I have actually taken lots of photos at work since being asked to step up and shoot photographs for the school (for use on social media sites as well as for promotional materials, etc.). It has been interesting trying to shoot such different types of photographs from my normal stuff (shots in poor lighting conditions, without proper equipment, and to other people’s specifications) and I’d love to share some of what I’ve done so I can talk about the hows and whys of the shots, but the photos are of students at the school and it isn’t appropriate for me to share them here. Suffice it to say that I did get the valedictorian and the salutatorian to perform a jump shot in front of some school lockers for a Facebook post.
Instead I’ll share this one, which was a test shot I took a few weeks ago – as you can tell, the test proved that my lighting was way overexposed. There was something about this shot that captured my attention even though it was a throwaway shot, so I decided to process it. Maybe it’s the harsh look of my face (I have a wig cap on, but hadn’t yet put on the wig), or the blur, or the ruffled skirt (love that skirt, BTW) or the handy ExpoDisc hanging around my neck making me look not unlike Flava Flav, or the overly yellow tones – not sure what about I liked so much, but it was begging to be messed with, so I did:
I also have another levitation/Fab Pants shot to share, but before I do that, it’s time for a SANDY BREAK! Because I’m still seeing Sandy twice a week for my arm, although I’m not sure it’s really helping when I stay on the computer for 4 hours at a stretch on a regular basis, but still. Sandy tells me stories, y’all, so I gotta share.
First of all, Sandy recently lost a long-time client when the guy got offended by her attempts to discuss what she called “women’s lubrication issues” with him. I have to call a bit of BS on this, because I find it hard to believe that someone who’s been seeing Sandy for a significant length of time would be surprised by any topic of conversation she might bring up; I’ve only written about Sandy 3 or 4 times on this blog but I bet not one of you was surprised to hear it, so clearly I’m not getting the whole story. Moving on. Sandy also had a “travel trailer” implode when she hitched it up to her truck to drive it off her property – because it was infested with scorpions. “It was just full of scorpions, and when I moved it just a little it blew up and scorpions just flew out everywhere.” I think Sandy does drugs, y’all. She also has lots of vacation properties available to rent, complete with travel trailers – just bring plenty of scorpion antidote with you.
Anyway, here’s my other levitation/Fab Pants photo. If you follow me on Flickr, you’ve seen it already.
Also, I am down to about 8 days left with students at work, then another two weeks before some sort of vacation sets in. I am at that point in the school year where I wish we could cram the last few days in through Saturday and Sunday and forget weekends, to get to the finish line sooner. I find myself sitting around all weekend twiddling my thumbs, waiting to get back to Monday and GET IT OVER WITH. I am sure the students feel the same way.
Not sure if I’m going to shoot planes this weekend or not as I haven’t heard back from my father, but we’ll see. Graduation is this Saturday and there’s loads of other things going on, so if it gets put off another weekend or two I won’t be too bummed. I’ve gotten a few new wigs in that I can always photograph, as well as continue working with my macro lens to get it under control. Until next time, people!
mareymercy. 
I really like that photograph — everything about it. You really do have imagination. As for Sandy, well, there are no words, other than you are brave. I am pretty picky who puts their hands on me. She must be worth it. Right now I am experimenting with PN (thank you) and PS Elements – I got both. I haven’t figured out how to upload the TIF from PN yet — maybe it’s too big for Flickr but for whatever reason, it isn’t uploading. We are going out “shooting”, ha-ha, again this weekend and I am going to do it in RAW + JPEG again, as I don’t trust myself to be able to use RAW yet. I am sure you are looking forward to this school year being over and wish we could see your pictures. Have fun with that and hang in there…the end is in sight!
Actually you can’t upload TIFF files to Flickr or anywhere really – way too big. I work with a photo in TIFF until I am absolutely sure I’m done (or that all I want to do is pull it into Pixlr, which can’t work with TIFF files because it’s internet based) then I convert it to a JPEG. You can do that straight out of Photo Ninja or you could convert it in Photoshop. But Flickr won’t take a TIFF file!
Ah! I could swear I saw TIFFs in the exlif data on some people’s shots. Must have been wishful thinking. We are tied to jpegs in the end, but still keep the RAW and TIFFs. Got it. Thank you!
Technically you should be able to upload them, but Flickr just coverts them to JPEG! And I’ve never been able to upload them successfully myself – I’ve only ever tried on accident but when I’ve uploaded a TIFF instead of a JPEG it always crashes.
So, we are always seeing sub-par versions of the originals anyway. That seems like a built-in handicap to me. They should restrict image size but not resolution or quality. (And I am paying for Flickr too, for whatever reason…). But what do I know. Exif, not ‘exlif’. Sigh.
I didn’t realize about TIFF until the other day when someone explained it to me. I realize all the old photos I’ve scanned have been in JPEG ugh. Beautiful work as usual, m’dear.
I still remember the day I was told that all the editing, saving, then re-opening photos in JPEG format was reducing quality every single time I closed it and re-opened. ARGH!!!!! I was devastated. But once I switched to working with TIFF files until editing was complete, my photos were so much better. It’s the one thing I dislike about using Pixlr, that I can’t upload and edit TIFF files so I’m editing an already-reduced quality photo and reducing the quality even more. But oh well.
EVERY TIME YOU OPEN AND CLOSE? I didn’t know THAT! Holy moly.
Only if you open it and re-save it before you close it. Just opening and closing it does not reduce quality.
Regarding “Sandy” I don’t think she takes drugs, I think she is a drug. Got you hooked didn’t she?
The guy that left maybe entered re-hab, or had a T M I overdose.
Anyway, both of your photos are very cool. Doing pictures for the school is very nice and maybe could be used in your portfolio when you decide to go pro.
Hippie you make the airport soon.
LOL she is kinda addicting!
Hippie= hope. I hate this phone.
LOL if the phone is gonna autocorrect incorrectly, inserting the word “hippie” is the way to go.