Little Bohemian Girl – Fine Art Child Photography

Blogging, I suck at it. I have great intentions but lack the follow through. I am bad. That being said, I am making myself do it. How could I not with gorgeous images like these?

I really haven’t been shooting to much over the last year. I shoot what I need for composites and have just put my light painting on the back burner. I found myself really missing it and picked up my camera to shoot for the sake of shooting and playing in the light again. How in the world did I let myself go so long without doing this I just will not understand. I must have needed the break to bring me back to the love and appreciation I used to have.

I’ve shot a few mini sessions with my daughter and loved them all, each one I loved even more. Then came this one and I made myself swoon with how beautiful they turned out. I knew I wanted a dreamy, yet editorial feel to the images, I knew I wanted gorgeous golden hour backlighting. All of this came together better than what I had hoped for.

I am in love. I love my daughter for always putting up with me wanting to shoot her, whether it be for composite art or for the love of photography. Her and I have this down. We’ve done this so many years now that we can pump out a full session in 10-15 minutes. She rocks as my model, she rocks as my daughter, she rocks at being who is she is.

I hope you enjoy these images.

If you like my work, please feel free to share it or pin on pinterest.

Thanks for taking the time to visit my blog.

Hey leave a comment and say hi and let me know where you hail from!

Blessings,
Kristen Marie

want to keep up with what’s going on, come join the KML Creatives facebook group.

New Challenge – Cinemagraph

So I’ve been really wanting to try creating a cinemagraph for a few years. Didn’t think I had the skillz to pull it off, ya know how those self doubt issues creep up on you and bite ya in your rear end. I let those little buggers get the better of me for far to long and decided I am going to make myself try. I admit I struggled with it. I had so many different variations of this with the main focus always being on my daughter and having a balloon just ever so slightly moving. Well, I settled on this one. I learned some things along the way, I see where my mistakes are and have written them in my memory bank for the next time.

This was really fun to try, my daughter thinks it’s pretty neat too.

What about you? Have you tried this technique? If so, I’d love to hear from you, leave a comment and post a link to your creation.

Titled – Pink Balloon (the still)

The animation

I have noticed that when saving for web, the image quality gets rather degraded. If you know of a fix for that, please share.

Painted Skies – KML Creatives Overlays

KML Creatives Painted Skies Overlays

overlays for the creative soul

 

These sky overlays were created to be used to help add a little drama to your images. Whether it’s to take a boring sky and give it life or if you are digital composite artist. These sky overlays are a little different from KMLC’s previous overlays in that they are more of a painted look. It took me 6 months of watching the skies daily to find the right look that I was going for. I have compiled my favorites in this collection and love the painted look each of them has. There are 15 all new skies, each one with 2 tones for a total of 30 sky overlays. In the images below you will see how I used one of each of the 15 different skies. The first is the original sky used in my fine art piece titled “Carried Away”. I just wanted to show each of the overlays in use so you can see how they work within the image.

The Painted Skies Overlays will be available for purchase 7/31/14. Want a chance to win the collection? Share this blog post on your facebook page with a link to the KML Creatives facebook page, come back here and leave a comment that you did so. You can get another chance to win the collection by going the KML Creatives facebook page and click on “share” this image here and leave a comment under the image that you shared. Do both and your name will be entered twice into the random drawing. Name will be drawn Friday 8/2/14, so that will give you from the time of this blog post until 11am on Friday. You can share once a day, today. tomorrow and Friday morning. Just be sure to leave those comments so I know you shared. The more you share, the better your chances are of winning the collection. If you purchase the collection before the drawing and your name is picked, you will be reimbursed or you can choose a store credit for the value.

That’s it! Easy as pie 🙂
Thank you and many blessings,
Kristen Marie ♥

Want to follow me where I play – just follow the links below

 

 

 

Burdens – Fine art portraiture

 The Burdens We Carry

I’ve been horrible at keeping up on blogging. So, I am just going to get started blogging my fine art pieces one at a time.

First I want to start off by thanking my son who so graciously agreed to pose for this image. He did a great job and I want to encourage him to help me out more in the future 😉

I am starting with this piece because it is so representative of why I am so horrible at blogging. We all get into a space now and then where we feel weighed down, like we are carrying a major heavy load and we feel like we can barely move. No matter how great or how small, we as humans tend to let burdens get it the way. Whether it’s lots of little troubles or just a few really big ones, we feel it. The goal is to keep moving, to keep pushing forward and to find a way to shed or carry our heavy loads the best way we can. I am guilty of sometimes falling short in this area. I sometimes feel like I am carrying so much that I can only manage to do the bare minimal, only doing what I have to do to just get by. I let some things slide (like blogging as an example) thinking, I will get to it tomorrow (which by the way never comes) I know I am not alone in this. I am human, we are all weak from time to time. However, I tend to be an optimist….annoyingly so. So I always “know” that things will get better, things will lighten up and I can and will keep moving forward, whether I am hauling burdens or find a way to kick them to the curb.

This piece represents the determination to keep moving despite the load we may feel on our back. The ball and chain that we drag behind us. Sometimes we end up moving so slow that it feels like birds could come roost on us. We keep moving though, we keep trudging through and walking towards the light where we know things are brighter and lighter. We want to get out of the shadows. Only light can create shadows, so we only need to step out from being whatever it is that is creating that shadow. We begin to appreciate peace and calm and the weightlessness of it because we know the weight of the burdens we carry.

 

 

 

I truly hope to continue to blog and not let things slide or take for granted of all that I am given, including my burdens.

I need to send a big shout out to my fine art family that I found about 6 months ago. It’s a wonderful group of artists who have come together to support, learn and grow within their art. It is truly an incredibly supportive place. I think finding them helped to push me in pursuing what I knew I needed to be doing. Telling my stories, bringing my imagination and dreams to life through imagery. If you’d like to follow along and gaze upon some incredible art you can find it all right here at The Fine Art Portrait Photography Guild facebook page.

Blessings, Kristen Marie

Want to follow me where I play – just follow the links below

Keeper of Dreams – Child Abuse Awarness – KML Creatives

My daughter and I were making photos for another piece that I was planning. She had asked if I would get one of her just looking down at her flower. I, of course, complied. When she is helping me I am more than willing to give her something she wants. I kept staring at this image, knowing it was to sweet, to innocent and to beautiful with the stillness of it that I HAD to do something with it. I could not just let it sit without giving it the love that it so rightly deserved. I wasn’t sure where I was going to go with it, but I just dug in. I started building the room, I placed her in it and it all came to life. My daughter is my beautiful dreamer, her imagination is boundless and she is forever telling stories. Anything we see as an ordinary object, she see life it in, animates it, gives it a personality and a story. Sometimes when she is off in one of her little worlds, I just listen without her knowing, I absorb her, taking all of her into my heart. This whole piece is based on her and her imagination, her light.

Now, you may be asking how I can attribute this piece to my child abuse awareness series. I can and I do because this image represents the dreams and imaginations of all children, especially those who are afraid and being hurt. Knowing my daughter and her giving and kind little soul, if she could, she would reach out and save everyone of those children, take them into her world with her and let them feel the freedom that she feels inside her imagination and dreams. She of course can not do that, so instead what she can do, is to imagine that she is saving and keeping all those dreams and hopes alive and safe, letting them out when the time calls to do so. She is the keeper of dreams.

This was not a planned piece, but it has become my favorite of the series. Sometimes plans are not needed, sometimes we just have to let go and listen….listen and feel and let the world breathe life into you. I just love the quietness of this image and the life I feel from it.

Thank you for stopping by, many blessings to you and yours.

Kristen Marie

If you’d like to see other images from this series, you can find them here,

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Artistique Collection – Actions and Textures – Freebie

Artistique Collection

It is really and I mean really cold out!!! Blustery blizzard like conditions where I am. *shiver* I don’t do cold very well. Do you? Well, I wanted to do something to warm myself up and hopefully you too! I know some of you are patiently waiting for the new Artistique Collection to be released and it will be, but I can now say for sure it will be in early February. So, to both warm you up and tide you over, not to mention thank you for your patience,  I am releasing a sneak peek into the collection, for FREE!!! Yeppers…FREE! The first 50 people to grab it get it! So get ’em quick! Sharing is caring, so by all means share and tell your friends, let them get in on the fun too!

Look over the samples and the link to download is below the images!!!

Have a safe and WARM weekend everyone!!!!

Blessings,

Kristen

* and special thank you to Melissa DeWitt Photography for the use of her images, you can go check out her awesomness HERE

Follow the link HERE to go to the download and enjoy! ♥♥♥

No More – Child Abuse Awareness – An Artistic Journey

I am continually updating this post as new pieces are complete.

Some of you may remember my post awhile back about me starting this series. I had very high hopes that I would finally be able to get to it after wanting to embark on this journey for so many years. I had managed to get one image done and it became a bit overwhelming to me. So many stories to tell were just flying around in my head and I couldn’t slow it all down enough to pull them out and tell them the way I needed to. Plus, I can admit that I was afraid. Afraid of how people would take it, or tear it down, criticize the story. It’s so personal to me, it’s my story, it’s your story, it’s a loved ones story, it’s a story that NEEDS to be told. Children are hurt every minute somewhere, by someone and just one more child having to endure this kind of pain is just to much. So many of us turn a blind eye to what is happening, sometimes right in front of us. With some encouragement from a group I am in, I had a new fire ignited in me to get back to it. If only for myself. I found that once I got started with new focutinues of child abuse, the pain, the fear and the innocent hope that all children find a way to hang onto through all of it. My daughter agreed to be my model for the pieces. I explained to her, as best as I could for an 8 year old to understand, why I was doing this. She liked the idea, but because she has not been touched by this in her life yet, she doesn’t grasp the full understanding of it. She looks at the images with her beautiful innocent soul and makes up her own story. She sees the sadness, but also sees the hope and light. I will let her keep her innocence, she deserves it, all children do. To many have had their innocence robbed from them and if my 8 year old is not as “worldly” as some others her age, I am wonderfully ok with that.

My husband asked me how many of these I was going to do. My answer, “when it’s done”. I really don’t know how many images will be made, I guess until I feel I have told the story the best I possibly can.

Here are the first 3 of the series. I felt I needed to put it out there, get over my own fear and tell the story. I will add more as they come to life. Feel free to share if you would like, I would be honored if you did and I know if just one more person can be enlightened, there is a child who would be grateful.

**Edited to add – 3 more images have been added. The “Isolated Dreamer” sequence was added. The sequence is about a little girl feeling isolated in her suffering, fear and pain from the abuse…yet she dreams and hopes for better days. My daughter requested the last image with the dove. She is my muse and reminds me daily why I am doing this series. While it may be hard and not the most pleasant of topics, it is one that should not be ignored. I look at my children and know that there are far to many who are missing out on the love that they know. If I can help it, they will never know the fear, the pain, the shame and the feeling of being alone that I once felt as a child. It has to stop. So, while I know this is not a pleasant topic, as uncomfortable as it may make me or any of us…..it is NOTHING compared to the children who suffer.

Many Blessings –
Kristen Marie

Lost and Found

The Light that Shines

See No Evil

Isolated Dreamer Sequence

Here is the next image in my child abuse awareness series. Titled – Healing Reflection – a child learning self healing, self preservation, self love.

“There is a moment in our healing journey when our denial crumbles; we realize our experience and it’s continued effects on us won’t “just go away”. That’s our breakthrough moment. It’s the sun coming out to warm the seeds of hope so they can grow our personal garden of empowerment ~ Jeanne McElvaney”

Safe in Daddy’s Hands

No Escape

Caught between seeking the light and the innocence of childhood and the never ending reminder of the gripping pain.

Keeper of Dreams

You can read the story behind this image here

Freedom Surfacing

Breaking free of the effects of abuse and becoming a survivor. Letting go of being a victim.

Thank you for taking the time to read and hear my story ♥

Artistique Collection – Photoshop Actions, Textures, Overlays – KML Creatives

Coming later January to early February the new Artistque Collection.

I am simply am in love with this collection already and I am far from being done with it. I have a huge love of old portrait paintings. I could stare and just get lost in them for hours. I am not a very good painter on a canvas, so I am creating this collection to help bring a little of the texture, smudges, the bumps, the light and soft tones so they can be added to photographs. I am enamored with what these tools so far help me create.

Here are a few samples.

Amy McMaster – Featured Artist

Featured Artist – Amy McMaster

KMLC- What was it about photography that drew you in and made you decide to pursue it?
Amy – A friend shared pictures of her kids back in 2006. I thought they were so gorgeous. She shared some close ups- where the eyes were just amazing. The light in them- they just sparkled and drew you in. I’d never seen anything like it outside of random magazines shots. I knew I wanted to capture MY kids like that. I wasn’t sure how and I started asking questions. A lot of questions. My friend was most gracious in answering everything I asked. .

KMLC- Define your artistic style?
Amy – I think my style is more of an approach. I want to capture what is really real. What is actually going on. I love using a more journalistic/documentary style approach to the bulk of my work. I love the imperfections. The off the cuff way you have to shoot. Unexpected results sometimes because you are not always in control of the light or the subject. I like that. I am extremely fond of black and white photography. Rich black and whites with a lot of contrast. I do like some color though. Not usually bright color- but warm with a subtle flat finish is my preference.

I use this approach when shooting pets, farm animals, kids…or families.

KMLC- Where do you find your motivation to grow, be creative and unique?
Amy- I am generally a pretty thought-filled person. I love to deep think. I love to pull apart ideas and talk them to death. I love to figure things out- the who and the why and the how. But when it comes to my work I literally just feel. I don’t find myself spending 30 minutes thinking about a set up, the lighting, what lens…I shoot. I shoot what interests me in the moment I am in. I think this always challenges me to be on my toes.

Another thing I think that helps ME grow, be creative and sometimes…unique is that I do like to challenge myself with lighting, pushing my camera, and when I get the opportunity to try something new- I usually take it. Even if it’s NOT my usual style. I might come away from the experience with something that just furthers me along in my personal journey.

KMLC -Being a business owner can pose many challenges, tell us how you find balance between your business, art and your personal life.
Amy – I am going to be frank on this. It’s very challenging. I personally found it very difficult to balance business, art and my personal life. I managed for three years and finally chose personal life and art…and let my business go this year.

It was hard. But I am a homeschooling mom to 4 young kids. That is my 9 to 5 during the week. Plus two ago we started a small farm. I love it. I love everything about the life of a farmer. I couldn’t balance them all anymore. So I made the choice that was best for my family. I am STILL shooting. I shoot for friends, I shoot my farm, I shoot my kids and I just shoot life. I share those things with others. I am enjoying going back to my roots of shooting what I love and what is happening.

In a few years, I will revisit this decision and decide if it stays or I want to venture back out there as a business. But for now, I am happy.

KMLC- Tell us about these images.
Amy – These images are simply a collection of my eclectic life. They are everything I love about my life. My images do not always show the tears or sweat that comes with this life. I hope it is implied. Farm life, being a mom, a wife…just being ourselves…it’s just flat out tough stuff. But I love to capture the things that remind me of why I love my life so much. Why I pick up my camera and shoot it all in the first place. Chaos amidst chaos and all it’s raw beauty..

KMLC – We all want to know, what’s in your bag?
Amy – My bag is simple. A Nikon D700 and a small arsenal of simple, inexpensive lenses. My work horse the 50 1.4, 24 2.8, 15mm Sigma Fish Eye, 60 f2.8 Macro and for length I have a 105 f2 (no, not the macro) and my handy dandy humble 70-300 VR zoomie. Oh! And for a break from the norm – a Lensbaby with a slew of Optics for funsies! I carry all this in a cheap but sturdy bag I got off Amazon. I have an old Speedlight I use sometimes, a ring flash that I rarely use but it’s fun to play with and that’s really about it.

Look on to see a sampling of Amy’s amazingly pure images!

Thank you so much for sharing with us Amy! ♥♥♥

to see more of Amy’s work, be sure to check out her website HERE