On Friday, I was lucky enough to be able to attend my youngest son’s field trip as a chaperone. While the kindergarteners kept me too busy at our actual destination to take photos and still do a good job in my official duty, I was able to take a number of snaps on the bus. Before we left, the little faces were eager and fresh, beaming with excitement. On the road home, the same little people were quite tuckered out from the 98 degree morning on the farm where they pulled out vegetables and fed animals.

For some work, I try to find ways to make my photographs softer, more like paintings.

Edited with JD Beautiful World Fine Art Tints, Foundations, Textures and Matte+Haze.

Thank you for your views, comments, and shares. You can follow me here:
http://www.google.com/+JessicaDrossinPhotography

I had the pleasure of photographing Zaure + Aziz’s bridal photographs. The couple was married in Uzbekistan and wanted to document their wedding attire here, in a relaxed, outdoor setting as well.

Congratulations and best wishes to this beautiful, loving couple. I deeply appreciate them wanting me to document this amazing time in their lives.

All images were processed with Actions from the JD Beautiful World Collection. The actions most used in this series were from Foundations, Earthy and Vivid Tints, and the Matte + Haze set.

Thank you for taking the time to view, share and comment. Consider following me on Facebook, Google +. and/or joining the JD Beautiful World Community.

If you liked this post, please follow and +1 me on G+: http://www.google.com/+JessicaDrossinPhotography

Submit a textured photograph to the JD Beautiful World Community on G+ on FRIDAYS. The way you use the texture can be subtle or wildly experimental, just make sure it integrates a JD Texture. If you don’t have a JD texture to play with or are looking for a new one to add to your collection, you can try this one:

Nostalgia

Please add the hash tags #TGITextured and the name of the JD Texture used. The purpose of the group is to learn different techniques and to find inspiration from other fine-art photographers. Photos from the group pool will be featured on my blog as well as on my Facebook page.
If you’d like to watch an in depth video tutorial of how to add textures, please go here.

What Are Circles?

Circles are very important on Google+, as they let you group people together depending on your relationship with them. Even better – they will never know what Circle you’ve added them to! This allows you to make good decisions about how you share non-public posts.
You can use the Circles already provided by Google+ OR you can edit them or add your own! This way, people belonging to a Circle will see only the posts shared specifically with that Circle (or set to “Public”), without seeing any posts shared with people belonging to other Circles. (So if you set up Family and Friend circles, you can show pictures of your crazy weekend with your Friends but Granny won’t see them). You can select Public, a specific circle or multiple circles. You can also share posts with Communities you belong to.
What makes Circles so great? Well in addition to sharing ONLY with the group or groups of your choice, you can also organize what you see in your FEED by the groups of your choice, allowing you to prioritize who you pay attention to and quickly find content you want to see.

The First Step: Adding People

Circles would be useless if you had no people to share your posts with, so first of all let’s add some (more) contacts to your existing circles:
1. Open Google+, hover with your mouse over the top left corner to see the Google+ main menu and select People.

2. You can browse the Suggestions provided and hover your mouse over the Add button to add people to your Circles (they may be notified you’ve added them to your Circles, but will never know what Circle they belong to). Additional people may be found by hitting the Find coworkers and Find classmates options.

If you’d like to network with other new G+ users, simply go to this link where we are creating a networking Circle: https://plus.google.com/106956101499956726757/posts/PinmndKFUsK

Please Consider Adding Me to Your Circles:

G+ Personal Profile: http://plus.google.ctom/+JessicaDrossin/
G+ Business Page: http://plus.google.com/+JessicaDrossinPhotography/

The Second Step: Organizing Your Circles

Now that you’ve added some more people to your circles, it’s time to organize them. While in the People menu, hit Your circles on top of the page:

With a simple drag & drop, you’ll be able to add any contact to a specific Circle (they are listed below):

By hovering your mouse over a circle, you will be given the chance to: edit its name, share it or even delete it!

Quick Tips

To Create a New Circle, simply hit the + button on the left of the circles!
To Remove a Person from a Circle, click on the circle to open it, hover with your mouse over the person you would like to remove and hit the X on the upper right corner – it’s that simple!

A Few Other Things You May Want To Know

The default for Circles is that they are public. If you’d like to change this, you can for both your Business and Personal profiles. Simply to to the “About” settings, then go to “People” and select Edit.

Simply uncheck or change the permissions to change the privacy settings of your circles.

G+ is an open network. That means, people can add you, even if you don’t add them back. Now this is fine, if you create posts geared for your Circles, so that you are only sharing publicly things that are viewable to anyone. However, let’s say there is someone you DON’T want to see your Personal or Business profile. The beauty of G+ is that you can mute or block any would-be trolls, noisy neighbors or underhanded competitors! From either your personal OR business account (or both) you simply type the profile or page name into the search bar.

Now, when you see this person’s profile, there is a little arrow button. If you click it, a drop down menu will appear, allowing you to block or mute the person.

Google+ has a great Help Section that covers many of the questions you may have about it. This is the support link that covers the Circles topic, for instance: https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1047805?hl=en