Day 3: Photo Editing

I'm on a roll (can you tell that ten month terror is asleep?)...

Day three and lesson three deals with "Create a Vintage, Hand-Tinted Look". This is a style of photography post processing that I will definately be using! Here's my modest attempt at vintage photography:I am ready to admit that I am in love with the layers method of editing photos. It's a bit late to learn sepia toning, but Sprague has a great formula for creating a brown tint...

Day 2: Photo Editing

The second day's lesson deals with brushes... I'm familiar with these, because Lisa Julia told me to use those to "watermark" my photos for visible copyright purposes. So, since the Sprague brush set from House of 3 wasn't usable by my Photoshop 7 program, I played with brushes I had collected from before. I used quite a few in a flurry of stamps for this image:
What I likes about the tutorial was the suggestion to create a new layer before fiddling with brushes. How many times have I had to trash an edited photo because I got stamp happy?

Day 1: Photo Editing

The assignment for Lesson One, Day One of Jessica Sprague's "Photo Editing: Frame-ups and Special Effects" (offered FREE here) was to frame up and word-ify a photo.

She provides the download for the frame and the word art (which said "sassy," so I erased the "y" to add masculinity to it). The sample kit was created by House of 3.

I'm a bit behind on my lessons, but better late than never, right? Ha. Tell that to my students, because late work is penalized...

So what's my excuse? This 10-month old wild child doesn't sit still long enough for Mommy to edit photos. In fact, he had a rather fun time yanking out the speaker cord as I tried to watch the tutorial for this lesson. No audio = no idea what I'm doing.

I ♥ Faces Week 27 - Sports in Action

July's contest vacation week is over, and so this week is another judging...

There are two categories and I'll leave it to the gals at I ♥ Faces to explain:

Kids and/or Adults Category - A child, children, adult or adults participating in a sport. (Basically a photo of any person participating in a sport.) Any sport is fine. Your entry must show "action" though. Posed shots will be ineligible to win this week's photo challenge.

Here's a snap from one of the flag football games Chi cheered for in the Spring... can't you see just how serious the boys are about getting the flag?
Pets Category - "Anything Goes" theme (even though we call this special category "Pets", we really don't care if the animal is an actual pet or not.)

I thought this shot of two retired (rescued) Greyhounds luring was a great show of "sport" and "pets," as their new families only let them race for pleasure and lavish them with love all the rest of the time. They are no longer working, and instead live a plush retirement. As an owner of two iggies, this shot of their full sized cousins was a happy capture. You can see the "lure" at the bottom of the shot.

I don't profess to be a sports photographer, so if you're really into sports and action, venture over to iheartfaces.com this week and see some seriously good captures. I know I'll be looking ;)

1771... and back to the future

If I could plan the perfect summer, it would be one filled with day trips with my kids and my mom (who's also my best friend).

Today we traveled back in time to 1771 and visited a colonial farm family. We arrived right after they finished their lunch and were just in time to watch the clean up.Chi was excited to go initially, but as usually happens, she quickly became bored with the setting and didn't perk up until she could participate in the era reenactment. Here she was picking off radish seeds to dry for planting. "Radishes look just like green beans, but they taste different," she said. Honestly, I don't think she's every seen a radish full grown.One young woman showed off her garden, but admitted that the weather had created havoc for much of her small crop.Ya is still experiencing everything anew, so the animals elicited peals of laughter and big five-tooth smiles (that's right, the fifth tooth is no longer just under the gum line, but is now every-so-slightly peeking out at us).
He liked looking at the honking geese...
And though he didn't want to get too close to the turkeys, their warbling called for a chuckle too.
I'm a bit surprised that he thought looking at this snorting guy was funny...And I loved getting a few pictures of our day at the farm before venturing back to the future (and to an awesome public park/playground happened upon as I made a wrong turn).

Constructive Feedback?

So I sort of cut close to Ya's back trying to get his attention and keep him on the staircase.

I'd like some comments on what could take this "look he's 45 weeks old" shot from okay to wow. After all, at this point every photo looks the same...

This is the SOOC image, taken around 9:20 a.m. with a Nikon D50. Lens was my 18-50mm F3.5-5.6. Available light only, with camera set on its "portrait" auto control. [Technical data: 1/800 exposure, F4.8, 32mm focal length.] Notice that the shot is flat and he is incredibly funny colored. I also don't like that his beautiful bright eyes seem all black and lifeless. I'd like to try something with frames (which I have no earthly idea how to do). So I thought maybe I should tint the photo, but aside from desaturating the image, there's not much talent on my part in that arena. Besides, when I desaturate the image and use "variations" in Photoshop, I get weird highlights I didn't see in the original image and end up loosing the scene's details (I burned where the weird highlights were distracting). See?

I was thinking about perhaps darkening the background above his head to help him "pop" out the image... but I didn't like the "fake" look I achieved when I used PhotoShop's burn tool. And that shadow in the lower left side is bothering me something terrible. My original solution was to blacken the edges slightly after cropping, but the right side's crop I created with the original shot won't allow me to make this adjustment effectively. Here's where I stopped:

What I liked about the photo itself is that he isn't looking at me... the downward glance is typical of his attitude of late. He is independent, doesn't answer to his name unless he feels like it, and he is always on the move. This photo seems to show that. And I eyed this setting awhile back and couldn't wait until Ya could sit up well enough to be put in it. I waited too long, because now he climbs and turns or eats whatever he sees around him. But that's a 10-month-old for you, right?

Here's hoping someone out there with a little more knowledge has a way I can improve my image...

Paparazzo, That's Me

I was watching my favorite show (nope, not ashamed to admit I'm obsessed with America's Next Top Model) the other day, and Tyra mentioned that Paparazzo is the Italian word for mosquito. You know, those little blood sucking sneak attackers that settle on your skin when you least expect them and then leave their puffy mark? I think it's fitting.

Although I would never want anyone finding me a pest with a camera, I operate in much the same way as the little bugger. I carry my Nikon with me whenever I can. I keep spare batteries charged. I have multiple SD cards just in case the opportunity for thousands of shots presents itself. I "see in pictures" and mentally frame everything with my eyes as I consider what kind of shot what I'm seeing would make.

My family jokes (behind my back and to my face) that I have photos of everything... and I do. You'll never catch my kids asking "what did I look like when I was..." insert age or event at the elipse. No one can ever say that they don't remember what ... looked like when ... if I was at the event.

Of course this means that I get invited to functions because the hosts hope for pictures. Can you believe I actually had someone get mad because I didn't have my camera once?

I enjoy being the "Nutty Photographer". I take it as a compliment that my uncle said I have "surgically attached [my] camera to [my] forehead." And I'm taking this phototherapy serious. I think I see improvement from the photos I took with my first point and shoot digital camera purchased in 2003 when Chi was three months old. I am steadily progressing in my style and my skill with every photo. So though I hear the snickers and comments about my photo OCD, I also know that those same people have "borrowed" my images for their own use countless times (and I'm working on not being offended by the inadvertent failure to acknowledge "Nice photo" comments with "Thanks, my Sister/Cousin/Neice took it."

I am the family mosquito... if I buzz by, I leave you with a memory in the form of a photograph. I stop time with my camera. Someday, you'll be grateful you got stung.