Video Voyage

Posted on September 21, 2014 by marey mercy

On Saturday, I made an unplanned trip to Hallettsville to visit a cousin who has fallen upon some hard times. Hallettsville is only about 1.5 hours away from my house, almost all but a mile of it traveled on the same highway. I-90 is road I travel quite often to get from point A to point B in my neighborhood, and I never gave any consideration to how far it might stretch across the state and what all I might find if I ever took it out of town. Not being the adventurous sort, it’s probably not something I ever would have done without a reason, but I noticed pretty early into the trip that there were a lot of little interesting stops that could be made along the way – only I hadn’t brought my camera as I didn’t think it appropriate at the time (turned out my aunt and cousin both asked me why I didn’t bring it, so I guess I could have and it would have been fine).

Anyway, I did have my iPhone with me of course, but I didn’t want to slow the trip down by taking pictures, so I decided to film video of the journey instead, both to remind me of places I’d like to get back to later with a camera in hand, as well as entertain myself while driving. I ended up with about 20 minutes of footage, but knowing I could never subject people to that much shaky iPhone video taken through a bug-splattered windshield, I narrowed it down to four minutes and added a pretty song to make it more entertaining. I worked on this video for hours Sunday when I got home, so please – ENJOY, dammit! It’s only four minutes! And if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to drive across Texas, here you go (even though really this is only 1.5 hours of driving across it. Still).

https://vimeo.com/106760486

I also took photos with my phone once I got to Hallettsville; here’s a few I’ve had time to process.

Hallettsville courthouse – also taken with the iPhone through a car window and edited with Snapseed on my phone. Not bad huh?

One of my cousin’s dogs had puppies, and this is the only one they have left to give away. He’s adorable, but already spoken for, and he’s going to get big so I couldn’t have taken him anyway.

Home Dumbing

Posted on September 15, 2014 by marey mercy

I can’t believe summer break was two months ago now; it feels like yesterday to me. I swear I don’t know where vacation went or how it’s fall already, and we’re about to mail out our first progress reports at school and homecoming is around the corner. Speaking of homecoming, is this just a Texas thing?

When mums attack

These will be swarming the scene at every grocery store in the state from now until the last Homecoming game is played. At school, some of the girls’ mums are so huge they have to attach a strap and wear them around their necks to keep them on.

Another thing that’s new to me, but not to the students: gone are the days when a guy just walked up to a girl and asked her to the game (or prom). Nowadays, it has to be a huge production worthy of ending up a viral video. Signs have to be made. Dance steps must be memorized. Flower petals and confetti must be flung. And the bigger the audience for all this tomfoolery, the better. What gives?

I blame YouTube. Seems nothing is worth doing anymore unless it garners the approval of a large crowd of anonymous people. Same with wedding proposals. Now the poor guy has to go all out and perform a choreographed lipsynch in front of a huge crowd or the gal feels ripped off. I hate to say it, but thank God I’m not a young-un in the midst of all of this. I am so practical and un-romantic, I would have run screaming from any marriage proposal that involved what, to me, would feel like both public pressure and public humiliation. I don’t even recall that Doug and I had a formal proposal. It was more like – hey, we’re a good fit, we should get married someday. Yep. We should probably buy an engagement ring to make that official. Yep. Shall we go to Zales and pick something out? OK. Poof! Engaged.

But that’s just me. And by the way, I never went to Homecoming in high school, not once. Never got asked and never cared, as I hated the thought of wearing a mum (which back in the 80’s was a lot smaller) and I hated football games too. Still do, but I’ll probably go to the one at the school out of a sense of duty anyway.

This whole post was an excuse to share that photo, which cracked me up when I saw it at the grocery store Saturday. You’re welcome.

Zombie Bomb

Posted on September 9, 2014 by marey mercy

A few more pics from Saturday I thought I’d share:

Some great news about this pic – Pixlr has finally answered my prayers and created a desktop version so that I can use it to edit .TIFF files! I am totally thrilled about this, as it always bugged me to have to edit JPEGs, which already have reduced quality. There is a free and a membership version, and so far I’ve just been using the free one, but I fully intend to become a member because I want to support Pixlr as I think it’s great. So, this photo was the first time I used it on a TIFF file. I think there’s some muddy shadows in the lower left-hand corner which were a result of some sloppy work with the burn tool in Photoshop, but the lighting effects I added in Pixlr were terrific and really added to the shot. And there’s that awesome faux fur vest I got for peanuts at Nordstrom last winter! I can’t wait to wear it when it’s really cold outside. Here’s one more:

Surprisingly, the shots I took using the short wig, which is actually not a costume wig but a real one that is made to be worn in the everyday, came out much better than the other two campy costume wigs I wore during the shoot. My first one, a long silver one, didn’t create one successful shot, and the orange wig only generated one or two shots of interest. But in this short, fairly normal-looking one I got a ton of shots that I liked. Perhaps it’s because the makeup needed to take center stage and the other two wigs competed too much with it, or it could be because I found the other two particularly difficult to wear (the orange one in particular is really heavy and annoying) and wasn’t posing as well in them because of that. For whatever reason, the short wig worked best so I have more of that one to work with.

All in all I’m pleased with what I got out of this shoot, especially considering I started the whole thing later, after a full day of running around, which is something I usually don’t like to do. I didn’t get all the makeup on and start shooting until around 5 PM, and that’s normally when I’m finishing up. But I’m all for trying to break myself out of my routines whenever possible, especially with my time being more limited right now.

365 Southern Living Home Tour

Posted on September 7, 2014 by marey mercy

I haven’t posted any 365 photos in awhile, so here are some more, plus a few I took that didn’t make the cut.

Most of these were taken last weekend, which we spent at my father-in-law’s house. I’ve looked back over recent posts to see if I’d already shared any of these, because it feels like I have, but I can’t find anything so maybe it’s just that I’ve shared most of them on Flickr already so that’s what feels familiar. The above photo is detail of a huge wreath that hangs over the fireplace; Doug’s mother had it custom-made at some point and as you can see, it’s pretty massive. I mean, that is NOT a small birdcage attached to it!

Everything my mother-in-law did as far as home decorating was thoroughly researched and planned to the finest detail; Doug said she was always walking from room-to-room, investigating every nook and cranny for what might be the next thing that needed sprucing up. Unfortunately, she died after Doug and I had only been married a few years, so I did not get to know her as well as I would have liked, but that was certainly true of her in the years I knew her. In fact, right after she died, Jimmy said a huge delivery of new drapes for the living room showed up at the house to be installed, and he’d known nothing about it. And yes, she was very old-school about home decor; custom drapes hang over every available window. I don’t even think people “do” drapes anymore, do they? And nowhere in that house will you see a window blind; it’s all sheer curtains, plus drapes with tassled tie-backs, and those fancy custom overhangs across the top of the window that I don’t even know what they’re called. She was full-on Southern Living magazine, from top to bottom. And in just the few photos I had a chance to take of the house last weekend, I came to appreciate how good she was at it.

Every picture I took in the house looked so good, like, magazine-spread ready. The colors are so rich, and everywhere you turn are fabulous details. Like this table that sits in the entryway – Ruby (that was her name) found this huge piece of driftwood on the beach in Galveston, somehow managed to lug it home, then had it custom-treated and painted to be the base to a glass-top table. Doug says it’s had many different glass tops over the years, and has also been painted several different colors, including black and gold. And of course, the vases and figurines resting on top of it match the walls and marble floors to perfection.

That one wasn’t a 365 shot, but you can see her attention to detail in the way the silk flowers match the vase. And when I say she paid attention to details, this next picture reveals that better than any other, I think:

It’s not a great shot by any means, but note the custom silk fabric hiding the cord that hangs the chandelier from the ceiling! I mean, who does that anymore? In fact, who ever did that? Well, Ruby did, that’s who. Also note the fabric walls, which are padded and soft. Something else I’ve not seen anywhere else but her house.

The picture was painted by Doug’s sister, and of course adding the silk bow behind it is all Ruby. All the framed paintings hanging in the house have some sort of little detail added to them, a swatch of fabric draping the top, a bow hanging behind. Note the way the silk matches the walls in the living room and ties the two rooms together (this is hanging in the entryway). I honestly don’t think I’d ever appreciated all these little touches until I walked around taking photos.

But now, onto the things that represent my father-in-law:

This is an old bottle of liquor on a bookshelf in a spare room. I’ve heard of Rock and Rye before from stories about Doug’s grandfather; he loved this stuff, which is rye whiskey that had a piece of rock candy in the bottom of the bottle to make it sweet. Sounds absolutely horrid to me, but I guess this is what old Southern boys from Central Texas liked to drink back in the day.

That bookshelf was stuffed with old treasures I photographed but haven’t had time to process: an abacus Jimmy hand-made for his daughter, a boat made out of wood with a boat propeller fashioned out of a soup can lid he made for Doug, and this little gem – a handmade cigarette roller. Jimmy showed me how to use it, but it made no sense to me so I just photographed it and nodded while he talked. I took a few pics of this sitting on the bookshelf too, but in the end I liked this one because it shows Jimmy’s well-worn fingers holding it up.

This was a paperweight sitting on an end table and I snapped it really quick, but later I liked the tones in it and worked in editing to accentuate them. I don’t have much to say about it except that I like it. Now for a few quick 365s that weren’t taken at my father-in-law’s house.

OK now, this shot is messy because this was the split second that it started to rain outside. I didn’t even realize when I snapped the shot that I’d caught the rain falling down, it happened that quickly. I ran inside to prevent my SL1 from getting wet, which is why the shot ended up a little blurry. It wasn’t good enough to share for the 365 because there was one I took of leaves after the downpour that I thought was better, but I like it nonetheless for catching the very first raindrops of the storm.

This is the one I used for Day 39. I think it stands for itself. A nice shot using my little SL1 – taken in a hurry because I had to get the shot before humidity fogged up my lens again.

So, there you go! A catch-up on my 365 shots for what turns out to be a Happy Monday for you, I hope.

Ghoul Days

Posted on September 7, 2014 by marey mercy

I said I was gonna ghoul myself up a bit, and I sure did try:

My inspiration for the makeup was drag queen Sharon Needles; I pretty much attempted to steal her look, but as usual the end results weren’t an exact match. I added blue shadow under the black to give the eye makeup more dimension, and although I tried to copy her lips I didn’t quite pull it off. Other than the makeup, I didn’t have much planned for this set but to look ghoulish and make strange faces, so I did several wig and costume changes while messing around with the lighting so I’d have more to work with when editing.

I used Photoshop to change the eye color as I do not possess the commitment level to purchase zombie contacts and get accustomed to sticking them in my eyes. I even tried to put a little gap between my teeth, but I’m not sure you can really tell. And let me just say that black lipstick is a bitch to wear in photographs because it fades and bleeds easily and the results are often sloppy, so I had to get creative when editing to conceal the mess as much as possible.

And speaking of messes, one more creative idea I had for this shoot is something I’ve wanted to try for a year or so. The inspiration is taken from a CocoRosie video called We Are On Fire; in the video, the singers jump around in slow motion while this strange liquid that looks rather like blood flings out of their mouths. It’s not gross or gory at all, rather, in the slowed-down motion of the video it looks interesting and creates some unusual shapes. I’ve always wanted to try it myself, and today with my creepy face I decided it was the right time.

There was some Hershey’s syrup in the refrigerator, and even though it was expired by about a year (don’t judge) I figured it would do. I dumped some into my mouth, hit the remote, and attempted to fling it out by whipping my head around, but it was too thick and nothing happened beyond a little spilling down my chin. This left me with a huge viscous wad of expired chocolate in my mouth, so I went to the bathroom and spit it into the toilet, which seemed to be the most logical place since it was a pretty big mouthful. This will be important later.

I figured adding a little water to the syrup might help me spit it farther, so I took another swig of chocolate sauce, a little swig of water, and hit the remote a few times while trying to gracefully sling the liquid about in a ghouly, arty manner. When I thought I might have gotten a good shot or two, I spit what was left of the chocolate into the toilet again, and went back to look at what I’d gotten. And ohhhhhhh dear. Let me just say, that chocolate sauce with water added does NOT look remotely like blood. It looks like – something else I won’t mention, and there it was dribbling out of my mouth in a bunch of photos. It was so incredibly disgusting I deleted the shots while they were still inside the camera. Just looking at them almost made me sick…and to make matters worse, it was about this time my husband decided to take a little trip to the bathroom and lift up the toilet lid…his screams of horror could probably be heard around the block, as I’d forgotten to flush after spitting all that chocolate sauce into it. So there you go. If my photos weren’t sufficiently ghastly, I bet that story will give you shivers. You’re welcome.

Last shot for now, but more to process later:

Photoshoot Leftovers

Posted on September 5, 2014 by marey mercy

A few more shots from last weekend that I’ve processed over the course of the week:

I thought this was another successful levitation attempt; I am getting better at the shadows for sure.

Not super-thrilled with this one; my face looks pinched and I’m not in the frame properly, but I did like that I’m in a leaping pose I’ve never captured before. I was actually jumping backwards off a stool that I edited out of the shot.

A much better jump, and is that dress amazing or what? Bought from the Kissing Tree as is most of my vintage finery. There are a few more leaps I made in this getup that I might process because it took great photos, but honestly, I’m already bored with this set and ready to get into something new.

Because I’d spent a long time on my makeup, I took a ton of portraits, but actually didn’t like most of them. I’ve gotten really boring when it comes to portraits and am in need of some new inspiration for them; I realized later that lately my makeup has always focused on being pretty, which limits what I can do once I’m taking the shots. I plan on taking portraits Saturday afternoon, and I’m going to go some really macabre makeup to try and inspire some better portrait posing. There’s only so many times I can give “pretty face” to the camera and feel original, and I’m rather done with it for awhile. We’ll see if spooky can conjure up any more interesting images.

But I do LOVE the colors in this wig:

Hopefully more later! Happy Saturday everyone!

Dress of Success

Posted on August 31, 2014 by marey mercy

I finally got a chance on Sunday to drag myself up and take some photos! About three hundred and fifty, to be exact. Not sure how many I’ll process, but I’ve done a few so far, including a shot for my Day 32:

Processing one of my makeup test shots has kind of become one of my traditions, if that’s the right word, so I decided it would be the perfect addition to my 365 project. I had a few costume and wig changes throughout the shoot, but as it turned out I only edited shots from one of the outfits. I’ve not done any full-length or jumping shots in awhile, so I was initially more interested in processing those. I finally got to wear this great ball gown I bought from The Kissing Tree Vintage off eBay way back in May, and the skirt is just marvelous – or should I say was marvelous, as I stepped on it a few times during the shoot and ripped it a bit. Sadly, most of the vintage gowns that come through my door have come here to die.

Maybe you can’t tell, but I was actually balancing on a little stool in this photo, then edited it out so it might look like I’m floating, but I’m not sure that comes across. I’m also not sure it matters. And by the way, that is one of my favorite wigs.

Anyway, it’s the next photo that I’m really excited about. For the first time, I actually managed to visualize a composite photo and then bring it to fruition almost exactly as I pictured it in my head. I’ve had the idea for a few months but have been scared to try it, based on my past disappointments with creating composites, but after watching a few videos from the composite class I purchased online a while back, I felt I had a bit more of a handle on how to do it (although not much more, since I only ever watched a few of the videos and never completed the entire class). I thought the key would be to keep it simple, and try to get as much right in the camera as possible, so to start, I took a fairly basic photo of myself standing on the little stool.

Then, without changing anything about the position of the camera or the lighting, I took the pink foam Target wig I got last year and placed it on a tripod at different areas of the set where I wanted it to appear as some sort of floating, magical thingamabob:

There was a time where I would have thought that all I had to do was take one picture of the wig, then layer and re-size it into different parts of the original photo, but I’ve learned my lesson about that. This time I knew that if I moved the wig around and placed it where I wanted it to be, then layered all four of those shots into the original, each wig would be in the proper lighting conditions in relation to the entire set and would look more realistic. I hope I’m articulating that properly, but poorly-explained or not, it made a big difference. I was able to layer all four pictures of the wig into the original shot, then spent a good deal of time dodging and burning to add shadows and create the illusion that all these little pink lumpy orbs were floating around me (I found a nice little tutorial online about adding shadows that finally made that particularly tricky step a little easier – although I still think I need work in that area). After a lot of fussing with color and shadows, I finished up by adding a texture layer to the gray background using my RadLab plug-in to help conceal any editing flaws that might be evident to a trained eye – and then, voila! It may not be perfect, but it’s a hell of a lot better than anything I’ve tried up to this point, and it does look almost exactly like what I envisioned:

And by the way, since my plan to paint the walls of my office fell to the wayside, I finally bit the bullet and bought a rather expensive backdrop called a Diamond Cloth from an online store called Backdrop Outlet. I’ve been eyeing their backdrops for awhile; they have different levels of quality, and I went with the Diamond Cloth since it was the cheapest version. It still was NOT cheap at almost $100, but I have to say it was worth it. The fabric is rather thin, but completely opaque, and it was HUGE. I hung it all the way up to the ceiling and the bottom STILL rolled out to cover almost my entire office floor! I was able to wash and dry it right out of the box, and although it still had some wrinkles when I hung it, they did not show up too much in the final photos. I’d forgotten how nice shooting color is against gray, and am very happy with the purchase. The store has literally hundreds of backdrops, many different textures and prints, but being me I’ll probably stick with solids for the most part since that seems to be my “thing.” They also make big, fancy fake floors you can roll out over your own to jazz up the look of your photos, but again, this stuff isn’t cheap, especially when I do such wide shots that I have to buy the biggest sizes. Moving on.

Much more from this shoot later – there’s an entirely different vintage gown, a burgundy-and-pink wig, lots of portraits, and jumping still to come.

Portrait Portions

Posted on July 24, 2014 by marey mercy

A few more photos from my recent portrait session here, but first, I have to mention the spike in traffic I saw on my blog yesterday. Keep in mind that for me, a spike in traffic means I went from about 30 views a day to almost 200, so overall I still don’t need to quit my day job or anything, but what the hell, it was still a big jump over my usual numbers. What did it was the Stitch Fix people finding my blog post from yesterday, and creating a pin on Pinterest of one of my photos (the one with the aztec cardigan). The Pin sent people to my blog to check it out, and here’s what happened to my stats:

I think you can tell where the spike is (and no laughing at those sad numbers, BTW). Always interesting when something like that happens, so I thought I’d mention it. Moving on to the shots – I have three more self-portraits to share, all taken after I’d starting destroying my costumery and makeup:

I edited the hell out of this one to reduce my skin tones and up the contrast; not sure I like the way it came out but at least it was something different.

I like this one better, and as I mentioned in my previous post about these shots, I really liked how cutting a hole in the top of the wig and pulling my own hair through it worked. It almost does look like a dye job on my actual hair instead of a wig (or half-wig as the case may be – and yes, half-wigs do exist. They just don’t work at all like this one). The last one utilizes these great costume glasses I got off Amazon a while back – in my current Sopranos-obsessed state they reminded me of Junior Soprano:

I Rad-Labbed and Dirty-Picture’d the hell out of this one to bring the light down and add some interest. I think it worked out well.

Speaking of glasses, I ordered new ones for my day-to-day life this afternoon and will of course take pictures of them when they come in. Oh and I’ve also discovered the joys of toeless socks, so I’ll have to write about that sometime too, won’t i? There is nothing I won’t write about here, after all, so please try not to go giddy with anticipation waiting for my yoga sock review. Happy Friday everyone!

Bored-trait

Posted on July 22, 2014 by marey mercy

Monday afternoon I decided to shoot some portraits and did a fairly quick makeup job to get some done. But I was terribly bored by the whole process, and less than thrilled with what was coming out of the shoot. So I decided to take my frustration out on my costume and photograph the destruction.

That’s a wig I I cut a big hole in just to play around. Why wear them like normal when you’ve taken 8,000 + photos of yourself in them that way already? I’d also already seriously messed up my makeup by the time I took that shot, which was one of the last ones I took. Here’s a shot of the makeup before I destroyed it:

The eyeshadow was all glitter, but it was a rush job so it wasn’t all that thrilling anyway. And that’s the wig with the hole already cut in, and my real hair sticking out of the top. I actually kinda liked the way it looked when worn like this. One thing I’ve decided I don’t like, though, is shooting portraits against a white backdrop. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but it really does a number on my lighting and makes the colors weak. If nothing else, I need to learn some better lighting techniques when working against white. Working with gray or black backgrounds is easier for the type of portraits I like to shoot; much more dramatic results with better color and contrast. I am not skilled enough to know why, that’s just my observation.

Here’s one more, taken when I decided to rip into the black top I was using and just basically mess with it as much as I could beyond wearing it like, you know, a shirt.

That would be me sticking my head through a sleeve, or attempting to anyway. My husband walked into the office at this point in the shoot and I told him I was attempting to give birth to myself through it, which made sense at the time. I still like the description, as it does rather sum up what I was trying to do. Without getting whiny about it, I’m bored again.

Even though I found the shoot frustrating and didn’t enjoy taking them at the time, I found some nice ones to process, and in looking at them now I’m reminded a lot of the old portraits I used to do, back when my camera was incredibly old and I had no lighting or backdrops or costumes or makeup skills, and my lenses were so crappy I couldn’t take anything but portraits (full-length shots were out of the question). Back then, I’d throw on a t-shirt and a wig and grab whatever was nearby and just make it work. And I’d keep shooting until I hit on something interesting, like ripping up a wig or a shirt, and I’d just go town with that idea. Part of the problem is I’ve done it all by this time (including wearing tops the wrong way and ripping up costumes, although ripping up a wig was new) and so I get less excited about doing it again. But some of the photos actually were interesting, so it wasn’t a loss even if I felt unenthusiastic at the time.

I did sign up for an online class to learn how to create composite shots the proper way; as educational an exercise as it may be for me to take a little photoshoot trip back in time, I also need to keep moving forward, and I just can’t get there on my own. I really want to create more whimsical and fantastical stuff, which takes me beyond what I can do here in my studio. I’ve reached a point where, without knowing more, I don’t even want to try, because I don’t want to deal with the frustration of trying to figure it out on my own. So I hope these classes can help with that. In the meantime, I may do more playing around with the simple stuff like I did here. The end results weren’t that bad after all.

Flower Trip

Posted on July 15, 2014 by marey mercy

More flower macros! Today I decided to share some comparison photos as well; the first set shows the difference the FlashPipe made on the macros when I was focusing in really tight. Without using an external flash, such shots were too dark:

I’ve used the Speedlite on macros before, and it definitely helps, but because of all the weird angles I’m using to get the shot I want the light kind of bounces all over. With the FlashPipe I get a nice soft diffused light that’s much more even, and definitely brighter than taking the shot without any flash:

My next set of comparisons shows how using the RadLab plugin for Photoshop helps edit a SOOC photo into something more magical. Here’s the original shot:

And here’s the shot after I adjusted the contrast and used RadLab filters to brighten and enhance color and detail:

Big difference! So even if in the final shot you can’t tell how RadLab might have helped, it definitely does. Of course all this could be done without it, but for someone with limited Photoshop skills like myself the plugin sure makes things easier.

I then used Snapseed for final sharpening and to enhance color a little further, as I felt the yellow was a little blown out in the original shot (the downside of using the flash). So here’s the final version:

This next one is a bit similar to a shot I shared in Sunday’s post; but that one was taken without the Speedlite/FlashPipe combo while the one I’m sharing today used those two additions. So as a reminder and further comparison, here’s the shot I shared Sunday:

And here’s the same flower (different angle though) taken with the external flash and FlashPipe (as well as water spritzing):

Both are nice, but the effect is totally different. Again you can see how the color gets blown out a bit by the flash, even after all my edits (this is a final version, achieved using the RadLab filters and Snapseed).

And here’s my last one for today. Definitely a favorite – final version only:

More flowers later, I am sure. Another busy week ahead, and then next week I must start getting back to work at least once a week to prepare for the year. Enough time to do a full self-portrait set complete with costumery still eludes me, but I’ll get to it when I can.

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