While Mera & Brian were shooting their engagement session at the Getty,
I was shooting one of the most important sessions of my career down in La Jolla.

All my mom wants for Christmas is a picture of all four grandkids together on a Gina Alexander handbag.
Thursday was the day for the session, since Heather and her family had flown in from Maryland the night before.

Later that night, Jason & I met Mera & Brian for dinner at the SUPERCOOL restaurant, Ketchup on Sunset Blvd.
I am not a foodie by ANY stretch of the imagination.
I do not like my food to be "intriguing"
Ketchup was AWESOME! NEATO environment and REALLY good comfort food!

Brian, you were right. Ketchup WAS the best choice for dinner!

But I digress...
Dinner with Mera & Brian was WAY too short.
We had to limit Brian & Jason on the computer geek IT talk,
we laughed, laughed some more, and compared notes from our sessions that day.

Mera LOVED shooting at the Getty.
I asked, "But did you have the AWESOME clouds we had down in San Diego this morning?"
Brian said, "No, we had more of the Seattle 'BLAH' type of clouds, but the grounds were awesome."

Personally, I'll take the beach with amazing clouds over the Getty any day!
And here's the proof!
Check out these pictures I got for my mom!!
Think she'll be happy!?

Here are the clouds that got me so excited:


Rory & Aidan working on a "castle"


Mat & Tameron in a really cool cave:


and Jeff tossing Aidan with Tam looking on:


I'm going to have to make a collage of pictures for Grandma's handbag because there is NO WAY I can just choose one!

After that shoot and dinner with Mera & Brian, we were off to Disneyland
for 2 days of NON STOP DISNEY ACTION


Now we're back home, trying to relax (while getting laundry done),
and preparing for Christmas.

I hope you all have a wonderful, peaceful, magical, and blessed Christmas & New Year!

~Carey

I had just picked up mail from my PO Box, and I was standing in line at Starbucks,
waiting to order my Tall Peppermint Hot Chocolate
with whipped cream & red sprinkles of course!

The line was long, so I had some time to go through my mail.
I started opening beautiful cards from you guys -- and I'm talking BEAUTIFUL!
A few were cards that I had designed, but most were cards that you guys
designed & ordered all on your own, and THEY ARE STUNNING!

I was caught up in the joy of opening gorgeous card after gorgeous card
when I heard a noise behind me.
I turned around, and the lady in line behind me blurt out,
"MY GOODNESS, HOW MANY BEAUTIFUL FRIENDS CAN ONE PERSON HAVE?!"

I have the best clients on the planet! Thanks for sending me so much joy!

Here's a sample of cards that I got this year:


AND, I know everyone is anxiously awaiting the winner of this year's iPod Touch!
After I picked up my mail today, I assigned every card a number,
wrote all the numbers on identical pieces of paper,
put the papers in a bag, and had Rory choose one without looking.

AND THE WINNER IS....


Kelli and her wonderful family!!!!!
Congratulations Kelli!!

And, as an added bonus to this year's Card Extravaganza,
here's a cartoon that got a good chuckle out of me:

You can see the whole series at Adam at Home .com

~Carey

Yesterday was a BEAUTIFUL day at the beach!
It was a perfect afternoon for playing with Lisa and her family.

These snowbirds came all the way from chilly Minnesota for a session with me.

Isn't this family adorable?!




~Carey

It's really fun and quite an honor to have Barefoot Memories images showing up all over, proudly shown off by happy families.

On my way up to Mat's soccer tournament last week, we passed through Mission Viejo, where our AWESOME canvas artisans live & work.
CB & Roxanne came down to San Diego for family photos this fall. What should a family get when they've got huge canvas printers at their disposal? A GINA ALEXANDER HANDBAG, OF COURSE!!

Rox brought her bag for me to see, and Jason took some pictures for us
as we sipped our Diet Cokes in the Wendy's off the 5 Freeway in Mission Viejo.



Also, how cool is this:
The Harris family showed their family photos to the Chargers' staff, and I think they liked what they saw!

They liked the images so much that they used them in an article about Marques, Brandy, and their adorable children in the "CHARGERS GAMEDAY" magazine that goes out at all Chargers home games.

Thanks for saving me some copies Brandy!!



~Carey

Christmas trees are beautiful.
Christmas trees are gorgeous.
So why is it so hard to get a great picture of something so pretty!?!

Using the tools you've got in your hand, you can accomplish stunning images.
You just have to use techniques and settings that you would probably not use otherwise.

Here are my tips for photographing your Christmas tree
and the image I created tonight using these methods:

Use a VERY slow shutter speed and a high ISO. For my shot I used a shutter speed of 2sec, set my camera to TV mode and let the camera choose the aperture. I remember one photography expert telling me that ISO is like grit on sandpaper. The higher the ISO, the higher the "GRIT", like high-grit sandpaper, and there are more "nooks and crannies" to absorb in more light in dark situations.

You don't have to have a tripod, just find a sturdy surface near where you want to shoot. For my shot, I had to move some ornaments into a good position. I lost my tripod bracket for my camera, so I ended up using my piano bench.

Use your camera's TIMER! Just the movement of pushing the shutter button will move your camera & blur your shot. Use the timer, then you're not pushing the shutter button as the shot is being taken.

Ignore the blinking numbers on your camera. If you have a DSLR, the metering settings will probably blink like the twinkling lights on your Christmas tree -- warning you that your shot is under or over-exposed. You know better than your camera in this case.

TRIAL AND ERROR. Take a lot of shots, checking the back of your camera. Is it brighter than you want? Set the camera to a little bit quicker shutter speed. Is it too dark? Open the shutter for a longer time for the next shot.

Use the AF-points (auto-focus) points on your camera. Your camera will be hunting for focus all night if you have it set to full auto-focus in such a dark setting. On my shot, I wanted the bear in focus, but it's way over to the left. I set the camera to look at the furthest left AF point instead of the center AF point that I usually use. Lock the camera into a certain AF point so the camera knows where to look for focus.

Shoot RAW if you can. Shooting in a RAW mode will allow you to not "lock in" your white balance settings. White balance settings are only embedded into an image when the picture is saved out to jpg. If you can shoot RAW, do so, then you can choose the white balance that looks best on your monitor. I use Adobe Camera Raw to set my white balance, but many photographers use Canon Digital Photo Pro, the software that comes with Canon DSLR cameras. For most Christmas tree shots, I end up lowering the color temperature of my white balance because Canon tends to create indoor images on the "warm" side, so I cool them down. If you can't shoot RAW, choose auto white balance or a tungsten white balance setting so your camera knows that you are shooting a setting with a more "yellow" light than daylight or florescent.
(And for all you Lightroom lovers, yes, Lightroom does have WB adjustments which emulate WB adjustments on jpgs.)

Experiment with different focal lengths. I wasn't sure how I wanted to compose my image, so I took a bunch of shots with my 24-70 lens. I took some wide @24mm, and I zoomed way in for some at 70mm. I decided I liked this one best, the one I shot at 57mm. It shows my bear, given to my by my godfather when I was a child, my son's "Baby's first Christmas" ornament, our annual family crystal ornament, along with some beautiful light sparkle & pine greenery.

I'm teaming up with Mera for this one!
Check out her blog for more tree shooting tips!

~Carey