography.com) of the website or blog you’re wanting, then click ADD. This will add it to your Reader.

4. Do the above any time you want to add a new blog or site to your Reader.

Now you have all of your blog and website updates all neatly organized in one place!! Trust me; it makes it so much easier. I actually read more of them now that they are all together.

©Melissa Burns Photography – www.capturedmomentsbymel.com –capturedmomentsbymel@gmail.com

Late Afternoon Fun!

Posted on 11/06/2011 by photospaz

Just wanted to share these photos from a session I had last week. I’ve known this little gal for quite a few years now. In the beginning she was very quiet and stuck very close to mom. Let me tell you during this session, that all has changed!!! She was so full of life and laughter!! She even came up with her own ideas of how she thought the session should go. Soooo cute!! I definitely had a fantastic time!! Hope you enjoy her smiles as much as I did!!

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Posted on 10/28/2011 by photospaz

This gallery contains 10 photos.

This year has been flying by so incredibly fast. Halloween is almost upon us, and I realized we hadn’t done anything for the holiday other than buying costumes. We decided to take a much needed excursion to Lombardi Ranch and … Continue reading →

What Says Me?

Posted on 10/18/2011 by photospaz

Aloha! (Love that Flickr always greets in a different language! My daughter’s 3rd grade teacher does as well!)

Today I decided to share a thought with you instead of photos. It’s something that has been on my mind a lot lately. The topic is “personal style.” Thanks to Facebook, Flickr, WordPress, and the internet in general, I get to see the work of so many different photographers. Honestly, I am in awe of each and every one of them. They are creative and inspiring. A lot of them are not just photographers but they create other things to help photographers be even more creative. The options are seriously endless, which is very cool!! Thanks to all of you out there!!! (Check out some of them on my Blogroll)

That brings me back to my topic, “personal style.” I’ve realized that while admiring these gifted people, I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking, “I need to be like they are or do what they are doing.” This is such a flunk on my part. What I need to do is figure out my style. Ask myself, “what can I contribute?” Just think how boring the world would be if everyone did everything exactly the same. I tell my kids this all the time. I want them to be who they are and respect that about others as well. (It’s funny how we don’t always listen to our own advice!) We all have so much to offer!

In the upcoming blogs, this is what I’m going to be figuring out. I’ll be asking myself, “What’s my style.” (whether it be taking photos or editing) Please feel free to comment on any of these or ask a question.

Remember to BE yourself! You’ll be glad you did!!!

It’s All About the Soccer!!!!

Posted on 10/12/2011 by photospaz

Well, we are in soccer season again. This year we have bumped up a level. It involves more practices, longer games, and hopefully the playoffs!!! My girl has decided that she is playing soccer from now on, which is fine by me. Maybe she’ll get a scholarship to help pay for college. That would rock!! Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself. I’m not ready to talk about her and college in the same sentence. She’s only in elementary school for crying out loud!! One kid close to college is enough right now! 🙂 Anyway, I just wanted to share a few shots.

Go Blue Lighting Buffalos! #6

And this is what the sister does during the soccer games!!

“Hand in Hand” by Papier et Fleur

Posted on 10/04/2011 by photospaz

Recently I did a photo shoot of something out of the ordinary for me. A new friend of mine creates shadow boxes. Now this is a term that I honestly hadn’t heard since I was younger. I was excited to see what she had created. When she first contacted me, she had 4 of them on already on display at a spa. I stopped by to take a look. All I can say is O-M-G!!! So much more than I had expected. Any of you that know me, know I am a total romantic! These shadow boxes were so amazing and told a romantic story!

So needless to say, I was very excited when she asked me to shoot her most recent shadowbox called “Hand in Hand.” I got to visit with her and find out a little more about her and her creations. Surprise, surprise, she is a romantic too!! Her home is filled with her inspirations. She takes such care in putting so many little details in every piece. For instance, all of the flowers are made from paper that she colors and creates individually. Blew my mind when I saw this up close.

With her permission, I thought I’d share some of the photos from the shoot. I hope you enjoy these as much as I did. Below, I’ll list her information if you are interested in contacting her or checking out her company out on Facebook.

Beautiful, isn’t it?!!

Papier et Fleur

Paper Creations

Handmade Original Creations

310-922-4585

papieretfleur@yahoo.com or Facebook: papier et fleur

Textures! Have You Tried Them?

Posted on 09/27/2011 by photospaz

Hey hey hey!!

So I have a friend that creates these AMAZING textures for photo editing. On top of that she uses them to create beautiful works of art! (I’ll list her Facebook info below.) I finally broke down and bought some. Thought I’d give it a try so, I’ve played with them a little. The realm of creative possibilities with these is endless!! I thought I’d share a couple of shots that I’ve applied textures to. One of these was created using a texture from my friend Jessica.

The texture I used in this one was from Jessica’s pack 1. I can’t remember which one I used. (That’s something I should better keep up with!) Check her out at Jessica Drossin Textures on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/JessicaDrossinTextures

This texture was one I got from Flickr. (bFREE textureb from a href=httpwww.flickr.comphotosbeapiercesets72157601574009156NinianLifa)

I look forward to playing with these more and using them to enhance my work!! Thanks you awesome texture creators!!!

To all of you out there, try using textures yourself and see what happens!!

Until next time!! Keep on creating!!!

Does Your Image Change Color When It’s Uploaded to the Web?

Posted on 09/22/2011 by photospaz

This morning I finally finished my first photo blog post. A problem arose while working on it that I hadn’t experienced until recently. I’ve been uploading images to the web for a while now. Never had any problem with color changes. When I uploaded my images to put in my post, the color turned flat and dull. Whoa!! Couldn’t have my images looking like that for everyone to see! So, I started searching the internet for some help. I couldn’t find anything that worked for me but not for lack of trying.

Woke up today and decided to somehow find a solution to this problem. I opened up Photoshop and tried a few different Color Setting options. Finally, I found a combo that worked!! Hurray!!! Below I have listed the settings I used.

1) Open Photoshop.

2) Click the Edit menu and go down to Color Settings.

3) A Color Settings Dialogue Box will come up.

4) At the top you’ll see the Settings drop-down menu. Click on this.

5) Scroll down to North America Web/Internet. Click on this.

6) You’ll see that in the Working Spaces box, it changes the RGB drop-down menu to sRGB….

7) Go down to the Color Management Policies.

8) On the RGB drop-down menu, click to Convert to Working Space. Then click OK.

9) Next, open the image you want to upload. If it has a different working space than what you just selected, then the Embedded Profile Mismatch box comes up. Click to Convert to Working Space and click OK.

10) Then SAVE your image.

After doing this to all of the images I wanted to add to the web, I uploaded them to WordPress. Sure enough, they were all the PERFECT color!!! Yeah!!

I looked into setting it back to the best color setting for printing. The consensus that I seem to have come across is to set the Workspace RGB to sRGB… That is supposed to be the default for most uses.

Give this a try and see if you find it helpful!! I know I did!!