About Me!

My name is Rita and I live in the great state of Texas. I am a work-at-home and homeschooling mom to two amazing sons (nicknamed Duke, 14 and Imp, 12) and I am married to my best friend Paul. We were high school sweethearts (well, I was in high school, he was a college boy!) and we met at the small town grocery store where I worked slicing deli meats and selling cookies and cakes. B.C. (before children) I also worked in a molecular biology and biochemical lab for many years doing serious research that did not involve cloning pets but did involve other interesting things like running big lasers and growing cells from cow eyeballs. But I digress...

I am completely addicted to photography and enhancing my photos with Photoshop and Lightroom. I am a firm believer that anyone who wants to can take great photos, and you don't have to have an expensive top-of-the-line lens, huge pricey camera body,or fancy photo-editing software to do it. You can take a great photo with an old 110 or camera phone. Great photography is about capturing that one amazing moment in time.

I have a Canon EOS Rebel T2i body, a Tamron AF 28-75mm f/2.8, a Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6, a Canon 50mm f/1.8, and a complete need to take hundreds of photos a week. Nothing I own is really fancy or expensive, but I never bought into whoever has the best toys wins. I also find myself using my iPhone camera all of the time. :-)

The reason I started this blog and am giving away my actions and other goodies for free are twofold. First, I create these things for my own use, and I decided that it would be fun to share them. I absolutely love staying at home with my two boys and would have it no other way, but I also have the need to keep on learning and experimenting. I pride myself in being one of the biggest PSE free action writer out there. Second, I love using this blog as my creative outlet.

And in case you are wondering about my CoffeeShop name, I worked for a small coffeehouse as a barista in my 20's for a year (a second job to make some extra money) and that is where I developed my love for coffee and tea. Drinking all of this caffeine has made this blog possible. So I dedicate CoffeeShop Photography to all of those coffeebeans that were not grown/roasted/ground/brewed/and enjoyed for vain!

If you want to contact me the best way is leave a note over at the CoffeeShop Facebook page.

Rita

If you love using my free CoffeeShop creations and would like to make a donation to Rita the self-professed photo-editing photography geek of CoffeeShop, please follow this link! This blog is possible because of your generous support.