Just wanted to show a before and after. I love Lightroom! All I did here was increase contrast with curves and the slider, increase vibrance, add fill light, increase recovery, and add a vignette. Then, resize and sharpen for web. I took this picture with my aunt's Canon Rebel in RAW. Then I was able to create a preset with these settings and synchronize settings to the rest of the pictures. Lightroom speeds up the process of editing so much!

One of the things that I have been trying to improve in my Christian life is noticing ways in which God shows His love to me. I wanted to feel God is real in my life, and even though He continues to show Himself real in other ways, it helped me tremendously feeling His love. Since then, there have been numerous ways in which He has shown He loves me, and many of them, through photography.

We had been planning this senior session for a week. I had mentioned many times how I would love to have a vintage bicycle for this session. The day of the session, we got to this cute, quaint downtown. And guess what we found parked on the sidewalk? A cute, vintage bicycle! I could not believe it! We went in the store to ask the owner if they knew who owned it, and the owner was there. She was a sweet lady that was more than happy to let me use her bicycle for pictures! We got the shots we wanted! I'm in love with them!

Not only the bicycle, we also found a sunflower field on the way to the ocean that same day for her pictures! It was another thing I had been mentioning all week. And God brought both of them to us without me even asking or praying for it :)

God loves you and He wants you to know it! :D

Who said props have to be expensive?

I remember when I first started photography. Lots of investments to make! Once your business starts growing, buying equipment is not that hard. The business pays for itself. But when you are starting, there is a limited budget you need to work with. Sometimes, to make cute studio pictures you need lots of cute props. And when first starting, most of people cannot invest in expensive ones! (although they are worth it, and great quality, and eventually a great investment when your business grows!).

So I wanted to show an example on affordable cute setting! (I know it could be better, but traveling makes it hard to set up cute settings! :) )

Fabric for the backdrop: $4

Suitcase: borrowed, although I've seen them at Hobby Lobby for $30 or more, but Hobby Lobby has great coupons you can use!

Bottom ruffle blanket from Ikea: $20 (I found it on sale for $16 and I've used it a lot even as a backdrop!)

Flower: $3 from Joann's

Garland: I made it with scrapbooking paper so it was probably around $2.

I hope this helped if you are starting to do photography! I do recommend professional backdrops if you can. You don't have to iron them, they will have no wrinkles, and they are wider! But to start, you CAN do cute indoor sessions with a lower budget :) Just look around your house and see what you have. Blankets, head pieces, scrapbooking paper, fabric... I've had to use things I never thought I would use for pictures, but as I said before, traveling there is limited space for your props! So I don't bring a lot with me. 

Have a blessed day!

Arancha

Our Utah trip

Hands down Utah is being the coolest state we've been to so far :) Great rocks, canyons, mountains with snow, and city life! We love all the outside shopping areas with cute little cookie or ice cream stores. The clothing stores are becoming my favorite as well! And Jamba Juice and In and Out Burger (forgive my spelling) are everywhere here! We are having a blast! But the best of all is all we are learning here! God knew we were needing some training and knowledge on certain areas of our ministry. One of the areas we were needing to learn about was religions that are rapidly spreading in Spain and that we didn't know much about. We consider it a blessing and privilege to get this part of our training here in Utah. We've been to wonderful churches and have met wonderful people! We praise God for each and every one of our trips and meetings. Spain is in great need of the Gospel and we feel so privileged that God is sending us to Spain so we can tell people that only Jesus saves and that we can have eternal life in heaven if we accept this precious gift! God is good! :)

Here is a picture of us in the south of Utah! Photographers here must love taking pictures at this gorgeous places!

Have a blessed day!

Arancha

Jared and Katie: Knoxville, TN

Last Saturday I had the privilege to take engagement pictures for this cute couple! One of things i loved the most was hearing Jared's sweet comments about Katie and all the laughs they shared during the session! We had a wonderful time! I loved hearing about Katie's ideas for the wedding. It is going to be such a beautiful wedding at an antique house with beautiful decoration inside. A dream for any photographer!

They were such a blessing to us and we really enjoyed spending time with them! And as you can see, they did a great job posing!

Thank you Jared and Katie for allowing us to take your pictures! It was a blast!!!!!

Arancha

My Facebook photography page took over my blog. What a shame! :0 I would love to be able to post more, but in all honestly, photography has been set aside a little bit since we started our journey as missionaries. I still enjoy photography and have been taking lots of pictures! (lots of my little man as well :) ) During deputation we've been able to visit so many amazing places! And I determined to take a good family picture of each new cool place we visit! It hasn't been easy... but I'm thankful for digital cameras, tripods, and self-timers :D It's made these family pictures possible! So here is one I would like to share that reflects our lives lately: our car, beautiful landscape, and our son's favorite toy when we make stops during our trips :)

This has been an amazing year of deputation. We've met wonderful families, missionaries, pastors and their families... and we've had so many people commit to pray for us. Reaching Spain with the Gospel could not be done without the power of God. So all these prayers are going to make a huge impact in what we will accomplish in Spain. And we're so thankful having so many people be a part of seeing souls saved through just praying for us! We really are thankful for all the prayer support we have!

We've also learned a lot during this year, and are looking forward to learn more and more about the ministry, God, and how to serve Him and please Him better! I've been gathering lots of ideas for the ministry and activities! We are so looking forward to starting the church :) I've also found great books that have tremendously helped me spiritually. Right now I'm reading: "Teaching more than English," which is being a great resource for the English classes we will be offering. A couple of other book I recommend you to read are: "A Meek and Quiet Spirit" and "Healing Love." And "It's a wonderful life" by Terry Chappell.

The West is beautiful! I love the city, that's where I came from. But there is nothing like seeing a beautiful landscape and seeing what a perfect creation it is, and knowing that God made it :) The Grand Canyon was simply beautiful!

One thing I'm enjoying is seeing how God shows us His love in even little details. Nate had been so excited about seeing elk in Arizona. He kept looking everywhere and praying he would see elk. I started praying as well, and that day, God showed us a few of them :) Over and over again God reminds us that He is with us and that He loves us. Something I read yesterday as I was worrying about something (as I tend to do often...): "Faith is not believing that God can, but knowing that God will." It brightened my day, and I immediately started to feel better. Then He used a friend on Facebook to speak on his status about worrying. He said that prayer and worry cannot go together. God knew my need, and He gave me what I needed to relieve that burden :D

And yes... I rambled, as I tend to do too :) But I have so much to be thankful for, and God has been so good to us, and has showing His power in our lives in so many ways so many times! I can't praise Him enough for it.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend!

Arancha