Hello everyone! This past week in my town, the weather has been beautiful. Mid-70s °F every day and sunny! I chose to take advantage of this weather and do a photo shoot I had wanted to do for a while. This summer, I’m trying to work on my photography portfolio, hoping to start to charge for shoots next summer (senior shoots, graduation photos, etc.)

I had this idea for a very light and airy, almost “ethereal” photoshoot. I wanted lots of greenery and a bright blue sky! My friend Mia was kind enough to model for me. We were able to narrow down our selection to two different locations. We’re super lucky we live in a beautiful town with lots of different places to explore! We started at a park near us with lots of open fields and water nearby.

This location’s photos were a lot of fun to edit. I’m still learning, and am mostly self-taught, so using my camera’s manual settings can be hard for me. But, from this project, I learned that Adobe Lightroom’s layer masks are my best friends, Lol! I used this feature a lot in these photos, specifically in this first photo (Mia with the sky behind her). In the original photo, the sky is way too overexposed and you can’t see the clouds. I was able to mask the sky and Mia and was able to accomplish exactly what I wanted. I really enjoy the editing process so this was a lot of fun that I had a lot of work to do!

For our second location, we chose a castle. Yes, a literal castle. There are plenty of gems in Bucks County, I may be biased, but this is one of my favorite locations. Fonthill Castle in Doylestown, PA is where we ended up, and it is beautiful! While I have been here before, I never really explored. We found a bunch of little nooks and crannies to take pictures in. I had Mia change into a white dress and it really contrasted against the background perfectly. I’m super proud of how this set of photos turned out. Check them out below.

This was a wonderful new learning experience and a great addition to my portfolio. I’m so grateful for friends who are willing to help me with things like these! I felt like I learned a lot about editing my photos this week and I could be happier with how they turned out!

Thank you for reading! 😀