California Visit

 





Two weeks ago my husband and I visited my aunt and uncle in California. It was a great trip! We all spent one day seeing Berkeley, and the first place we went was a park that had formerly been a dump site for scrap metal and wood. Eventually, a number of artists decided to clean up the park and use the scraps to create these enormous sculptures. They were quite impressive! This one is my aunt's favorite. This sculpture is at least 15 feet tall.

This was one of my favorites. If only my aperture had been wider... I tried to blur out the background more in Photoshop--impossible to make it look good. If you have any tips, please leave them in the comments!!

This dragon was amazing, and apparently it is one of the general favorites. My aunt in the photo puts into perspective the impressive scale of these sculptures!

There were also several stone structures covered in graffiti. This was the inside of one that looked like a small abandoned fortress. I love the colors!

Of course, we couldn't visit San Francisco without a photo of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. The fog was still a little bit low when we went to see it, but it made the bridge look like it was disappearing into the sky--beautiful.

The Moth Regeneration

The photo of the moth in my last post got more comments than I've ever received on any one post... Thanks, everyone! At the suggestion of my bro-in-law and fellow photog, I took the image back into Photoshop and tried to "complete" it by cloning in the tips of the feet and antenna, as well as the surrounding concrete. It was not easy, and not really fun, but I am excited at how it turned out! (Most of my photo editing experiences thus far can be characterized by this sentiment.) I've reposted the original photo below so that they are easy to compare. Please let me know what you think!

Photos with Eric

Last Wednesday Eric and I had a little bit of daylight time left after his juggling show, so we took a walk downtown for about half an hour and he posed for me a bit. This is my favorite shot. I really liked the windows that sit close to the sidewalk, and the stone and brickwork on this building is really neat, so I had Eric squat to get him down to the window level, but I like that he's not settled in a seated position. This shot taken at 18mm, 1/400s, f/3.5, ISO 800; edited for contrast and brightness.

Last week is the first time I ever noticed this staircase. I really like the intense colors and the caging. Shot at 26mm, 1/640s, f/4, ISO 800.

I'm not sure whether I like the angle of this shot, but I have been reading David duChemin's book Within the Frame, and he mentions experimenting with different perspectives and angles, so that's what I did here. Shot at 98mm, 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 800.

This last shot is another of my favorites--I think it has a lot to do with the fact that what Eric was wearing made for great B&W pics! I feel like it was difficult to get the B&W balance right in this shot. It was taken in the late daylight shade, so not much light to work with, which makes Eric look a little too dark. I also had trouble lightening his eyes in PS, so let me know how they look. Shot at 24mm, 1/1000s, f/3.8, ISO 800. These are the first real individual portraits I've ever done by myself, so feel free to let me know what you think. I also just got Photoshop CS4, and I worked with it on a couple of these shots, so let me know if any of the edits are too obvious.

*Note: I re-edited both B&W photos--fixed the brightness and added a sharpening layer (Thanks for the sharpening tips, Josh!). I think both look much better, and I was able to lighten up Eric's eyes a little better in the last shot. Let me know what you think.

Baby Luke

This is Luke, my friend Rene's little boy. We visited a couple of weeks ago, and I decided to take a few pictures. I didn't have a flash, and the light was low, so I ended up with a lot of motion blur in most of my photos, but this one has Luke's face in focus, and his eyes are nice and bright. Shot at 50mm, f/1.8, 1/60s, ISO 1250. Processed for exposure and contrast. This other photo of Luke's cute little baby feet also turned out pretty good. Shot at 50mm, f/1.8, 1/15s, ISO 1250. I know these aren't my best shots, as far as the technical aspects, but it's the first time I've consciously decided to try some shots with a person in them. My own thoughts: I could have used a bit higher aperture to get more of his face and his feet in focus. Challenge: babies don't sit still. :) I took the shots inside in the evening, so the light was low, but I would definitely like to try more shots of Luke outside in the daytime--that will definitely help with the technical issues. Plus, who wouldn't want to take more photos of this adorable little one??

More Colorado Vacation Photos

Well, you can't tell from this photo, but these icicles were HUGE! Several of them were 2 or 3 feet long, hanging from the eaves of the condo where we stayed in Frisco, CO. This was a fun opportunity I had to work with the 50mm/1.8 that I had just bought from one of my friends. I also had fun playing with the shutter speed, which I was reading about at the time in Bryan Peterson's book, Understanding Exposure. You can see I was successful in catching a few water droplets as the icicles started melting in the afternoon sunlight. This and the other photos in this post were also my guinea pigs for Photoshop layer blend modes. All photos were slightly processed in Camera RAW, then all contrast and color enhancement was done with various layer blending modes. I believe the icicle photo was blended with the Multiply mode, which dramatically improved the contrast, making the icicles stand out.

This jeep just looked like it belonged in the Colorado mountains, especially with the 8'-12' piles of plowed snow that lined the neighborhood streets. I used the Overlay blending mode to punch up the colors and contrast. I also cloned out a basketball net at the top of the photo right over the middle of the jeep's roof... can you tell?? I currently have a love/hate relationship with the clone stamp tool--I love what it is capable of doing for my photos, and I hate that I'm not very good at using it yet.

This is my husband, complete with full winter beard, standing on a bridge that is close to the condo. I think I used both a screen layer and an overlay layer, both at lowered opacities, to get the color and contrast right on this one. I'm also fairly certain I used this same method on the photo below. This little bird was flying around our gate at the Detroit airport while we were hanging out during our layover. It got away quickly, but I managed to snag a couple of shots first.

Vacation in Colorado

 

Last weekend my husband and I went skiing with his family at Copper Mountain, CO. Needless to say, Colorado has amazing photo opportunities that are not remotely present in central Kentucky. Unfortunately, on the one day that I chose to take my nice camera to the mountain, it snowed like crazy in the afternoon when I wanted to shoot. Since snow droplets were rapidly melting all over my camera, I didn't get far out of the lodge, but I did manage to get this photo of the skis and snowboards rack, which I thought looked pretty cool in B&W. I have also recently started learning about layer blending modes in Photoshop. For this photo, I copied the background layer and used the screen blending mode with opacity around 70%. Then I tried a new way of converting to B&W--added a black solid color adjustment layer and used a color blend mode at 100%. I was worried the photo might look flat with this B&W conversion, but I think the screened background layer helped maintain good contrast. Thoughts?

I also just finished reading Bryan Peterson's book Understanding Exposure, so I've been working with different creative methods of proper exposure. Freezing motion was particularly neat. I was surprised at how easily I got this cool photo of the airplane's propeller blade, since it was spinning so fast I couldn't even see it! I used the hard light blending mode to boost the contrast in this shot. Tried to reduce the noise, but when I couldn't figure out how to do that successfully, I decided the noise looked kinda cool.

 

I also played around with implied motion. We had a layover at Detroit Metro Airport, which has an underground connection between concourses that I affectionately call the Psychedelic Tunnel. I think I actually got this one slightly by accident. I was trying to adjust for proper exposure in the low light, and my shutter speed was so slow that it produced a motion blur, aided by my standing on the moving walkway. I used the color dodge blending mode at 30% to add extra contrast.

I have several other good photos from the trip, but it's late now, so I'll post them tomorrow.

I know I wimped out on the daily posts, but I feel like I've had much more time lately to read my manual and other books and tutorials; and from these photos I think I can tell that my creativity is starting to emerge, and I'm definitely learning how to handle my camera better. All feedback is welcome!

D9-12: Wedding Weekend

My little sister's wedding was last Friday (yay!), so it was a crazy fun weekend full of family time and excitement! We stayed in a hotel that charged $10/day for wifi, so I had to pass on blogging during those few days of vacation. I took a LOT of pictures last weekend, so I wanted to post a few here and see what everyone thinks. My sister didn't have a photographer during most of the time we spent at the salon, so I took pictures with my own camera.

 

My new brother-in-law let me borrow his SB-28 speedlight and his 50mm/1.8 lens. I had fun with both of these during makeup time.

This is backtracking a bit, but I also took pictures during the rehearsal dinner. I realize these two photos are not artistically striking at all, but there is more to learn about photography than how to be creative...and Thursday night I learned that I am capable of successfully directing a 5-year-old to pose for me. (It helped that she loved the camera!)

Manual. Still reading my playback menu.

Images. Various.

Note. This photo challenge is fun and extremely beneficial, but it is also VERY time-consuming. I know that the more I practice the better I can become, and I will continue to practice every day. For right now, though, while I still have a full-time job and a husband of 6 months, I can't promise I'll be able to post every day. I'll post as often as I can, and I will try to make every post worth the time that you take to read it. Thanks for the follows! I'll announce new posts on FaceBook and Twitter.

D8: A Night Downtown

 

Post for February 3. It's after midnight... again.

Tonight we took my sister downtown for her bachelorette party. We went to Sambuca Restaurant and listened to an awesome live band while we had a fantastic dinner! I really enjoyed taking pictures of the band, and our table was at a decent distance for me to use the 50mm/1.8 that my sister's fiancé let me borrow (as well as a speedlight--huge difference from my little on-camera flash). I took several pics, but this one was my favorite.

Photo Specs. 50mm, 1/100s, f/2, ISO 1000. Post: just a slight crop, otherwise it's straight from the camera.

Manual. Page 162: The Playback Menu.

Images. Checked out new pics posted on the ImageMelt Facebook group. 

I did grab a chair closer to the band for a few minutes before we left. I would have liked to get some different angles and move around the stage more, but I was trying to keep the focus on my bride-to-be little sis. :)  Here are a couple of extra shots.

 

 

D7: Happy Birthday, Mom!

Post for February 2. It's after midnight.

Today is my mom's birthday, so we celebrated by making strawberry shortcake. I tried several different shots tonight and finally settled on a close-up of the strawberries. This is another food photography angle that I enjoy. These strawberries tasted as delicious as they look in the photo!

As I said, I tried a number of different shots tonight, but wasn't satisfied that I had made a good picture until I got this one. I suppose it's both a good and bad thing: I continue to shoot because I know I can do better, but I spend much of that time frustrated with myself for taking so long to get a good shot. Guess the good shots will come faster with practice.

Photo Specs. 105mm, 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO 400. All post done in camera during RAW processing: WB correction, slightly increased exposure.

Manual. Page 161: The Playback Menu, continued. Selecting pictures by date.


Images. Checked out food photos from Smitten Kitchen. I need a longer lens.

D6: I Heart Coffee

 

Today's shot came from an idea I had a few days ago. It has been a challenge for me to find things around my house to make into interesting photos. I think it's just because I see everything all the time, and I never think about how it might be viewed as artistic or worth photographing. These espresso cups were a wedding gift from a couple of our friends, and I've thought they were gorgeous since we opened them, so I decided to try a new improvised white seamless background tonight--a pillowcase... except the pillowcase isn't 100% white, it's more of an off-white or cream color, but I like the effect it has in this photo. It warms it up just a little bit, and makes the shot look less like straight product photography. I corrected the tint in post so that it wouldn't look too yellow, but still not stark white. I also set up the shot on the couch, so the surface is a little too cushioned to look flat, but I think that--like the off-white background--makes it look a little more cozy.

Photo Specs. 62mm, 1/80s, f/5.3, ISO 3200. Post: WB correction; slightly increased exposure, brightness, and contrast.

Manual. Page 160: The Playback Menu, Managing Images. There are a lot of menus and menu options that I don't know much about, so today I'm starting on the manual section that explains what my menus/options are and what they do.

Images. Checked out flickr photos by Joe Wigfall, an AMAZING street photographer in NYC. His shots are overflowing with the emotions of the people around him wherever he is shooting. I especially like his photos from Guwhati, India. Find out more about Joe Wigfall and see his interview at F-Stop Beyond. I think I'll try shooting from the hip next time I'm downtown. I know these images are totally unrelated to my image for today, but I read about Joe on Tasra Dawson's 365 post and couldn't resist checking it out.

D5: Mexican Night

My husband and I often enjoy trying new recipes, so tonight we made enchiladas verdes from a Cook's Illustrated recipe. I've always thought food shots were interesting, so I decided to try one tonight with the chopped scallions we used to garnish our enchiladas. It turned out just about the way I wanted it to, except for that one small piece that caught the flash. I used a desk lamp that we keep in the kitchen for a fill light on the whole scallions in the background, and the on-camera flash for the main light. By the way, our enchiladas were fantastic!



Photo Specs. 80mm, 1/100s, f/8, ISO 640. Post: Increased color temp, contrast, clarity, and vibrance. 

Manual. Page 220: RAW Processing. Since I will be out of town for several days this week, away from my Photoshop safety net, I decided to study how to export RAW photos to JPEGs inside my camera so that I can still post from my laptop. It's very easy and quite fun to find out how much you can do with your photos before even transferring them to the computer. Get ready for some (more or less) "out of the camera" shots this week!

Images. In light of my attempt at food photography today, I checked out images by professional food photographer Michael Ray. It's amazing how meticulously food shots are set up. Presentation is everything! Reminded me of a shot I saw of linguini with pesto, taken with a Lensbaby, in a Professional Photographer review of the Lensbaby 0.42x Super Wide Angle. The Lensbaby adds an awesome effect!

D4: Snowed In

 

We woke up this morning to about six inches of snow on the ground, which foiled our plans for a weekend trip, but made for a great photo op. This is the accumulation of snow on our 3rd floor balcony. I love the way the space between the slats gives depth to this picture, and the powdery snow creates an interesting texture. Shot from the ground, which was fun.

Photo Specs. 105mm, 1/125s, f/8, ISO 320. Corrected tint, decreased color temperature, increase contrast and clarity.

Manual. Page 91: Flash Compensation. After reading this, I took some shots at various flash compensation levels. Interesting comparison between photos. Good tool for someone with only an on-camera flash.

Images. Looked through the glamour gallery at The Time Photography, noting composition and use of lighting.

D3: Cheers!

My fantastic husband took me out to the Melting Pot tonight for drinks and chocolate fondue! I decided to take advantage of photo ops *outside* my apartment. As usual, all I have is an on-camera flash, which doesn't flatter most of my pictures in such a low-light environment, but this one turned out pretty well, I think. High ISO is evident in the bottom of the photo, where it gets a bit grainy, but the lime looks great, and I love the red highlight in my cosmo.

Photo Specs. 105mm, 1/125s, f/5.6, ISO H1.0 Post: Slightly increased exposure, contrast, and clarity. Tried to reduce noise, but still not sure how to do that well in Photoshop.

Manual. Page 7: Control Panel. Since I am not always good about being constantly aware of my settings yet, I decided to read about what settings information I can find on the control panel. Fortunately, I did remember to check my settings tonight... progress. :)

Images. Checked out flickr photos of fellow tasra365 followers. Some neat close-up shots.

Note. If you had trouble seeing yesterday's image, check it out again. I reopened the same shot in Photoshop and brought down the exposure, so I think (hope) that the contours of the champagne flutes are more visible now.

Here are some other shots from tonight that I like. Any tips for photographing flames in low light?

D2: A Toast to Abstract Art

 

The concept of abstract photography is something that until today I could not comprehend. Other types of abstract art, such as paintings and sculptures, can be created to look like nothing else in the world and still have definition and emotion. But how do you make something that is real world and tangible look abstract in a photograph? Today I discovered that the camera's eye does not always see the world as my own eyes do--or at least, it doesn't have to.

Looking around for something to shoot today, I noticed the toasting flutes from my wedding sitting on top of the armoire in the spare room. I set them on the futon with a light blue pillowcase behind them for a seamless background, and for a reason that I cannot explain I decided to pop up the on-camera flash. I did realize that the curved crystal would bounce the light everywhere, but I had no idea the flutes would be almost imperceptible (which they were in the first 5 or 6 shots). I played around with the aperture and ISO, but I took about 20 shots before I figured out that my exposure compensation was set to +5.0 EV from a previous shoot... which brings me to Rule #1: Always check your settings! I am still learning to be fully aware of all my settings. Regardless, my oversight created this awesomely abstract photo of my champagne flutes. The white balance was set on white flourescent (another setting I was not aware of), which created the turquoise highlights. I tried a couple of shots on Auto WB, but it just wasn't as fun.

Photo Specs. 62mm, 1/200s, f/5.3, ISO 200. Final exposure compensation consciously set at +3.7 EV to give it the abstract effect; however, I ended up decreasing the exposure a bit in post so that the highlights on the sides and tops of the glasses would be more visible and make the flutes more identifiable.

Manual. Page 90: Exposure Compensation. Ultimately, the setting the most interested me with this shot was the exposure compensation. In my last several shots I explored the effects of changing this value by thirds. Manual also notes that the +/- icon is visible on my control panel when exposure compensation is set to anything other than 0. I really should work on reviewing my control panel before I start shooting.

Images. Checked out the senior portrait gallery on John Gentry Phtography. He is an awesome wedding and portrait photographer in Nashville, TN! He was my wedding photographer, too!

Note. I just got to work and pulled up the blog on my computer here, and discovered that I can't see the glasses above the stems as well as I could at home on my Mac. Well, it was a good try, and I still think it's a neat photo. ** 8pm: reopened same photo and decreased exposure and brightness to define the shapes of the glasses better. Hopefully this is more visible to everyone now.

D1: First Attempt

I've decided to attempt the 365 Photo Challenge--1 photo every day, 1 page in my camera manual, and a few minutes looking at other professional photos--for one year, in hopes of improving my photography 300%. Until now, I've been too shy to post my pics, because I'm still such a beginner, but I know that nothing will benefit me more than sharing my work, so here it is. Hopefully I can keep this up all year!

For Day 1, I went out on a limb and did something I've never done before: create that white seamless background that always awed me about other professionals' photos. Found out that a couple of sheets of printer paper work just fine. I wouldn't recommend it for any subjects larger than 2" mini collectibles, but for tonight's purposes it was great! I also have yet to save up for a flash, and since a friend of mine recommended I try working with available light indoors, I decided to make use of my desk lamp, set just about straight on the figures. Also worked well.

Photo Specs. Both shot with my Nikon D90, 18-105mm lens. Strongbad & The Cheat: 1/60s, f/8, ISO 640. Homestarrunner & Marzipan: 1/100s, f/6.3, ISO 400. Same post-processing on both: set white balance, increase exposure and contrast. I did not realize until I looked at these pics on the computer they it is very difficult to tell in the camera exactly how dark they are.

Manual. Page 95: White Balance. Since I had to change the white balance in post for today's photos, I decided to read about my camera's white balance settings. After having experimented with the white balance settings in Photoshop several times, I am glad that I have some idea of how the approximate Kelvin temperatures are related to each WB setting.

Images. I look at professional photos every day, so this is an easy requirement. Today I looked at the wedding gallery at SANOLA Photography--amazing photos, and amazing photographers! I worked with Sarah Jane and Aurelia on a wedding last October, just before they left their former mentor to start their own business. They are a huge inspiration to me.