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27 Wednesday Jan 2010
Posted Uncategorized
in06 Tuesday Oct 2009
Posted portrait
inTags
50mm, angle, black/white, boy, canon, composition, dSLR, hands, lighting, photography, practice, XSi
This is a picture of my son tracing my hand with a marker. He is 2 and loves to draw. Usually we trace his hand, but this day he wanted to trace mine. This picture will always remind me of that moment, when he asked to trace my hand, and I love that I’ve captured his method and skill in holding the marker, with his left hand, as he concentrates on getting in between my fingers.
One of my goals in the next few weeks is to continue to find new ways to capture some of the usual things I see every day. Developing my creativity and skill is a necessary component of being a successful photographer, and though some things come naturally, all things can be improved.
I look forward to sharing some of these experiments with you here.
If you have some suggestions for things we see and use everyday that you think we be a good challenge for me, please feel free to leave it in the comments. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?! 🙂
10 Thursday Sep 2009
Tags
18-55mm, angle, background, black/white, boy, canon, children, desat, desaturated, dSLR, kids, lighting, manual, photography, portrait, posing, practice, processing, XSi
[image deleted by Aimee]
A few of my nieces and nephews were in town last weekend, and as usual, I took the opportunity to try and capture their personalities. They are quite cooperative models, and love hamming for the camera, so it was a pleasure to take their picture. The only downside was I waited til the last day, and wish I’d had more time to experiment.
I made the mistake of using my new comforter as the background, mainly because we were short on time and space, and when you have six kids running around your house, it’s best to take them into another room one at a time to take their picture. In hindsight, a plain white sheet would’ve been much better; at least then I could easily select and replace it with something else.
All my nieces and nephews have such beautiful eyes; I love to capture them in a natural expression. Here, little Eli is holding onto his blow-up bat he won at the fair. It is fitting that this picture includes something memorable from the weekend.
For lighting, I used the window light available in the room, supplemented with bounced flash. I’m really loving the ability to bounce my flash, as it makes the lighting much more even, and eliminates those nasty hotspots on the forehead, nose and chin.
Lessons learned during this shoot:
If you are reading this and like what you see, or if you hate it, please…feel free to let me know. I’d love to hear from you.
19 Wednesday Aug 2009
Posted nature/landscape
inTags
18-55mm, angle, clouds, composition, dSLR, light, natural light, nature, photography, rays, shine, sky, sun, trees, XSi
This is not a particularly great picture, but given the week I’m having, it is quite apropos. I have had very little time to think about photography this week, and the few spare minutes in the evening that I have had, I have just not had the energy to do much.
It’s strange, but the fact that I haven’t taken any pictures in the past few days is actually having a very negative effect on me.
Usually, I carry my camera with me to work. Even if I never take it out of the bag, I’m happy knowing that I can. This week, I haven’t bothered because I knew I had a work project that I had to tackle and figured it best to minimize the temptation. Then I pulled a bonehead move after a full days worth of work on Monday and completely overwrote everything I did with an old copy of the file from last week. In the matter of a split second, two days worth of work disappeared. So yesterday was spent catching up with myself (almost), and today will be spent getting the rest of the way there and (hopefully) then some.
Also nagging at me is the fact that two people have approached me about taking portraits of their children, yet neither one has called to set up a time. I don’t know if their schedules are interfering or if they’ve changed their mind. It’s a busy time with school starting and all, so I can understand and am trying to be patient. I’d just like to know one way or the other.
So, no photography and no blog posts. The only photography-related thing I’ve done is read, review and comment on images posted in my favorite forum: DPS. Even there, my participation has been lacking lately.
I feel dreary. Drained. Overwhelmed. Which is why this image is so appropriate right now. I need the sun to shine on me; to see the rays of light and hope that comes with knowing that this too shall pass, and that I have the strength to persevere through all that I must tackle and get back to doing what I love.
13 Thursday Aug 2009
Tags
50mm, angle, aperture, background, black, black/white, brick, canon, clouds, composition, desaturated, dSLR, manual, masking, natural light, photography, portrait, posing, practice, processing, skin, sky, XSi
Up until about a month ago, the portraits I had taken, I thought, were pretty good. Better than snapshots, but still, nothing particularly artful or professional-looking. Much of that had to do with my inability to post process the way I realize most professional photographers do.
I always thought they got that “perfect skin look” straight out of camera.
Ha!
I scour tons of photo blogs, read forums, and have read/listened to hundreds of tutorials and all of them pretty much say the same thing: they process their photos in one way or another, and it usually includes processing/fixing the skin in one form or another.
Good to know.
So my co-worker, Jenni, and I finally had opportunity to go out and take some shots over lunch. Again, heat of the summer day, bright overhead sun, spotty cloud cover. I found a location that I knew would have some decent shade and snapped off about 180 pictures in 30 minutes. Despite the fact that we were working quickly, I still had half a mind to try different poses, check my backgrounds, fix wispy hairs, etc. I felt like it was a real “shoot”.
They looked pretty good in-camera, but what happened after I got them downloaded was the really cool part.
Even though the images were pretty good, they still needed to be tweaked. The difference this time, however, was that I knew what I wanted them to look like, and I knew (more or less) how to do it! Believe me, folks, that makes a world of difference. It seems I’ve learned enough in the past almost year to have developed my own creative juices!
Yes! It’s true! Creative juices can be developed!!
Each image was different, and I had a different vision for each one. I’m developing a definite style, but not all images are suited for that style, so I tried to mix it up between black & white, full color, desaturated, sepia, tight crop, wide angle, etc. But, the fact that I could envision how I wanted each image to end up made processing the good images much more fun and that much faster.
Not to mention the fact that I had to do very little trial/error in figuring out how to get the software to accomplish what I wanted.
I actually enjoyed processing them, and in the end I was so proud of how they turned out. They looked professional to me.
Not perfect. But definitely professional. Something someone would pay for.
At that moment, I knew that I could do this and have happy customers. I can make a business of doing something that I love and people will pay me for it and be pleased with what they get.
Jenni has asked me several times to take more. The only problem is, this time, I’m hesitant to do it for free.
Thanks for looking. Please take a moment to comment if you like what you saw.