Thursday, April 29, 2010

Day 119: Remembering Elijah

After silence,  that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible  is music.   

                                                                                                                       ~ Aldous Huxley

 

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I’m contributing a photo to a photobook to give to the mother who has lost her child.  Which one is your favorite?

You can read about Elijah here

Day 118: Morning Dew

I took my camera to work with me yesterday in hopes of taking some photos at lunch.  I never got to that.  Before I left for work, I snapped this photo of some dew on a leaf.  Then I left my camera at work and couldn’t take any photos of the kids. 

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Edit Challenge

On a photo forum I post and read on, someone posted a photo for an edit challenge.  It was an amazing photo to start with, but she wanted to see how others would interpret the photo.  I find it fun to edit someone else’s photos because it usually inspires me to try new things.  The one thing I didn’t do on these that is usually part of my base edits is add a vignette.  I’m trying to get out of my ‘standard’ routine and do things a little different.  Not easy when I have a preference for a certain style.

Originalhitching post

My base edit and crop (adjust white balance, exposure/fill light, warmed the photo, and popped the colors a bit by increasing the blacks).hitching post_edit

I took my base edit and did some other interpretations.  Here are my favorites.

Using a modified PW soft fade to make it feel a little more aged.hitching post_edit_softfaded 

Then taking the soft fade and running Nelly Nero’s Candy Floss, but modifying to my liking.  I like the sweetness this adds to the photo.  The only thing I don’t like is that the faces and hair get a little overexposed.hitching post_edit_softfadecandyfloss

Taking my base edit and running Nelly Nero Classic BW and modifying to my liking.  Again dealing with some overexposure in the hair and skin.hitching post_edit_bw

Then taking the Classic BW and adding Nelly Nero Lucky Dip with modifications to age the photo a little more and warm it up a bit.hitching post_edit_bw_old

 

Day 117: Working on posture

Cooper started it.

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Then Charlotte mastered it.

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Then they played together.  (These are so sweet to see…there are so many moments between them like this.  I just love how they are truly sharing with each other in these.)

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Monday, April 26, 2010

Day 116: Remote control cars

I had a great idea to let the kids burn off some energy at the school across the street and let them play with their remote control cars.  I didn’t plan it so well and one of the cars had dead batteries.  Plus there was soccer practice going on and lots of people out an about.  The kids were way too distracted.

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This photo is far from perfect, but I love the light in her hair. DSC_5355_edit_wm

This is how I corral the kids when I’m by myself:  “Mommy’s going to get you!  Here I come!”  And off they go in the direction I want them to.  Sometimes if they run in opposite directions, I make them chase each other.  Seems to work every time.DSC_5385_edit_wm

Again practicing on non-human subjects, I have been completely fascinated with this tree that I pass when I go running in the evenings.  It’s like Christmas in the middle of spring.  I love the silhouette effect in the late evening with the amazing droopy flowered branches, but I obviously don’t have my camera  with me when I run.  I figured since I was there with the kids I could get some photos and I also learned how to do some backlighting.DSC_5375_edit_wmDSC_5374_edit_wm DSC_5371_edit_wm  DSC_5369_edit_wm DSC_5381_edit_Wm

And some random ducksDSC_5365_edit_wm

Day 115: Hike at the wetlands

We took a family hike to the wetlands about 2 minutes from our house on Sunday.  It’s a completely flat hike across the street from the beach.  It was a beautiful day and I had so many great photos that were a blast to edit.  So many options! 

I started out shooting in aperture mode, but I didn’t have the control to properly expose my subjects, rather than exposing the background correctly and underexposing my subjects.  I switched to manual and was very pleased to see how many great photos I got, considering the sun was practically straight above us (the worst kind of daylight for photos).  Maybe I am learning a thing or two!

I’m going to put tons of photos in this post, but many of them are just different edits of the same photo.

Yay for getting them both to look at me!  No photo merging in this one.  The first edit includes some slight curve adjustments and then a modified Nelly Nero Summer Vintage.  The black and white is a modification of PW Heartland.  I prefer the b&w on this photo.DSC_5145_edit_summvint DSC_5145_edit_bw_wm

My edit (curve adjustment, color pop, white balance adjustment, white balance adjustment) is the first one.  The second one is a modified Nelly Nero Spring Melody and the last is modified Summer Vintage.  I don’t like the strange colored sky in the spring version but I do like the ‘fresh’ feeling it has.  I love that they have a very similar stance in this photo.DSC_5156_edit DSC_5156_edit_springmel DSC_5156_edit_summvint 

Modified springtime melody in the first and modified summer vintage in the second (closest to what it really looked like).  I had to walk backwards to get this, but I think it turned out super cute.  I had my kit lens on the entire time and I like the distortion I got with the smaller focal length.DSC_5196_edit_springmel_wm DSC_5196_edit_summvint_wm

This one reminds me of the scene in Titanic (modified summer vintage).DSC_5222_edit_summvint_wm

Modified summer vintage.  Difficult to take these shots because it was a drop off on the other side of the fence.  I also didn’t want them copying mommy and going where they shouldn’t.dsc_5235_edit_summvint_wm DSC_5237_edit_summvint_wm

Loved how tightly he was hugging daddy.  Modified summer vintage.     DSC_5249_edit_summvint_wm

This was a tough photo to edit because it was right after I switched to manual mode.  It was really underexposed and had some harsh shadows.  I did all of my normal adjustments and then used the Range Compression layer on PW Heartland action to get rid of the shadows.  Then I modified the Heartland action to get the B&W version.  (First is straight of camera.)DSC_5253_wm DSC_5253_edit_wm DSC_5253_edit_bw_wm

He was being shy with some other hikers.  Stronger summer vintage, but still modified.DSC_5278_edit_summvint_wm

Charlotte loved the fence and I was trying to get a different perspective.  I love the look on her face.DSC_5276_edit_summvint_wm  

Charlotte found a hole in the ground and decided she wanted to blow into it.  Literally blow into it.  So goofy!DSC_5315_edit_summvint_wmDSC_5320_Edit_summvint_wm 

And this was how she looked walking back to the car. DSC_5334_edit_summvint_wm

These photos were my favorite for the day.  It captures their personalities perfectly.  The first one Cooper is like ‘huh?’ and Charlotte has the air of ‘I can’t be bothered right now.’.  The second one is perfect because Charlotte is very intense, emotional, and has her thumb in her mouth.  So her.  And Cooper is off in his own little world completely oblivious to the rest of us.  So him.DSC_5290_edit_summvint_wmDSC_5293_edit_summvint_wm

And because I spend so much time shooting my children, I rarely challenge myself to take photos of other things.  Here are my attempts at taking photos of some of the nature on our walk.  Considering this is only the fifth or so time I’ve photographed flowers, I’m impressed with how they came out (even before the edits).  In these I used a variety of actions from both PW (modified fresh and colorful) and Nelly Nero, either Candy Floss, Gold Flake, Summer Vintage, or Spring Melody.  All modified to my liking.  Again these were all taken with my kit lens zoomed to 105mm.

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