Marylie Mach

{The Spanoudis Family ~ Blogged}

16-years ago is when we met this family. We had just moved here to Texas, and moved into some apartments in Arlington. We didn’t know anyone. Me and my brother didn’t speak English. It was the summer, and we were bored to death! We all fell in love with Texas pretty quickly… especially the weather, but we had no friends, no activities, nothing to do… SO… when we met Marios & Elena, we were thrilled to have something worth getting up for in the mornings. Why you ask? Because Elena was pregnant and about to give birth to a little bundle of joy. Literally!

We moved into a house and my mom started “babysitting” the new little baby; Yiannis! He was so cute, loving, and just a joy to be around. Every morning it was like Christmas because Elena would come and drop him. Elena has the most amazing laugh ever. So their presence in our home was always one that we cherished, and just loved. So for for about 12-years we helped raised Yiannis, then Markos who came along shortly after. We LOVE, love, love these boys to death. We treated them like family and I can say today that they are my family.

Elena and my mom became best friends. Always hanging out on the weekends. The boys became our little brothers. Marios became our friend, and my confident. I love talking to him about life, personal issues, and always having the feeling that he has my best interest in mind. A few years ago, they made a life decision to move back to Greece. Ohhhhh that was hard on my family. We helped them load the moving truck, cried, held each other, and I have to say that we were all depressed for a while after they left. To this day, we talk about them all the time, and so wish they would move back here to Texas.

For the holidays they decided to come for a visit. Needless to say that we were SO so so so happy to see them. The boys are all grown now, and such good boys. They are polite, and love to eat American food. We went to the stockyards this past weekend and did an impromptu photo shoot. Short and sweet. I only took a few shots of them, because we had lots of people with us, and didn’t want to bore everyone with this shoot. I think we got some really good ones here

Anyway, without any further adieu, here is the Spanoudis family!!! I love you guys, and wish you a safe trip back. You mean a lot to me and hold you very close to my heart. I will miss you and will always remember how you have individually touched my heart.

Marios!!! I love you! You have always been there for me and I appreciate everything you have done without hesitation.

The shot on the left is Greg with Marios. Greg worked for Marios for years, and is also very close to him. The shot on the right was really an outake, but I found it funny, so I decided to put in this blog!

The image below includes the whole family along with Marios parents.

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Filed Under: Portraits

{Baby Travis ~ 5 days olds} NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

3 Jan posted by Marylie Mach

Look at this precious angel. He was so darn sweet!!!

He did make me work for it though. He slept a fairly good amount… towards the end of the session… but fought me for most of it. I have to say that with a lot of patience, help from my assistant, and lots of love, he did great. He was quite strong too

Congratulations to Shelley and Jeff on this little bundle of love. You guys are amazing parents, and I wish you both the best.

Scroll through to the end, and see some pull backs shots from this newborn shoot!

Shelley found out she was pregnant on Easter. Therefore the bunnies became an instant ‘MUST’ have. She decorated his room with all kinds of bunnies, and it was just precious.

Travis was born on Christmas day. What an amazing gift from God!

Below is my favorite shot of the day!

I love all the textures in the image below. Travis looks so peaceful too

Photographing babies has become my absolute favorite. Sessions typically take a lot longer than a normal session. About 3 to 4-hours to be exact. It is more work, and it takes more patience, but there is something about it that just fills my heart. I am not a very patient person overall, but with newborns, I am :). I would love to maybe one day only specialize in newborn and have my own studio. Yep, that is my dream. But until then, I will continue to explore all types of sessions, and expand my photography knowledge. God is good

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Filed Under: Newborn

{Baby Travis ~ 5-days old Sneak Peek}

29 Dec posted by Marylie Mach

Take a look at sweet baby Travis. Precious boy!

{How to ~ My editing process}

23 Dec posted by Marylie Mach

I often receive questions from other photographers asking how I edited a particular image. So… I decided to show a before & after image of my son that I took yesterday, along with my editing steps.

Below is the image taken in my office. Lots of natural light coming in. SOOC for those who are not aware means {Straight Out Of Camera} – Not edited!

This image was shot with my Nikon D700, 24-70mm lens, 2.8 f-stop, ISO 100, custom white balance.

Here are my steps to editing this photo:

First, I ran IMAGENOMIC for professional. If you do not have this amazing tool already, please get it. It is absolutely worth it. It gets rid of all and any grain you may have in your images.

I then blended the wall, with the rug using the Keri Meyes technique that she uses for her newborn photography.

I am an action guru. I LOVE them, and I have LOTS of them.

For this image I used the following:

Keri Meyers; take the red out

Keri Meyers; color pop

Florabella Classic Workflow: Classic Bright, Warm Color Pop, Ivory Boost

I tweaked all of the actions above by playing with the opacity. I opened each action and played with the opacity of each layer.

TADA!… here’s what I got!

For this image below I ran all the same actions above, except at the very end, I ran the following:

Florabella Classic Workflow: Classic B&W

After both edits where done, I used my MCP action to websize and sharpen for the net!

Voila! Happy Holidays from Marylie Mach Photography.

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Filed Under: Photographers

{A Photog’s Nightmare}

19 Dec posted by Marylie Mach

I had completely forgotten about this lovely collection of images of my beautiful daughter that I had taken over the summer. I have so many ideas that run through my head that often get put aside due to my lack of time, or limited access to things that can make my visions come to life. On this day I remember driving home, and perfectly imagining these colors put together, surrounded by leaves. I got home, asked… well begged Kameryn to dress up in this lovely outfit, got our vintage chair, and hopped on the neighbors yard to take these images.

I was happy that they came out allright, but not too happy that the MINI session lasted only 5-minutes. Kameryn was already tired of it after a few minutes, and as I remember correctly, tears were involved, and just a really unhappy little girl. I don’t know why it’s so hard to get my kids to just sit there and take a few pictures. I think it’s every photographer’s nightmare. As much as we try, bribe, discuss, tell, yell, beg… they (our kids) just don’t want any part of it. You get them to agree to it… and then a little bit of time passes, and they just completely loose the agreement. They start whining, crying, and it just seems like it’s the worse thing in the world for them to just pose for more than 30-seconds. I typically have this planned out but it always ends the same. Pouting, non-coorperating child!

Nonetheless… here’s my little girl. My angel. My love. My daughter!

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Filed Under: My life behind the lense