Photography by Alison, San Diego Family photographer » blog

Best Friends

admin — Wed, 15 May 2013 17:24:18 +0000

Slater had just turned three and a set of twins moved in next door who had just turned five. The three of them clicked right away and have been buds ever since. They lived next door for two years, moved around town a bit and then just recently moved to Mexico. To say we were sad the day they left is an understatement. Slater just clicks with these two and they always have a great time. They came into town for two weeks and we were lucky enough to see them a few times. I love photographing the three of them together. Until September when we get to see them again…

Color Picker

admin — Thu, 09 May 2013 19:18:09 +0000

I love color and I love photos. I really love photos with all their key colors selected and displayed super pretty. I have a pretty big collection over on my “colors” pinterest board HERE.

Lucky me… I just discovered an action that let’s me easily create these beautiful palettes with my own photos in just a few seconds. LOVE it! The download is here at The Coffee Shop. This definitely won’t be the last post with my personal photos and all their pretty colors.

Instagram Review ~ March and April

admin — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:51:43 +0000

I missed posting March so here’s our life at a glimpse in March and April. And now that I am using PicTapGo to edit my instagram photos, it’s easier to keep full frames so now it’s not all pretty perfect squares. Sometimes you just need full frame. So in a nutshell, Tucker turned 18, warm early spring weather (it’s super cold today), Camping at Lake Morena, Easter in El Centro, camping at Joshua Tree with Slater’s school friends and families, the zoo with friends from school with Slater, hiking Pine Valley Creek with friends from Slater’s school, baby kitty… (I often am trying to devise ways to give this cat away), field trip to the beach and aquarium, Mexican Fiesta at one of Slater’s classmates house, me and Colleen… not sure where, Slater takes home two trophies at his first karate tournament, and my cinder block garden is planted.

Featured on The Mommarazzi School blog

admin — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:46:27 +0000

Photography by Alison is featured on the Mommarazzi School blog HERE. So flattered that they would showcase my work on their website. I think the majority of my friends are always trying to get good photos of their kids. The Mommarazzi school offers classes to teach parents (or probably anyone) how to do just that. Such a great idea since so many people are getting DSLR’s. Just because you have a nice camera doesn’t mean you can actually use it with skill;) Be sure to check out their website and everything they offer.

the Alvarez family, Pacific Beach Family Photography

admin — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:01:39 +0000

I photographed this family when their little girl was just a few months old on a rainy November morning. Now they have added the smiliest little boy to their family and I had the pleasure of photographing them again. I love the navy and aqua theme too. This is another mini session and we did pretty dang good with the short time frame coupled with babies and toddlers (ok, one baby and one toddler:P).

Recycled book art for first graders

admin — Sat, 13 Apr 2013 23:13:54 +0000

This project was really fun and the kids loved it. It’s a two day project to allow for dry time.

Step 1: Use bright blue tempera or acrylic paint and water it down a bit. Have each student paint a sheet of paper. I used 9×12.

Step 2: Find an old book and cut out the pages. I figured I needed about 5 sheets per student so we had about 100 pages from a book

Step 3: Use a rainbow assortment of colors (acrylic or tempera paint watered down a bit) and have the kids paint the book pages solid colors. I had one color per table. Lay these all out to dry

Step 4: Second day, lay out a range of the colored book pages on each table and give the kids their blue papers. We started by identifying shapes in the example I made. Everyone started by cutting out a half oval for the hill for their house. Next we did the rectangle for the house and the triangle for the roof. We did those three steps together and glued them down. Then I set them free to add whatever details with the book pages they wanted.

Step 5: We used sharpies and outlined all of our shapes.

Keep in mind… 6 year olds love black pens and they like to go a little crazy sometimes.

This project originated from here

General Supplies:

9×12 white paper
Old book sized around a 5×7
Acrylic or Tempera paint
glue sticks
scissors
black pens
paint brushes (wide)

the Flanders family, Pacific Beach

admin — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 04:14:00 +0000

This was such a fun family shoot. We did all this in a Simple session (20-ish minutes). I could have photographed them all for hours though. We had beautiful weather to boot. The Simple mini session is quick but pretty successful. I’ll admit it’s a little easier with older kids.

Grain Free Graham Crackers

admin — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:33:43 +0000

My new “no starch” diet is making me experiment with recipes. I’ve had a few failures to be honest. I really crave crunchy things. And if you really think about what no grains cut out, it’s all things crunchy. Kind of sucks. A few weeks ago, I tried a graham cracker recipe with coconut flour. It seemed promising but in the end, not so good. So I did a search for a recipe that had an almond flour base and made them last night. And guess what… they are fab! So exciting to find a crunchy cracker that I can overdose one:)

The recipe is not mine… although I don’t do well with sugar alcohols and so I used regular sugar (gasp!) The photo on the left is my dough rolled out. Her photos make them look much better than mine but you get the idea.

Grain Free Graham Crackers

Gracie, Mission Beach

admin — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 06:38:28 +0000

This is one of the sessions from the teen mini shoots I do each year. This particular day was sooo windy. Luckily the wind worked with us and made for a great photo session and stunning photos at the beach. Gracie is just about the graduate from 8th grade in these pictures. Everyone does senior photos but 8th grade is such a significant milestone as well. And how great would it be to see your 8th grade photos like this with your senior photos. Four years is a long time in teen years.

We shot these at the Catamaran hotel, in the alley behind it and down at the beach. My very talented friend, Natalie Bohlin was the hair and make up artist for the day.

PicTapGo… you need it, trust me

admin — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 08:05:34 +0000

This is hands down the best camera phone app out there to date. If you use your phone to capture your life, it’s a must have. The makers of this app make an awesome product for photoshop that I love called RadLabs. This is basically that program for your phone.

This is how it works: Take a photo or use a photo from your camera roll, choose a filter, add another filter, maybe add another filter and each time, choose the strength. Next, if you like your recipe, save it so you can use it on another photo (your own custom filter). Then export it to where you want it including full frame with a white background to Instagram (or in a square to Instagram).

It is rare I take my big camera anywhere personal. First, my big kids won’t stand for pictures at all and certainly not from something obvious. I have to sneak them:) So my life is on my phone. I love my phone pics and I love even more that I can create a pretty darn amazing black and white image now along with a zillion combos for filters to change the look with PicTapGo. Below are a few recent iphone 5 images. The left is straight out of phone and the right is altered with a custom filter by PicTapGo.

Don’t hesitate to get this app… life changer