Your Opinion Please

Awhile back I was inspired by themooshinindy and her friend who took these pictures. I thought it would be fun to try and do a photo shoot myself. So on Tuesday my brother's girlfriend, Annika, came over and we had some fun. Shh, don't tell, but I think she was a model in another life because she knows how to pose already (and I wouldn't know how to tell her to otherwise!)

We have the best weathered fence right in our back yard for taking pictures!


And then we walked over the park because they have this new play set that's all red and gray and mod looking that I thought might make for good backgrounds. I don't like it quite as much as the fence though.

Annika normally makes goofy faces in pictures so I got a few of those too...

And I have some more cute poses, but I didn't get to them because I was messing around in photoshop... and I discovered that you can lighten the shadows and darken the highlights to even out a photo. Who knew it could have such a HUGE difference! For one thing notice the difference in the fence between photo 1 and 2 above. Then because my pride was wounded about this picture from my sister-in-law's wedding this summer I messed with it.

Before:

After:See how the faces were in shadow and the background was so light? All you need is the image->adjustments->highlights/shadows and it does it for you. Even 5% on the shadows makes a HUGE difference!

The wounded pride bit came when my mother-in-law took in a photo collage to have printed as Christmas cards. The photo place asked if she had permission to print one of the pictures on the card (that was done by the professional) but not mine. She asked the lady why mine didn't look professional and the lady said "oh, because the background is too washed out, a professional would have had better light". Ugh! If I had a fancy dancy stand alone flash mine might look like that too, but I don't have that kind of money! Or really the inclination.
All this to say I am actually hoping to maybe do some senior picture photo shoots. So I'd really like your opinions! What do you think of the photos above? Are they senior portrait worthy? Is there something lacking? Would you pay me (not a whole lot) to take your pictures?

And because yesterday was "National De-Lurker Day" now would be the perfect time to leave a comment! Tell me what you think!

And maybe I'll post some more pictures later! If I have more time to "mess" with them!