Welcome to Shutter Notes, our weekly community feature. Shutter Notes gives you the chance to get to know our community members a bit better. Each member will share a little bit about themselves and an image they’ve chosen.

Sarah Johnson is a stay-at-home mom of two. She became interested in photography for the first time on a trip to Alaska in 2006. Then with the birth of her first child in 2007, she bought my first DSLR. That’s when Sarah really started studying and getting into it.

Sarah loves taking photos of her two kids. She has dabbled a bit in taking family portraits for friends and friends of friends. But puts a lot of pressure on herself to deliver perfect, beautiful images. So, she is working on not stressing out about it too much. Her number one priority though is taking photos of, and sharing photos of, her children.

Sarah Window light portrait

Why and how Sarah created this image

Sarah’s goal is to document her kids at all stages of their life so they can look back someday and see how much (and how little) they’ve changed.

This is just a simple portrait created at the kitchen table. She loves to create the type of image that focuses on just the head or upper half of the body and fills the frame.

For post-processing, Sarah cropped this image some, lifted the exposure and did a little spot removal. She used a preset for color and then added some highlights to her daughter’s hair with brushes. Sarah also emphasized the catchlight in the eyes. Finally, a gradient filter was used to help bring down some of the highlights on the right side of the image.

Sarah learned that a beautiful photo doesn’t necessarily have to be in the perfect setting or with the perfect clothing and the perfect pose. This was just snapped quickly at the kitchen table with nice window light. Look for a place with good light and you can do some great things.

Please join us in the Photofocus Community and find the complete description and instructions on how to submit your image for consideration here.

Please only submit one image at a time and for now only one submission per person. We’ll ask for more at a later date if we need them. If you have any questions, comment here or send me a message within the community. We look forward to your submissions.

If you have any photographer friends you know would enjoy or benefit from being in the Photofocus Community, be sure to invite them!