QUICK ANNOUNCEMENT:

If you'd like an AFTERNOON MINIon a weekend (those are rare),
I've got a few openings for this Saturday and Sunday in La Jolla!

Email me at barefootmemories@gmail.com if you're interested!

Have a great day!

~Carey

Last weekend wasn't full of beach parties and BBQ's for the Schumacher family.

If you're a parent in club soccer, you know that last weekend kicked off SUMMER TOURNAMENT SEASON!

I'm SO PROUD of Mat's team because they entered their first tournament under a HUGE umbrella of question marks,
but they didn't let that intimidate them.

We took the team from last year's club, got a coach from yet another club, and joined a club
where the costs are low (HUGE releif for a lot of families on the team).

The team practices on fields far away from other club teams,
so not may folks know what we've been up to for the last few months.
Everyone (including the local soccer community) was wondering how on Earth this new team would fare
in their first big test.

And how did they do?

We took them to one of the biggest tournaments in town, and THEY WON THE WHOLE THING!

They made it to the championship game, and went into halftime down 2-0.
That wasn't good enough for them.
They came charging back and won the game 3-2!

All of the boys and the families were SO EXCITED and SO PROUD of the boys and the coach.

Next stop is the Pegasus Cup tournament in June.

By that time, we'll have our cool team banner all ready, too!

Last year's banner was a HUGE hit, and this year's is going to be awesome, too.

I took the pictures before the boys' first weekend game during warmups.
I brought my lights & my portable power to the field, set up a little photo set in the corner of the field,
and quickly pulled boys out of warmups one-by-one to get their pictures done.

Here's the final team image for the banner:

Don't they look tough!?

Here's how I created the images...

I took each boy's picture individually with two lights.

One light was to my LEFT, pointing at the boy from his right side, with a big softbox on it.
Another light was behind the boy to my right, pointing at the boy from behind his left shoulder.
That rear light did not have a softbox on it, and I had the power set lower because it was just for accent.

I triggered the lights with a remote trigger attached to my camera's hotshoe (where a flash usually goes).

Here's Micah... I took the shot, brought it home, erased out the background with a layer mask,
and brought Micah into the banner on the black background:

I did that with each boy,
so the banner image got REALLY big:

Once I had each boy in the banner as his own layer, I arranged them the way I wanted,
then I put in a totally black layer over the top of them.
I set that layer style to "OVERLAY" instead of normal so that they took on a really cool over-dramatic look.
I really like the effect! I put in a layer mask on that layer and brought back in a little detail on the boys' faces.

I added in one more layer and put in a gradient to fade their legs out to black.

Now I have to add in the team logo & our sponsors' logos, and get this banner ordered!

I think it's going to be a head-turner for sure!!

I've gotta go get to work on this banner layout.

Have a great afternoon!

~Carey

Mat's team was supposed to play in a beach soccer tournament the weekend of May 30/31st,
but we ended up not signing up for that tournament because that weekend is already so busy
with Little League Baseball playoffs and our Spring League soccer.

SO, I have some room for some AFTERNOON MINIs in LA JOLLA!

There are FOUR openings.

CLICK one of the links to sign up for yours!

MAY 30th 6:30-6:55pm

MAY 30th 7-7:25pm

MAY 31st 6:30-6:55pm

MAY 31st 7-7:25pm

Once one has been purchased, the link will take you to a "sold out" page.

If you try to click straight from your email subscription,
that may not work for you. Go to the blog online if clicking from the email doesn't work.

(Supposedly that problem has been fixed,
but I haven't test it yet... this is the test!.)

Have a great Memorial Day weekend everyone, and God bless our troops and their families --

especially those who have given the ultimate sacrifice for us!

~Carey

Yesterday I had another round of headshot sessions
while Mat & Rory played in the park.

Both had finished their homework, so Mat sat down to watch
Calvary's middle school soccer team play Calvary La Mesa.

Rory decided to swing swing swing.

Since my headshot sessions are so short,
I had extra time to just play with my kiddos,
and I caught this shot of Rory:

pink pedal-pushers
+
Tinkerbell sneakers
+
"little girl big dreams" shirt
+
unbrushed hair
+
hole-in-the-head from a missing front tooth
=
RORY SCHUMACHER

I used the "LUX" action from Totally Rad to create a bit of an antiquee washed out feel.
I love that action because it doesn't suck out all the color/saturation from an image,
and I don't lose contrast in the mids like some antiquee treatments do, so it looks aged but not "blah"

Enjoy!

~Carey

Eariler this week, I met Sam and her family in Balboa Park.

They all drove down from Orange County on Sam's 2nd birthday for a fun photo session.

What a HUGE compliment that this awesomecool family chose to spend such a special day with me!

I have a truckload of images to share, so I'll just get right to it instead of my usual babble:

...love this shot of Sam running & laughing from dad...

Sam LOVES bubbles, and she's VERY good at blowing bubbles, too. She was just trying out a new
(ineffective, it turns out) bubble blowing technique for this shot.

WEEE!!! What is it with kids & defying gravity!!?
OK, I don't think it's just kids. If we adults could find someone who could do this for us, too,
I'm sure we'd be allllll over it, too!

This is a railing that comes up to hip-level of most adults. I love how little she looks!

Wardrobe change!! (A perk of a full session vs a Mini!) She definitely looks up to her dad.

This is one of my favorites (big shocker there!)

and one last shot... you know how 2-yr-olds LOVE lining up things? perfect example:

Enjoy!

~Carey