NEW WEBSITE!!!!

HEY VISITOR! GUESS WHAT!  

I have spent all month creating a fresh new look for my site, and now
MY WEBSITE IS COMPLETE!!!
And it looks AWESOME.

CHECK OUT THE NEW WEBSITE HERE.

I took this winter break to completely change the layout of my website so that the photos were easier to access and view at full screen.  I even learned a handy trick for iphone and ipad devices on rescaling websites and how to fix the flaws that come with it. So yes, it is now released and up and running!  Please do check it out, I really love it, I hope you do too.
Really helps to have a web design background for stuff like this;)

Here are before and after shots of my website(before = right, after = left).

I will be learning much more in web design this semester, seeing as how I am taking 6 credit courses of all intensive advanced web design.  Its not easy, but its got to be learned.

BTW I never showed you guys the photoshoot I did this winter break for my co-workers newborn.  Check out the Christmas/New Years card I shot and created for her:

!!! OH AND GUESS WHAT!!!!!!

For many of you, this might not mean anything.  Probably you wont even understand what it means to me, because you don't know the extent of my passion for singing and for this particular group on my campus.
Last year I attended one of my school's wonderful concerts at the Howard (beautiful building) and discovered my love for this ministry choir called Journey.  They gave out free CD's that night, so I was happy to take one.  This summer I fell in love with them!  The quality of their voices, their harmony...I listened to them Everywhere I went and memorized every song on that CD.
Then this school year came around, and my friends saw my passion for singing and encouraged me (pretty much by force) to sign up for our school's Chorale.  So I did, and I LOVE it! It is SO exhilarating to sing with such a mass crowd of beautiful voices.
But I still had my eyes on Journey, until I realized, they were taking auditions!! But I signed up too late last semester to get in.  They said I would possibly have another chance next semester, though my hopes weren't too high, because I knew how many people wanted to get into Journey.

But low and behold, God made a way!!!!  They asked me to audition with them Sunday and GUESS WHAT.  I GOT IN!!!!!!!!
We are singing this Sabbath at Pioneer Memorial Church! I am SO excited and so very honored to have even been asked to audition, let alone sing with them and even better, be a part of their group! God Thank you so much for this opportunity.   It has made my semester:)

You can check their website out here! : http://www.journeymi.com/


Bad news this semester so far though, my phone is a brick:/ Long story, but it basically is of no use, so I have to purchase a new one, which isn't cheap anymore.  But other than that!  Life is good.  Still knitting, still enjoying my discovery of tea (probably didn't mention that one to you guys before huh?), still singing, still in love with my overwhelmingly helpful boyfriend, and still photographing:)

Care to see my most recent photograph?  It is titled Wade in the Water, an self portrait of the pathway I felt I had to go on to find my way to God, a very rough one, and one that is still traveled today when trying to go against the current of the ways of this world.

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- His good, pleasing and perfect will." - Romans 12:2

Epic Behind the Scenes and Finals

Wow where do I start? This has been a very busy last month of school, finals are Now and everything is boiling down to the end. I Thank God for all of my friends here and the success I have had this semester, very very happy about all of that! I am happy I picked up a few new habbits, tea (LOVE IT!!), bike riding (ALSO LOVE IT!) and now knitting:D

I am beginning to love knitting so much that I am starting my own Etsy store called 'Embrace The Lamb'. www.etsy.com/shop/embracethelamb
Check out the new blog for it to figure out the meaning of it ;D www.embracethelamb.blogspot.com

But seeing as how this blog is about photography, I will save all my knitting talk for my new knitting blog (But seriously, it is super sweet so check it out!!)


SO instead of me talking away about my photography, I will skip to the point where I show it all to you, and hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do!

(Before and After)

Do you want to see an Awesome Behind the Scenes Photoshop Editing Videos that were sped up of me creating some of these photos? I LOVE it! I want to do this for most of my future photoshopping projects...SO much fun to watch!







So here is my final series thus far, titled 'The Adventures of a Stray Dog'

And Wow I cannot wait to show you the photos was privileged to take for my friend Zoviel and her new cheesecake business. First of all her cakes were AMAZING. Delicious And beautiful. Secondly, the photos came out GREAT! I will be posting them up soon:)

You are worth more than they tell you...

A little late I know, I need to keep up with this better. I have been so busy with other projects that I cannot WAIT to expose!! My website mainly! I have begun coding a brand new website mostly from scratch, designed by me and am Very happy with the way it is coming out so far. I think it will feature my work much better, and be fresher and more pleasant to go through:)
As for the rest of my assignments, I think all has been going well. God is So great, yes we will go through trials in our lives but life is more than just the bad situations we find ourselves in. There is so much more meaning to life than what athiests can offer or teachers can tell you.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Guys, I want to tell you something...
For all of you art majors out there, how many times have you been put down and disrespected because of your status of 'student'?

You do Great work, probably better than some (maybe most) professionals out there, and clients come your way, attracted to the quality and richness of what you have to offer. They speak with you about how great your work is, and of the project they have in mind that they are in need of. Then you tell them your price. And all of the sudden, they pull out the 'Well arn't you a student?' card. As if that means they automatically receive some kind of major discount or possibly even FREE LABOR for your work (yes I have actually seen people state 'you make this for me and if I like it, I will pay you).

Can we all relate?

Listen, I am here to tell you, that this is NOT OKAY.
Let me repeat that, THIS IS NOT OKAY

Your work as an artist is what makes companies so successful. It is what makes life beautiful to look at. It is what pleases the soul or gets people into action. Whether it is commercial or fine art, it has a purpose in this world. And that purpose cannot be cheapened down to little to no pay just because of the fact that you are a 'student'.

In the client's mind, they think, 'this person is only a student, not even good enough yet to be in the real world, I mean it would benefit their portfolio anyways, so they should be willing to do this for me.. after all, I am doing them a favor by giving them experience'. Newsflash: ALL of our assignments both in class And outside of class are experience and often gets looked down upon. Every photoshoot, painting, product design, etc that you will ever do in the 'real world' will be experience for you and probably add towards your portfolio, but is this a good reason to get work done for free? No client in their right mind is going to pull the 'well I am giving you experience so you should do this for me' card. That is not going to work.

If you are a talented student (and you know it) who has enough quality and experience under your belt to be charging what some professionals charge, then do so!

And you know what, thats right, YOU ARE a student.
YOU are paying for $50,000-$100,000 worth of an education AND equipment with over a few thousand hours worth of practice of trial and error in order to DO what you can do in the one or two hours that you are charging them.
They are not just paying for that one or two hours of work, they are paying for ALL of the COUNTLESS hours you have spent learning the camera, editing programs, lighting, poses and angles, not to mention learning from researching and viewing other peoples work, you name it, in order to get that one shot or that one painting right the FIRST time.
I personally know many photographers that did not go to college. If you are in college, you took the risk of paying X amount of $ to further pursue your education, skill sets, etc. You are worth that much more with a college degree (and not for no reason either, you gain valuable insight learning under college professors that others that did not attend college). Yet some professionals out there who produce cheaper quality work charge X amount of money, and no one complains. So why do they complain when you charge the same price for better quality as a student?
Also take into account the thousands of dollars of loans you will need to pay back starting the moment you graduate. You will probably need to start paying rent and bills now too, oh and you need to eat as well.


So why are we letting ourselves get pushed over by these people?
Your career is Just as important and valuable than a doctors career or a scientists career. God has given You the talent and ability to influence others through your work. Whether that be propaganda to make people familiar with a change to be made (which was powerful enough after WWI to promote WWII), persuading a customer to purchase a particular product, or even as important as convincing someone who to vote for for president. It is VERY powerful. And that is why they need YOU. Businesses need you. Politics need you. Everyday people need you. Because this is NOT a job any one can do.
Inform your clients IN A RESPECTFUL WAY of some of these thoughts, it might be completely new to them.

Therefore, if your work is as high of quality as the professionals, do not be ashamed to charge what the professionals charge.

You are every bit worth it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that that is off of my chest (sorry, I have been dealing with this a lot lately),
Many people have been asking me about my photographing/retouching process.
I have put my order below each image.
Please let me remind you, this is not easy stuff that costs less than $100, it takes Hours of work to complete. Under some photos you will see the total amount of time it actually takes to produce the photo.

Total: 11 hours
8 hours of editing
3 hours of planning/photographing
All photos mine except 2 birds in the background.

(Sketch I made in Step 1 for photo above)

Step 1: Sketched my idea out
Step 2: Found a landscape shot in an old collection of photos taken while in Africa (this was a photo I shot literally in a drive by on our way to another location on Cape Verde).
Step 3: Went out and photographed many pictures of cows and a donkey (at the moment I was not sure which one I would use)
Step 4: Found a model (Cady) perfect for the shoot (Praise God for such a cooperative model to do this for me) and arranged the time, location, clothing to photoshoot her on a semi-cloudy FREEZING day on top of a dirt mound where we could shape the pile of dirt and have her looking like she was sitting on the back of an animal.
Step 5: Photoshopped it all together for 8 hours, and most importantly (no joke, this helped me more than anything)...
Step 6: Prayer!

Total: 10 hours
6 hours of editing
4 hours of photographing and planning
Portrait taken by me, 38 photographs of bees found online


Step 1: Sketched my idea out
Step 2: Found a model (Emmanuel) and photographed him in the studio with the help of my boyfriend Timothy as my assistant
Step 3: Searched for a good hour finding 38 bee photographs online
Step 4: Photoshopped everything all together for 6 hours
Step 6: And of course Prayer throughout all of it (no joke)

Step 1: Researched inspiration online
Step 2: Sketched out my idea first
Step 3: Bought the fragrance I wanted to photograph from Rite Aid
Step 4: Went rock searching for a bunch of good sized looking rocks
Step 5: Rented a studio and filled up a tray full of water to photograph the water ripples, the rocks in the water, and then the perfume in the water all separately
Step 6: Photoshopped it all together

Models in water (Lauren and Kristen) and location shot by me

Step 1: Researched inspiration for an idea
Step 2: Sketched my idea out
Step 3: PRAYED A LOT
Step 4: Found 2 models willing to be photographed in the semi cold weather inside a pond of water
Step 5: Photographed the models and the clothing
Step 6: Searched for as many butterfly photographs as I could find
Step 7: Photoshopped everything together for hours

Step 1: Researched inspiration for an idea to photograph
Step 2: Sketched my idea out
Step 3: Bought watches from Target
Step 4: Found models (the model above was Rachel) willing to lay down and have their hair photographed
Step 5: Rented a studio out and Photographed the models hair
Step 6: Photographed the watches in different positions
Step 7: Photoshopped and retouched hair and the watch laying within the hair for hours

Total: 13 hours
10 hours of editing
3 hours of photographing and planning
Portrait (Gifty) taken by me, tentacles and underwater scene found online

(Sketch I made in Step 1 for photo above)



Step 1: Sketched my idea out first
Step 2: PRAYED A LOT
Step 3: Found a model and photographed her in the studio
Step 4: Searched for over an hour finding as many photographs of tentacles and underwater scenes that I could find
Step 5: Photoshopped everything together for 10 hours

Photoshopping

Its funny how much we photographers will do to our pictures to get them the way we visioned them to look. Sometimes real life infront of the camera DOES look like how we want it to look, but the camera cannot capture it as our eyes see it, so we must go back and edit in or out what it failed to capture accurately.
Here are some behind the scenes before and after shots of photos I took in the past.

Can I just say GOD IS GOOD

God Helped me SO MUCH today.


This week has been a handful with difficult time taking projects.
Week of Spiritual Emphasis really did help get me back on track with God.
The talk I had with my boyfriend Tim about the snippets of Davids life, and how God helped him in the past...
Looking back on old photos from 2010 and MICA years (where God led me out of Egypt into the Promise Land:] )...
Learning about how INCREDIBLY complicated the body is through just solely learning about the muscles and how they operate, how many need to operate at the same time and what they Do when they operate (each pull in a different direction to achieve different movements and forces), etc.

I'm telling it the truth, there is is NO way that we could have 'evolved' into this magnificent complex organized being. Absolutely No way. It is clear to me that for anyone who believes in the theory of evolution, surely has not studied anatomy at a Graduate level (like my boyfriend is doing now) to understand that it is IMPOSSIBLE for these things to have came about 'over time'. We would have died out as a species if we waited for things to spontaneously mutate enough to form the right combination of EVERYTHING to have made the EXACT new whatever it is that we need (to digest food, to move different muscles and lift heavy objects, to see properly with our eyes AND our brain [the brain does more than you know when it comes to your vision], you name it!). It ALL had to be there at the SAME time.

Absolute Foolishness they teach in schools today. The disadvantage these kids have today when their teachers teach such as the truth....


Anyways...God is awesome. Today I had to complete a mini project for video which was to use our video camera in as many different ways as possible..except mine was not recording anything. Nothing I was doing was allowing it to work and my teacher and I kept playing phone tag. So here I am wasting time trying to get this thing to work and freaking out about other homework I did not complete...when finally my friend came in and helped me greatly. But by that time, the subject matter I was prepared to film was out of my reach, and I was left with nothing to film. And so listen to the friends I have, my one friend stayed to participate in being videotaped as did my boyfriend, even though he has his first 3 tests for graduate school to study for. And the two of them together were entertaining enough coming up with different things for me to film. Thank you God for my friends and my boyfriend's sacrifice to spend time helping me out over helping himself out!!:)

So I finally finished the video assignment...but my other project was no where decent enough to be handed in by tomorrow. I had to create a poster from scratch using color, typography and illustration for my graphic design course. And it was BAD.
BUT PRAISE GOD, I prayed, and each time I prayed, my poster got better and better and my patiences grew (trust me I was really loosing patience)!
Just so you can see the process of how bad it was when I already had spent hours on it to begin with...see how God has helped me:





And this is the final product!



Ok it is DEFF bed time, I am SO tired but I really wanted to write this to you guys tonight. I hope everyone is doing well and thank you for reading this:)



"Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you." - Psalms 9:10

Last day home...

(My beautiful sister)

Tomorrow Tim and I head back to Michigan for our 2nd year at Andrews University. I will officially be a junior, and Tim will begin his first year at Graduate school.
I have gotten so comfortable at home that now I don't want to go back to school! But I am sure once I am there, I will be very happy:)


I want to thank God again for this amazing summer.

This has been a very good summer for me. I felt very content with myself self consciously and it was my first experience using my photography in the real world working for actual clients. I got to intern under a great photographer, James Ransom and see how professional photographers do their stuff.

What was Really crazy was that this entire summer I had been struggling to find work, and then all of the sudden, this last week God had provided me with a photoshoot for just about EVERY day but Sabbath!!!
In one week I did a total of 4 baby photoshoots, 2 company photoshoots (for Baby Vision and for Bayard Cutting Arboretum State Park), and one logo design for a Holistic Nutrition Business.
God provides. Just when I was not sure I was going to have enough money to go back to college with, God provided. He Always does. It was too much of a coincidence that my very last week of summer I was bombarded with jobs. So much so that I had to schedule 2 jobs to photoshoot when I come home for thanksgiving break:)


AND ALSO GUESS WHAT ELSE!!!!! This is some of my favorite news!!!!!!!

NINA MARIE PHOTOGRAPHY is OFFICIALLY A BUSINESS!!!
I have registered for it in my county! I will be registering for another DBA in Michigan as well. I got my own EIN number from the IRS and registered as a Sole Proprietor DBA Nina Marie Photography.
I thought it was going to be SO HARD. I was SO overwhelmed. I did not even know where to start...in fact, no one I talked to seemed to quite know the exact steps and order of how to go about starting my own business.
But it is finished! And I have a bank account for it as well, so checks can now be made payable to Nina Marie Photography:)

If you need any help with starting your own business, come to me and now I can help you!




Now I know I am VERY behind on showing you guys some of my recent work, so I will show you now below some of the different the baby photoshoots:











These are some shots from Baby Vision:









These were just some fun shots my friend Allysia, Tim and my sister and I took:)

















Here are some logos I have done since I last updated my blog:









Lastly, here are the business cards I designed for my mothers cake business:) Check out her site at www.customcakesbyannmarie.com





That is all for now, pray for us for safe travels back to school tomorrow and thank you so much for reading!