Oh, The Sunlight in Your Hair!

There is something so simple and beautiful about the sun painting a radiant glow along the edge of flowing locks of hair. This is something that can be so beautifully captured as the sun begins to set. It is the perfect kiss of color of nature’s purest highlights that can turn an ordinary portrait into a brilliant result. You can literally watch the sun work it’s magic to breathe life into the frozen frame of a portrait.

This technique of hair lighting works with any color hair, but with lighter shades, it is often most striking. For these casual senior portraits, the location was the side of the road, yet you can see how the sun against the dark green palette illuminates, Kylie in her photos.

We later moved to a brighter location away from the trees to allow some brighter light to shine down. And for these shots, I really wanted to showcase her long beautiful hair so I asked her to turn away from the camera and tilt her head up. Then I asked her to bunch up her hair and play with it. These shots were a mix of dramatic and playful images...and ones that became our mutual favorites from the evening photo session.

Photo Tip: When you feel like you are running out of ideas and poses to try. Ask your model to touch or play with her hair. Since it is ultimately attached to the person, there becomes some type of emotional attachment that unveils itself before the camera. It also helps to loosen up their hands and get them more comfortable with posing. Depending upon their hairstyle, you might want to introduce a clip, a headband, a hat or some other prop. Try this out at your next shoot and share with me your results!

Impromptu Sessions - Just Grab Your Camera and Shoot

During our recent vacation in the Florida Keys an unexpected photo opportunity arose when we stopped off at a cute little oceanside park just past the 5 mile bridge. My daughter’s boyfriend starting climbing a tree, and soon after, she followed. With camera in hand, I snapped some photos of them climbing, sitting and posing for a few couples shots. We had to work around the wind, but I have to share with you this tree shot that is just priceless of the two of them. Here is the sepia-toned image followed by the color version. There are a few others, but I love how her hair was flowing in this amidst the backdrop of the twisty branches.

And here is the color version (below)

If you choose to do a similar tree shoot. Compose your shots to work with the branches rather than fighting them. Below, the widespread branches acted as a support for James in the background, while the larger trunk made a great ledge for Kylie to be seated in the foreground. Another perk of shooting from this angle is that you also get the beauty of the blue sky peeking through the branches.

Seated and smiling, they look very happy and relaxed sitting in the tree. Be sure when shooting from below to utilize a zoom lens to enable you to get close to the couple, and be mindful of their clothing and positioning of their legs so the shots aren't overly revealing or awkward.

Also pay attention to how the light is falling to avoid harsh shadows or harsh patches of sunlight across faces. Unfortunately, I did not have my flash along with me to use a fill flash, however, I think we still managed to pull off some great images considering these were mid day shots, not the ideal time for lighting.

Getting a very natural portrait of a guy, especially a teen male, can be challenging since they aren't typically as into having their photos taken as girls their age. That is why I seized the moment to take some quick portraits of James, having fun and looking very relaxed.

On the ground, the wind proved to be a big challenge (part of the reason we started exploring other areas and shooting by the trees). I did manage to snap this solo beachside shot of Kylie by the tree post.

The lesson learned from this impromptu photo shoot is that when your subjects feel relaxed and in their element, it will show in the portrait session. With family, or even clients, you can stage and pre-plan portrait sessions, but sometimes you have to just throw caution to the wind and work with great opportunities as well as nature’s wonderful props. Forget that they may not have on the perfect outfits or makeup, and just roll with the real life experience. You may be surprised with some of the best, most natural portrait sessions yet! Happy Snappin'!

Drowning in Pictures!

On Monday, I did a double photo session with our youngest daughter, Kylie, who is about to start her senior year. She is also a spokesmodel for my photography business, Cheri Wenger Design Photography so we did a DREAM session...twice the photos, twice the fun!

She and I are both not morning people so I wasn’t sure how waking at 6 am was gonna correlate into getting ANY good pictures, but I think you will agree that we did more than alright! She started off with a cute silky sundress to have a slightly more formal look with plans to change into shorts & a tee.

Living in Melbourne, FL provides awesome opportunities to shoot photos at the beach. We just couldn’t make the true sunrise at 5:30...no way, no how that would happen with either of us! We did some in the water, but she didn’t want to get too wet since we were just getting started. We played with bubbles. Note: it really helps to have an assistant for that shot so they can direct the bubbles while you snap away! We managed to get a photo or two, but I am gonna try that again, like planned, in her shorts and colorful t-shirt, which by the way, we never got to shoot. We'll save that for another more fun and playful photo session.

Hey, you don’t know what a success this really was. We didn’t have even one squabble AND despite sweating our tutus off, there were plenty of smiles and great shots. Now, we took a break at Starbucks for breakfast and some passionfruit lemonades to revive ourselves! Here are some of the shots taken by the Indian River along with a few from the beach session.  

You know, I have always said that I am an evening person and my daughter is just like me, in more ways than one! She comes alive in pictures and I just seem to have more creative ideas for shots, angles and lighting. No, this couldn't have anything to do with staying up late working on design stuff for my business! As you can see by all these photos, I am in picture and editing overload, but lovin' every minute of it! The handheld ponytail shots at sunset are my mommy faves, and hers too!

If you want to see the complete gallery of photos from the a.m. and sunset photo sessions, check out my  facebook page or go to my Cheri Wenger Design Photography website and you will see them as two of the featured galleries. Be sure to leave me a guest book message on my website and to hit the like button on my facebook page! Thanks.

Project 365 - Days 116-124 A Springboard for Creativity

Yes, I know, I know, it is about time that I start catching you up on my project-a-day creations. Considering that I am up to day 174, I have a lot of updating to do. Some days it is photography, others it is sketching or art for new digi designs and on the really fun days it involves making projects!!!
Here is the first round. Hold onto your seats cause there is a lot of creating going on!!!

Day 116 - Flower Petal art for new set

Day 117 - Floral Silhouettes for future set

Day 118 - Mod Linear Florals (brush & art for creating sets)

Day 119 - ML Fruity Florals Set

Day 120 - Mod Linear Fruity Florals Invitation Sample

Day 121 - Gardenia Line Art for set

Day 122 - Pic a Year Photos for Kylie's Birthday

I put together photos of Kylie from 3 mos. to sweet 16 as a countdown to her birthday. I posted these on her facebook page from when she was little to present. Here is a slideshow of the images:

Day 123 - Gardenia Digi Stamp Set & Samples





Day 124 - Princess Grad Elements for future set

There is more creativity to come....so check back often!

Project 365 - Days 110 - 115 Photography & Designing

It seems like the days are in hyper speed lately. Not enough hours in the day to keep up with work and all the events and to-do’s. With graduation, Kylie's Sweet 16, Mother's Day and family coming to town soon, our house has been a bee hive of activity. Here are some of the creative things that I have been up to. (Bear with me as I am still way behind on posting!)

Day 110 - Sweet 16 photo shoot

Now that Ashley's senior portrait shoot was accomplished, it was time for lil’ sis to get her photos taken.

Kylie and I worked within that hour and a half frame of good lighting to accomplish taking these in our back yard, lanai and a few at the front of our subdivision. We had to save time for our mommy/daughter shoot once Ashley got home from work! She just bought this vibrant leopard shirt and couldn’t wait to wear it in the photo shoot. Then she changed into the teal shirt. Here are a few of our favorites...

Day 111 - Formatting the Mommy/Daughter Pics

There is more to it than taking a good photo. Afterwards, there is the color correcting, cropping, etc. that goes into a good photo session. If you only knew how fast these were taken using a self timer and fighting against a very windy day, you would really appreciate the end result. We took less than a dozen photos, all the while my girls kept asking if it was the last shot since they were ready for Chinese food. And I  would answer as usual, “Just a couple more!” And the last frame was one of my favorites. ;D

I had to get a couple of just Ashley and I before she left for college in the fall...

Day 112 - Ashley’s Grad Announcements

This week I have been busy working on Grad announcements and party invites for Ashley’s friend David and of course, her announcements, too. Where did this year go? It seems to have gone extra fast!

Day 113 - Me & My Girls Album

This was a guest Design Team project for Glue Arts blog...a mommy & me album. I recycled an old spiral notepad (cut off the spiral section and remade holes for the rings. I used glue arts adhesives, Basic Grey papers and Maya Road chipboard and canvas heart with some ribbons to accessorize.

You have to see a close up on the ribbon flower. I will include a tutorial on another day!

Day 114 - Ashley’s Status Card

What is a status card? I had no clue, but apparently it is like a business card for seniors with information that they would like to include for keeping in touch with one another. And of course, it has a photo or 2, or 3, or 4! LOL Here is Ashley's with the real information changed for privacy purposes.

Day 115 - Easter Sunrise Photos

We drug ourselves out of bed at 5 am to make it to the Easter sunsrise service held by our church at the beach. We had to make sure we were also packed and ready to stay beachside, go to breakfast afterwards and then head straight to the finals of the Ron Jons Surf Tournament in Cocoa Beach.

The sunrise was so interesting The service was wonderful and the day was glorious! Alleluia!

Just 2 days til I cut off my long locks!

In just 2 more days, I will be cutting off my hair to benefit Locks of Love and CURED, a foundation that 100% of funds raised goes to research in finding a cure for Eosinophilic Gastro Intestinal Disorders, such as EE (Eosinophilic Esophagitis) which my daughter and Kylie are diagnosed with. Cinco de Mayo marks Kylie's 16th birthday and earlier this year she had a scare with lymphoma started by enlarged lymph nodes. We were relieved after months of testing to find out that it wasn’t cancer, but my heart kept telling me that after what we went through I needed to pay back my gratitude by donating my hair to Locks of Love so that they could make a wig for some child who was fighting that battle. Kylie and I talked about how I could turn that into a fundraiser to raise awareness and money towards helping doctors find a cure for EE.




If you are interesting in knowing more about this disorder, you can go to the CURED website and follow the links. Each case is so different, but for some people it means relying solely on liquid nutrition or being fed through a feeding tube to exist. The social, emotional and other auto immune side effects of this illness can be very devastating. I know for my teen, the difficulties of planning meals on the go so she can lead a “normal life” of being involved in sports, attending parties and social events can be very challenging, not to manage very difficult on her. She sees foods that she used to be able to enjoy and can no longer have, but we are very grateful that she has many options. Some kids can only eat one or two things such as apples or potatoes. Imagine how that would feel to eat the same thing for every meal, for every snack, simply to survive?


The fundraiser has already begun and if you would like to participate by donating, you can go directly to the CURED website to make a donation. It is marked Inching Towards a Cure. You will see this photo and a link. Just type in the amount and it will take you to the cart. I have made a suggestion to donate money based upon the inches of hair I am cutting off (atleast 10), however the donation is simply a flat amount, and nothing is too small a donation. Every bit helps.


To find out more about donating your hair to Locks of Love (10 inches is the minimum), you can go to their website. They also accept donations to offset the cost of $900 involved in creating each new wig.

Project 365/Day 20 - Triple Heart Photo Valentine

When you get a project idea you like, why not make more, right? I have to say that my day 18 project prompted me to create more personalized photo valentines this year. This one is for my daughter Kylie. I have also really been taking advantage of rummaging through my scraps to create new cards from left over embellishments and papers. I used papers from an old Basic Grey mini stack along with some retired SU sheer organdy ribbon along with an epoxy sticker from KI Memories.

You can frame your photo, use it on a corner as I did here or punch it into a shape to add to the Valentine. I am putting my valentine’s greeting on the inside of my cards and focusing on making the outside all about the recipient. Have fun trying this...you can even make it into a mini scrapbook page!

Technique to try out: Want to create a crinkled vintage looking ribbon? Use your embossing heat tool with sheer organdy ribbon. Hold it close to the ribbon and watch it shrivel up. Don’t go too close or it will burn.

My Favorite Winter Layouts created in 2010

Our winter trip to Philly provided me with lots of creative inspiration and the photos to go along with it...many of which became the subject of scrapbook layouts last year. LOL, I am still scrapping the stack of photos now, playing catch up, It is hard to get motivated to scrap winter photos in the summer in Florida. Hope you enjoy and get some inspiration from these.

Cousins Warm Up

I really loved the Happy Meter stamp that I purchased one day in the dollar bin.

I knew it was just perfect for this layout of cousins Kai and Lauren, who despite

the weather and not seeing one another that often, warmed up to winter fun.

Tip: Have a favorite paper that has large dots? Try cutting around them

to create a fun paper edge on your next scrapbook page.

My Snow Dan

One very fun technique to try out on this layout is using a versamarker

and embossing powder to create snowy chipboard layers. I also

had fun cutting snowflakes from paper and felt, layering them with a brad.

Have multiple photos of the same subject? Try angling on your layout

with one long frame as I did here. I used fun metal corners from Karen 

Foster Design to highlight the close up photo of my husband, Dan.

Snow Beautiful

This was created in a hotel room at CHA last year with limited tools and supplies on hand.

I created the title by hand by tearing paper and coloring the edge of the snowball with a pencil. 

I hand drew the letters and cut them out. I also created the torn paper flower embellishments.

This was the definition of creativity on the fly!

Oh Snow Cute, Kai

This is a double page layout I created using the colors in Kylie's outfit

as the basis for my layout. I loved working with the velvety papers

and sticking to high contrast colors and using neutral grey with 

punches of red as the accent color. The title on this continues across

the 2 page spread. I added journaling in my own handwriting.