More From The Forty

Posted on June 15, 2014 by marey mercy

The more photos I edit from Thursday’s jaunt down to the antique district, the more I understand why people over at Phoblographer are enthusiastic about the Canon 40mm pancake lens. I also had to get past the boredom of going over the shots from this particular part of town because, as I think I mentioned last time, good deals to be had there or no, it isn’t very photogenic:

See what I mean (and how did I miss cropping out that pole)?

The feature of this lens that gets the most raves (aside from the light weight and unobtrusive size) is its clarity, something I wasn’t particularly looking for when shooting candids of people at my nieces’ graduation party, but I admit when looking over the photos from this set I was struck by how sharp they came out:

Every time I go to Historic Rosenberg I take a photo of this wall

Another oft-photographed and nicely-detailed building; too bad I managed to turn the sky brown when color-correcting it

I did come across a store I hadn’t photographed a million times already; it’s a new store that sells contemporary furniture and clothes rather than the antiques (ie, junk) most of the other stores sell. I popped in to see what they had going on, but it didn’t interest me – lots of big metal Stars of Texas and slogans burned into driftwood and clothes with rhinestones, that kind of thing.

Oh, and cowhides.

The area all around these few blocks of shops is pretty run-down, and although it tries to make itself presentable, there just isn’t much in the way of foliage or character to give it panache. The historical society is always doing things to promote the area, though, including restoring this historic home:

Pretty, no?

Well no, actually.

I’m not sure how this home will be used once it’s completed, but if it’s going to be residential they’ll have to seriously watch the kids when they’re in the backyard. That’s how this area has always been: come across one pretty structure and you’re sure to find something industrial and/or run-down right next to it. But they keep trying. And if you ever get tired of it and don’t know how to get out, they also sell these at a reasonable price:

Click your heels together and a bunch of sequins fall off.

So, this ended up being a post more about Rosenberg than my 40mm lens, but the two have some things in common. They’re small, they’re functional, they’re good deal-oriented, and they have more going on beneath the surface than you might think. Suffice it to say I like both of them just fine.

Antique Technique

Posted on June 13, 2014 by marey mercy

Thursday morning I went to the antique district up the road from our neighborhood to seek out some new end tables for our bedroom. I know I mentioned the new carpet we are getting this summer already, but while clearing out the house to prepare for that we decided we also needed to get a big dresser for our bedroom (we’ve been using the same old hand-me-down furniture ever since we got married because neither one of us care much for decorating and generally don’t take it into consideration). We have a lovely new dresser coming Monday, but we didn’t like the idea of pairing it with the same old cheap, crummy end tables we had on either side of our bed; we also didn’t much care for the idea of paying over $300 per table for new ones, like the furniture showroom where we ordered the dresser wanted us to do. I mentioned to the salesman, in fact, that I was going to hit up antique stores for tables and he sniffed at me, “You’ll have to go to Salvation Army to find a decent end table for under $200.” Well, folks, allow me to share with you a quick picture of my non-Salvation Army end tables I found for a whopping $50 each:

I think the showroom had almost the exact same table for $300. These are not antiques, but were found in an antique store nonetheless. I actually like that they are new because they aren’t rickety as hell like a lot of the antique ones were. Moving on.

I stood there quite awhile trying to get the flag to mirror the sign. Got it eventually.

When I headed out Thursday morning to table-hunt, I threw my Canon SL1 with the 40mm lens attached into my purse with the intention to shoot some street stuff while I was out and about. I’ve been reading about the 40mm lens, and walkabout photography in general, and I decided to follow some of the advice I’ve received: I had a fixed shutter speed and ISO setting on the camera before heading out (although I did lower the ISO when shooting outside then bump it up a little when heading into a store), and I made a conscious decision to approach the focal length differently by trying to appreciate its simplicity. And, I shot in monochrome so I wouldn’t be worried about color. Never having shot in monochrome before, I didn’t realize that when I pulled the RAW files up on my computer they WOULD be in color – yeah, that’s how novice I still am at certain things. I went ahead and converted some of them back into monochrome anyway because the color was, in fact, not that great with the light already blasting everything out by 11:00 AM.

Good advice

I took about 150 pictures, but most of them, quite honestly, bore me. I am not much of a street photographer, so this is probably always going to happen when I take these sorts of photos, Plus, I’ve shot this antique district several times before and over the years it hasn’t changed much, so it doesn’t really inspire me (it’s only a few blocks, and once you’ve taken a photo of the old buildings and Coca-Cola ads painted on the cracked brick walls, well, there’s not much else to shoot). Add in that I was on a specific shopping mission, and the photography came in pretty low on my list of priorities for the day. Still, I had fun shooting the photos I did take, and the SL1 was a dream to deal with – so light I could easily shoot while holding the thing with one hand, and once I accepted the fairly boring perspective of the 40mm I enjoyed the experience. It’s a great little camera, and with that pancake lens on it in particular it’s a breeze to carry around. My only complaint is that the focal points are barely visible; on my 7D the points are bright red and clear and I can easily see where I am focused through the viewfinder, but on the SL1 I cannot see them at all because the red is so faint it disappears into the scene I’m trying to focus on. It’s a minor quibble, but it is irritating, and I’m wondering if there’s a way visually to brighten the focal points so I can see them better. I’ll have to check into that. What can I say – I’m an autofocus kinda gal.

Antique garden shop

This next shot is a good example of how random, spontaneous scenes get the better of me when doing street-type photography. The photo is of a small doll’s kitchen set I found sitting on the floor of one of the antique shops I visited; there was a lot of junk sitting around it, but none of it was very well-placed to show the scale of the kitchenette. I probably should have moved things around to set up a better shot, but I just didn’t for whatever reason. I tend to feel rushed in these situations, especially when shooting inside a store where I am always concerned someone might not like what I am doing, and I rarely stop to frame things well much less actually set up a shot. So, I ended up with a shot of this amazing doll kitchen, but nothing to really indicate that it’s tiny:

Another problem I often run up against in situations like this is framing; this would have been much better if I’d gotten the shot head-on rather than being off to the side, but again, that would have involved moving a lot of stuff around because, even though you can’t tell, there was junk everywhere that would have gotten in the way from any other angle. Anyway, I still liked how sad and decrepit this little mini kitchen looked, so I decided to mess with it and try to make it more interesting. First step was to run it through Snapseed to give it more color and detail:

Then I decided to try and make the wall behind the set look more dingy and old; I used a texture layer in Paint Shop Pro to do that:

Then I decided the texture of the carpet was distracting, so I used Photoshop to smooth it out:

Then I added some vignetting for a little extra visual interest:

Buuuuut I decided I still wasn’t done. Now, I may have overdone it here, but I pulled the photo into Pixlr and gave it a go. Here’s the final result:

Thank G-d for Pixlr, seriously. I have a few more shots I may process and share later, but that’s it for now. Have a great Friday everyone!

Scent-ient Beings

Posted on June 9, 2014 by marey mercy

As a little sidenote to yesterday’s post: I often spend an hour or so in the morning reading about new lenses and/or other photography gadgetry to try. Sunday morning I stumbled across a great blog titled “The Phoblographer” and saw an article in the sidebar called “The Best Budget Lenses.” Well, always looking out for a good deal on a new lens, I clicked on over to the article – and wouldn’t you know that for the Canon I own them all already. While on the one hand, that’s great and means that I did my homework well before making my purchases, but on the other – well damn, you mean there’s nothing new out there I need to buy right now? And by the way, guess what lens that blog just looooooves? That’s right, the 40mm pancake lens I was bitching about yesterday. Then again, if I had a penny for every time I bitched about a new lens I ended up loving later (hello, 85 mm, I’m talking to you), I’d have a whole mess of useless pennies sitting around for Sprocket to eventually eat. Moving on.

Did someone say ‘pennies’? Cause I’m ready for lunch.

It’s also hard for me to consider a $600 lens a “bargain” one, as the blog post considers my 100 f/2.8 macro lens, but I do get that in the realm of photography that’s inexpensive. And hey, it’s not like I couldn’t find a way to get my hands on one, so I suppose that does mean it’s affordable (on eBay, for less than the $600 asking price, thankyouverymuch). Since I am still struggling to see the awesomeness of the thing, it surprised me to see it on the list (along with the 40mm), but it at least confirms that I was right to buy it and should continue to invest my time and energy in learning how to use it. On that note, here are some more macro shots I took Thursday with this lens:

Even though I titled this photo “Perfume Bottle” on Flickr, I still got mostly “WTF is this?” comments about it, which either means that people don’t bother to read titles or they just did not know what the hell to say about this. It did not get as much of a reaction as I was expecting, as I considered the photo cool as hell, but when people follow your stream for one kind of photo primarily (my self-portraits) it always throws them when you upload something not of that vein, so I get it. Still, I was so pleased with this and it bummed me that not a lot of other people were interested in it. Not a big deal, it happens, and if I had a penny for every photo I shared that did not get the reaction I expected, Sprocket would sound like a dog maraca everywhere he went because he’d be so full of loose change.

I did not notice the terrible cloning job I did on the blanket until after I finished processing this shot, and overall I don’t like it enough to go back and re-edit (the line of white fuzz was just one section of white fuzz I somehow managed to drag across the entire shot when trying to clone it out – I am not good at using the clone tool, obvs).I’m only sharing it here to show the entire perfume bottle from which I got the first shot.

I like this one too – I loved the light and color I was able to get out of these. Not so sure about this next one though:

I can’t tell if the blur there is cool or awful. I was manually focusing, which I am not good at, and I thought I got the top of the star in decent focus, but maybe I didn’t…? I don’t know; this one has me baffled. Moving on to the next bottle I shot:

Ooooookay, now, I love this shot. I think the lighting is fab and the color is tasty. But I must complain about some of the comments this one got on Flickr. I mentioned in the description that it was another perfume bottle, and that the perfume was called “Meow,” and I in no way made any connection to that other word for “cat” that starts with a P and how people might relate it to scent. And damned if a few of my long-time followers didn’t make jokes about that very thing, and relate it to, well, my very own P. Look, I’m an open-minded gal with a sense (scents?) of humor, but those comments were a bit too familiar for my comfort. I debated about how to respond, then decided I wouldn’t respond at all and just deleted them instead. It irritated me enough that I started to take the photo down, but some other people left nice comments complimenting the very things I love about this photo (lighting and color) and as I said already, I really like this shot, so I wiped out the comments and moved on (not to mention that Rebecca’s comment asking about “a litter note” in the perfume was brilliant and totally slayed me). Before deleting, I did consider responding to them by informing them I didn’t think the comments were funny, but then I thought through all the drama I’d have to endure if I did that, and the defensive, hurt feelings such chastisement would generate, and I just hit delete. The people who commented in that manner are people I know and have followed for years, so I’m sure they didn’t realize I would find the statements in poor taste and take them personally. More so than taking it personally, though, was my concern about allowing those comments to sit out there in a public forum and encourage more of the same from others. Moving on.*

An “M” for “moving on.” In fact, as much as I use that little phrase on the blog, I think I should start using this as an icon for it every time I say it. Yep.

*Except – major digression – I am not moving on quite yet, because I just thought of something hilarious I must share. Years ago I got seriously into collecting perfume. It was a much more expensive and less useful pursuit than purchasing camera gear, by the way, because you simply cannot keep buying and trying different scents constantly while simultaneously using up the scents you’ve already bought – it’s just not possible, and I ended up with cabinets stuffed with bottles I could never possibly use up. It was ridiculous, so I made myself quit. However, when I was in the throes of my obsession I stumbled across this scent called Rose Poivree that was reputed to smell like a woman’s, um, Meow – and even though such an aroma has never been a goal of mine, I became so curious about it that I just had to buy a bottle, because perfume collectors are always after the unusual, and this sounded like nothing if not unusual. After it came in the mail, I spritzed some on and went about my business; then my husband came home from work a few hours later, walked into my office where I was working, sniffed loudly, crinkled up his nose, and said, “I think the cat peed in here,” and walked out. I listed the perfume on eBay the next day and sold it for exactly as much as I bought it for – to a man.

This isn’t a great photo, but since I took it and processed it I wanted to share. The grainy appearance isn’t due to the lens; the bottle had residue on it from who knows what – it’s been sitting in a cabinet since I bought it and it probably has gotten mist on it from other perfumes, hair spray, lens cleaner for my glasses, or any other number of things over the past year or so that I’ve owned it. So that’s what all that grainy texture is. By the way – although perfume bottles are little works of art in their own right many times, it’s best not to store them out in the open as bright light can turn a scent. Keep them in a dark space at room temperature and they will last longer. That’s why many times really expensive perfumes won’t have elaborate bottles; the perfumers do not want to encourage people to leave the bottles out on a dresser (like my beloved Frederic Malle and my favorite scent, “Parfum de Terese” – gorgeous scent, boring bottle. Oh, or L-Artisan’s SafranTroublant – another amazing perfume).

What can I say – this was a seriously fun bottle to photograph

One thing I did notice about macro photography when searching for groups where I could share these on Flickr was that it is mostly flowers and insects – I even found a group titled “Macro Photography, NO FLOWERS OR INSECTS PLEASE” – and as usual, here I am with a bunch of photos that are sort of geared towards a certain community but which don’t quite fit. Sigh. It seems that I am always outside the norm in some way when it comes to stuff like this, because good Lord I abhor insects and would never try to photograph one as just looking at them makes me itchy and nervous, and flowers are fine and all but not something I’m overly excited about trying to photograph. Water drop macro shots are really damn cool (Corrie White’s stream on Flickr is, like, THE COOLEST), but I’m not ready to tackle them yet although I probably will at some point. So for now, my perfume bottles and whatever else I manage to snap with a macro lens are going to hover around the outskirts of the macro world, not quite fitting in but hopefully being rather cool nonetheless. Who knows – maybe even with macro photography I fall more into the fashion camp than anything else. These might not be awesome macro shots but they’d be hella cool magazine adverts, maybe?

I thought this bottle was cool, but the shots suffered from macro photo fatigue as my arm was sore and my knees were starting to go stiff so I didn’t work very hard to get good shots of it. I sprayed the bottle with some water because this one had the same residue all over it that the Meow one did, and I thought the water drops might conceal it a little. The perfume is called “Alien” by Thierry Mugler, and when viewing the whole bottle it does look quite Battlestar Galactica. It’s a very weird scent too; one that I didn’t like at first but that was so strong (one spritz really will last all day, powerful stuff at only $60 bucks a bottle) it kind of grew on me, plus it calms down after the initial spray into something quite unusual. It has a rubbery scent I find appealing, but then again I love weird, strong, earthy/tobacco-y/rubber-y scents more than anything. Don’t get me started on Bulgari Black, which is a men’s cologne with the claim to fame that is has an actual rubber note. It’s ah-maaaaazing. Plus, the bottle looks like a tire.

Oh dear, I need to get out of this post before I start up my perfume obsession again. Literally while writing it, I realized I was almost out of Safran Troublant and went and bought another bottle. Happy smelly Monday, everyone!

Getting Catty

Posted on June 5, 2014 by marey mercy

Inspired by one of Leanne Cole’s recent posts, I decided this afternoon to pull out my macro lens and give that thing another go. This time, I rolled out my black backdrop, set up a TV tray covered with a black blanket, and aimed two umbrella stands with gold reflectors at it so I could control the environment and lighting better than last time when I just walked around with a ring light shooting objects at random (and yes – it was definitely easier to get things set up and work in my de-cluttered office space).

I took some fairly cool pics of this wooden Buddha I found underneath our bed while cleaning one day this week – we bought it in San Francisco while on our honeymoon, so who knows how or why it ended up there. Most things in our house end up under the bed at some point or another, so that’s probably explanation enough. Anyway, the macro caught a lot of dust in the cracks and crevices of the figurine that I’ll attempt to edit out – I haven’t actually processed those shots yet. Then I took some pretty cool pics of some perfume bottles that I also want to edit and share, but the first ones I processed are actually the last ones I took. I decided right before I packed up to put some cat treats on the TV tray and see if I could get Simon up there for some macro shots, and it turned out better than I expected.

Did someone say treeeeeaaaaats?

Lemme tell ya, that macro lens is hard to work with. I think I’ve mentioned that before, but this time the problem was its weight, and that my cheap tripod had problems holding it steady. I’d focus on something, adjust the tripod to hold that focus, and when I let go of it the lens would immediately drop down below my focal point due to its weight. I ended up having to set the tripod above where I wanted to focus and hope that when it dropped, it would be where I wanted it. Not a very precise method. I also decided to set the shutter to remote triggering so I wouldn’t wobble the lens any when I took a shot. But with Simon I didn’t want to have a 2-second delay, so I just snapped away while he ate (in the shot above my husband had actually whistled, which cause the cat to look up) and hoped some of them would be in focus.

I didn’t plan the Simon session out very well – I’d been changing the ISO settings and lighting for each object up to this point, but putting Simon up there was a spontaneous thing, so I think the color is off (as I mentioned already, I was using gold reflectors so the light was very warm, which is nice for objects but not for animals or people) and the light was too bright,. But overall I’m pleased with how these turned out. And I love the cat against that black background – pretty slick looking.

Is this cute or irritating? I’m not sure.

Another discovery tonight – setting up a TV tray to place objects on for macro shots meant I was on my knees for the entire shoot, which, with my middle-aged knees, got old real quick. Next time, self, find a way to shoot objects at eye-level so I can stand, thanks. And in spite of the tripod, all the adjusting and re-adjusting of the camera meant my arm still got tired. So (and I know I’ve said this already too) it may be time to invest in a better tripod at last.

I think the first one and the one directly above are the best of the bunch, but I liked so many of them I had to edit them all. I’ll share the Buddhas and perfume bottles later when I’ve had time to edit them. My friend and I are hitting the Galleria tomorrow for a little start-of-summer shopping, so I’ll be indisposed most of the day, but I may sneak my little SL1 into my bag and see how many pics I can sneak while I’m there. Here’s one more of Simon to finish this post off:

Simon about to attack a treat

Oh and I also discovered tonight that I am NOT a good nighttime videographer. Like, at all. The International Space Station has been flying over our city all week, and Doug and I have gone outside a few times to watch it pass over – the mosquitoes are hell right now, so we try to make it a quick trip. Tonight I decided to try and film it with my camera, and what I got was six minutes of blurry sky because I completely aimed the lens in the wrong place (my 7D will only film in Live View mode, which I do not know how to use at all, and I just could not see what to aim at without being able to use the viewfinder), Anyway, out of six minutes of film I managed to get five seconds of Space Station in the very bottom of the frame, so being me, I uploaded it anyway. And here it is – five wobbly seconds of the ISS floating over my driveway!

Office Race

Posted on June 1, 2014 by marey mercy

My first goal towards creating a studio out of my office was to get this big, old, cheap Sears bookcase that takes up half a wall cleaned out and out of the room. I told myself I would get that done this weekend, and on Sunday I finally got up the energy to give it a go. It took longer than I expected, because while cleaning out the bookcase I realized I had to find somewhere to put the stuff I cleaned out of there (the stuff that wasn’t total junk anyway) which led to me having to clean out some other drawers and cabinets to make room for it. I don’t think I realized before today, because I don’t generally pay attention much to my surroundings, just how much useless crap I’ve accumulated over the years and strewn all over the house, as well as stuffed into cabinets and drawers. Every available space here within which junk can be placed is full, and I’d wager that 97% of it is useless. So there’s that.

I ended up throwing out 6 bags’ worth of said junk, along with the bookcase, and let’s just say I achieved two goals today – getting rid of the bookshelf and getting back into a workout routine – because at the end of the day I was tired and quite sore all over. But goal #1 is accomplished, and every time I walk into my office I do a little happy dance to see that open space against the wall, which I’ve already used to move my umbrella stands against instead of having them hovering over my computer desk like they were before. At one point today I got really overwhelmed thinking about all those overstuffed drawers and cabinets and bookshelves and feeling the need to de-clutter the entire house, but I calmed myself down and reminded myself I’d do a better job of it if I stuck to the plan and took each step one at a time. I don’t want to burn out by taking on too much too soon, and forgetting to celebrate each little victory. So, here I am with one more wall of free space, a sore neck, and a sense of accomplishment. Yay me.

Un-insert big ugly bookcase here

My next goal is to get rid of that little cheap black and white love seat that is basically a dog couch – I’m going to take it up to the school for the students to sit on in the learning center next year. Hope they don’t mind sitting on a dog bed for relaxation! I’m hoping to get that done some time this week. I’m not sure I even need a truck to move this thing; it was delivered to my doorstep in a box, so it isn’t exactly heavy, just might be too bulky to fit in my car. We’ll see. And yes, I am sorry to separate Penny from one of her favorite resting places, but my mind is made up and this room will be a photo studio, so we’re all going to have to make sacrifices. Moving on.

I also edited two more photos from Friday’s shoot:

I have no idea why I was making that face, but y’all know I like to find shots where I don’t look anything like the other 5,000+ shots of myself I’ve stared at over the years, and this one fit the bill. It kind of looks like I just spied a tarantula crawling up the wall, but I thought the expression lent an air of mystery and humor (and maybe even drama?) to the portrait, so here’s hoping I was right about that.

This next one was really frustrating – I liked it enough to run it through Photo Ninja and Photoshop, but once I started tweaking it in Snapseed I couldn’t get all that into it. It was boring me, and I felt like something was missing. I liked the focus a lot, though, and way the light played on the hair, so I kept working at it.

Even when I uploaded it to Pixlr and started trying out different effects and overlays, I couldn’t hit on anything that gave it the pizzazz I wanted, and I was about to abandon it entirely when, as a last resort, I decided to try out some borders, thinking I could edit the heavy frame out as I’d learned to do recently and just keep whatever textures the border might impose on the image. And just like that – BAM! It all fell into place.

See what I mean? The difference is subtle, but the visual interest the specks and smudges create give the portrait a grittier feel, as well as adding some warmth and light to the shot. I cropped out the dark black borders so that they weren’t so obtrusive (this was actually done using three different borders layered over each other) and was just left with the touches of texture and color that made me happy. Now I really love this shot!

Got to go in to work today, but we’re on summer hours now so I only have to be there from 9 AM to 1 PM. I’m planning on editing more from this set as well as move more furniture, so another busy week awaits. Happy Monday everyone!

May Madness

Posted on June 1, 2014 by marey mercy

I have taken a LOT of photos this month, y’all. And since I’m actually writing this post while it’s still May (even though it won’t post until June 1), let’s continue to look at them.

In this one, I was actually trying to hold up my huge light reflector, which was flipped to the gold side, but I thought it kinda, sorta, maybe looked like I was conjuring up a fire or something. You know, with my magic powers. I’ve got a terrible hot spot on my nose here (a bright blast of light, not something gross if that’s what you were imagining) and I really hate hot spots, but I couldn’t get rid of it effectively so it stayed. You can see the warmth of the reflector a little bit here, but it didn’t work all that well with my studio lighting and without a stand (really need to get one). Moving on:

She’s got stars in her…mouth?

The stars are actually on a black headband that I edited out of the shot; I think it made my jawline a little wonky where I had to edit but I doubt anyone else will notice.

The last shot I have to share is one of my makeup/lighting test shots. I always take test shots as I apply my makeup to be sure everything is going according to plan, so there are all these shots at the beginning of a set with me in various stages of photography/drag makeup. And as you know I usually find at least one of these test shots interesting enough to edit since I end up making strange faces in them and just generally looking bizarre.

I liked this one OK, but on it’s own it seemed a little dull, sooooo you know what I did next:

Pixlr, of course

I played around with light and lenses throughout the shoot, so I used different lenses for all these shots: the first one was with the 50mm, the second was the 85mm, and the test shot was taken with my 17-40mm. I also used an on-camera and off-camera Speedlite, with the on-camera one shot through a softbox so I could hit my face with a lot of diffused light.

Oh, and I also did something I almost never do while shooting: I listened to music. Usually, as weird as it sounds, I use session time to catch up on TV and movies I might want to watch, then I only half-watch them while I’m working (which is why I never know what’s going on plot-wise with the shows I do watch, annoying but true). But CocoRosie released an album earlier in the year that I never got around to listening to, and I enjoyed it so much I ended up dancing around in front of the camera. Sadly, much like random jumping without planning and preparation rarely results in a good jump shot, neither does random dancing about result in good ‘dance’ photos. I mostly looked like I was having a seizure, so none of those will be processed. I need to stick to carefully posing my dance shots if I want them to look like anything remotely graceful. But I had fun taking them, at least, and got in a little exercise to boot.

Lightening Up

Posted on May 31, 2014 by marey mercy

First of all I apologize for the rambling mess that is this post; it’s late and I am struggling to keep my eyes open, but I wanted to post some shots from today’s spontaneous set before turning in. So forgive me for being less than eloquent here.

I got off work early and decided to play around in makeup and take portrait shots, then the best pic of the 500 I took was one where my face doesn’t show at all – go figure.

I love that top for photos, even though the cropped aspect of it is problematic. Sure I look OK in this photo, but there’s plenty of others were I most decidedly do NOT, which is why I tried to take all my photos of the head and shoulders only; I just missed the mark in some of them like the one above. But the asymmetry and vibrant color really make it a good photography top, exposed skin notwithstanding. I actually cropped this one to share it on Facebook because I’m not totally thrilled with the amount of skin I’m showing here; it’s just that the shape my body made in conjunction with the curls and the one-sleeved top was very visually appealing, so I prefer this longer version to my Facebook one (which has cropped out the entire abdomen area. I’m a bit of a prude about skin-showing, what can I say).

Anyway, there’s the makeup. I think I did a pretty good job. I really wanted that yellow to pop, so I loaded up on it as well as on eyeliner and brow pencil (as usual). I even added a little cleft to my chin, but it may look more like I smudged off my makeup right there. not sure.

This next one was a mistake – I meant to reduce the exposure of my Speedlite but accidentally increased it instead, and this shot was blasted out from the flash. I decided to try and edit one of the shots I took like this before I realized what I’d done, but on its own it wasn’t quite right.

The highlighted areas are all too flat and there’s a lot of purple tint to my skin, so I uploaded this one to Pixlr and came up with the following:

Eh, it’s a little campy but I like it all right. I have a lot more to process as I was actually playing around with light a lot in this set – using reflectors and off-camera Speedlites and what have you – and I took over 500 photos (!). But I ran out of time and energy tonight to edit any more than these, so more coming over the weekend I am sure!

Lens Appeal

Posted on May 29, 2014 by marey mercy

I’m not going to go on about my new Canon SL1 again, I’ll just share a few photos to show pics with the 55-250mm I bought for it.

This is an EF-S lens, so I thought meant I wouldn’t be able to use it with my 7D, but apparently I can. I’m not sure why I would do that, though, when I already have the L-series telephoto to use with it; I guess it could come in handy if I need a zoom but the weight of the L-series becomes too heavy. Other than that, the real reason for this one was to have a zoom lens for the SL1 – it definitely adds weight but overall the Rebel still feels light with it on.

I have to agree with people who comment on the cheap-ish feel of this lens, but once I just put the thing on the camera and start shooting with it I can get over it. It only put me out $180 so what else should I expect but lots of plastic, which on the upside keeps the weight down. And it took pretty nice photos as well.

Since all I did was wander around the backyard again, I don’t have a whole lot of thrilling pics to share. I mostly just wanted to test it out and see if it would work – which it will. The last photo I’ll share is one showing the maximum zoom, I took it of a bird’s nest (or something, I think it’s a bird’s nest but what the hell do I know about nature) in one of our front yard trees; the shot on the left is at 55mm while on the right the lens is at 250:

Not bad!

So there it is – the new toy is fully loaded and ready to roar. I took it up to the school again today and used it to shoot some portraits of our head football coach, who won the Coach of the Year award for our school’s division. It performed beautifully, and if I’d remembered to send myself a copy of the picture I’d share it with you here, but I did not. So you’ll have to trust me when I say it took fabulous shots.

The students’ last day of school was today, so tomorrow will be interesting; just all of us winding down and transitioning into summer. There’s a faculty party tomorrow night but I never, ever attend social events at the conclusion of the school year. I’m already done, and prefer to go straight home after the last day and rest rather than spend yet more time talking to people with whom I work. I’m just never in the mood for it. So hopefully I can get some more pictures done soon – I’m wanting to get dressed up and levitate again, but just haven’t had the time these past few weeks. I bought a few vintage pieces I’d like to try on and try out, but they may have to wait awhile longer.

Studio Time

Posted on May 27, 2014 by marey mercy

Last week I decided to buy a gray backdrop to use on the wall I where I shoot photos in my little office, and on Sunday afternoon I took it out of the bag to iron out the wrinkles and get it hung. I have a white and a black backdrop I bought off Amazon called “mega-cloth” by Cowboy Studio, and while neither one was wrinkle-free by any stretch of the imagination, they were both less wrinkled than the cheaper backdrops I’ve bought in the past, and what creases were there hung out well and did not show up much in photos. However, the mega-cloth only comes in white, black, and chromakey green, so I had to buy plain muslin to get a gray and I stupidly decided to buy a cheaper one, thinking I could iron it before hanging and it would work fine. Wrong!

Not my backdrop, but an impressive simulation

First of all, the fabric was so stiff I could hardly stand to touch it, plus it was little more than a super-sized bedsheet. The wrinkles came out a little when ironing, but not nearly enough to feel encouraged to see the project through to completion. The backdrop was 10 x 12, so it was pretty damn big, and after 30 minutes not even half of it was ironed out. Not to mention that each ironed section ended up pooled on the floor no matter how hard I tried to keep it stretched out and wrinkle-free, and the whole damn thing was getting creased again after ironing. Eventually I got so frustrated with the entire process I wadded the stupid $30 piece of scratchy material into a ball, stuffed it in the trash, and called it a day.

Not my backdrop in the trash, but a reasonable facsimile

This put me in a pissy mood, because I’m bored with the black backdrop that’s been hanging on my wall for almost two months, and I don’t care much for the white one. It also set me to brooding over how difficult it always is to get these backdrops on the wall – I can’t do it myself because I’m not tall enough to get the fabric flush against the ceiling like my husband can, but I don’t like depending on someone else to get them hung and would prefer a method I can execute myself. Not to mention that even with the good cloth there are wrinkles to content with, especially when first out of the package, and then there’s all the furniture I have to move, and there’s the pin-holes all over my walls from all the taking down and putting up of different ones, which got me thinking perhaps it is time to buy a really high-quality backdrop, like Titanium Cloth, that I can hang up and forget about even if it is an over $200 purchase. If it’s as wrinkle-free as it claims to be, then I could get one in, say, a solid neutral gray, hang it once, and forget about it, right?

But that didn’t quite feel like the solution either, because there’s still the hanging and the unfolding and getting the length right and rolling out the floor portion every time I use it, and the cat getting back there and clawing around every time I pull the whole thing out to take photos, and so on. In short, I am quite tired of the whole backdrop “thing” and ready to make a new move. Yep, I think it’s finally time to let go of my remaining resistance against turning this office into a full-fledged home photo studio and get it done already. It means my office, where I spend the majority of my time, will no longer be “homey,” something I’ve been reluctant to give up until now, but I’ve finally gotten tired of moving everything around that I can, and working around everything else, when it’s time to take photos. I am ready for it to be a studio, full time, full stop.

Yep, this is about the size of it

What this mostly entails is getting rid of furniture and painting the walls, which, after reading up on the subject, I’ve decided to do in gray (and leave the ceiling white). There are different ideas about wall/ceiling color, but almost all of them fall into the black, white, or gray camp. A simple Google search brings up a lot of discussion about what gray is best and what to do with flooring too – I think I am going to get the carpet yanked out and just leave the concrete for a floor, possibly paint it gray too. Then I need to get rid of the furniture (which is all cheap and throwaway, so thank g-d for my lack of taste and/or interest in home decorating as it’s working in my favor here) except for my computer desk, and maybe get some rolling drawers for storage – anything that I can move in and out the room easily. I already have lighting, and know well how to use this space to its best advantage, so it really is just moving things out and getting the painting done and it all feels very do-able. I’ve only been reluctant because it eliminates the homey touches that makes this room a cozy space for reading and whatnot when I’m not on the computer, but the truth is I’ve finally turned a corner where I’d rather have a workable photography space more than a sofa to sit on and a coffee table to prop up my feet on while I watch Downton Abbey on my iPad or pet my cat. I can always get some big throw cushions or something to sit on so that it’s not completely cold and lifeless when not in photo-use anyway. More importantly, when it is time to shoot I will have loads more room, and a lot less setup, not to mention having a wall I can shoot against without having to hang fabric anymore.

I’m sure I’ll have to get used to the look of my shots against a wall instead of a draped backdrop, and will still want to hang fabric or paper on occasion, but somewhere down the road I think I can get something installed that would make that easier too. The nice thing is, I know exactly what I need now, and what I want my studio to look like, and that hasn’t been clear until recently – I now know with gray walls and floors, I can make my studio work. I know I don’t need elaborate backgrounds for what I like to do, and from what I’ve read I can use gels to get color out of a gray wall anyway. So I think this is the right time to do it. I also think this is something I can do fairly quickly, and without too much expense. Probably not much more than the $200 I would have spent on the backdrop! And, I don’t have to do it all right away. The painting is the main thing, and believe me, this is not a big room I’m dealing with here. I’ll probably pay someone to do the work because on my own I’m both sloppy and lazy, and the work to rip out the carpet will be paid for when we replace it throughout in the house, which we’d planned to do this summer anyway.

Gives new meaning to the phrase “shooting a gun”

I even started a Pinterest board to gather ideas for how this will look, so if you’re interested you can check it out here: Home Photo Studio Ideas. My first step is going to be clearing all the stuff off the old, cheap bookcase I have in here, so I can get rid of that thing, which takes up one whole side wall no one ever sees in the shots but is actually quite an added limitation to the space. I have all my weights on that bookshelf so I’ll need something to store them on, but that can be easily found; the rest is old textbooks I don’t really need and will probably throw away as well as random stuff I’ve thrown there rather than putting it where I should. I know I’m just thinking out loud at this point, but I’m pretty excited about this now, whereas before it sort of bummed me out to think about turning my cozy little office into a cold empty studio. Now I’m ready to de-clutter and move forward.

A studio in progress with 18% gray wall – supposed to be the best color for photography

I’m even thinking that on a second wall – one that has a doorway into my bathroom – I could hang a paper roller and use it to take photos against different backdrops, like this guy did in this little video – he just installs the roller right over the doorway and when needed, the paper covers it completely, creating a whole new wall:

That would definitely be a step 2, but it would actually work. Here’s hoping I can get going on this soon!

Picture Plans

Posted on May 17, 2014 by marey mercy

The weather is gorgeous this weekend; we had some record-breaking low temps this past week and it’s left us with a beautiful but cool weekend for mid-May in Texas. And as luck would have it, I have very little to do this weekend aside from buy groceries, which we all know I enjoy doing anyway so that’s hardly an unwelcome chore. But last night I started to get that anxious feeling when I have a few days of nothing facing me – what will I do? Of course my immediate response is photography, but I just dolled up and posed last weekend and still have plenty of shots from that set I’d like to process, plus I still need to edit more beach photos and I know the farther away from those sets I get the less likely I am to get interested in them enough to continue editing. Plus I’m not in the mood for all the prep-time new self-portraits would take, so I know if I do some shooting I want it to be outdoors or involving other people somehow.

I decided to work more airplane pics into this post, but I’m warning you they’re not very good ones.

I soon hit on the idea of driving out to IAH and checking out the observation area they have there, but it’s an hour away which is a long way to go on one’s own, especially if where one ends up isn’t too safe and/or thrilling. So I started emailing everyone I could think of who might not mind spending a day sitting in a parking lot watching airplanes land, and surprisingly, everyone I contacted was up for it – just not this weekend. Doesn’t me help me in the moment, but it’s sure good to know! The most immediate opportunity appears to be my dad, who said he might be able to go next weekend, which does give me something to look forward to. Once I’ve visited the spotting area once, I won’t be as cautious about going again alone, so in the end I won’t have to force any of my friends to go with me unless they really want to do it; according to what I’ve read, the airplanes are as low as 100 ft above the parking lot when they fly over, so I’d think it would be a fun experience for anyone – but what do I about how normal people enjoy themselves.

So for this weekend, probably no airplanes to shoot, but I may break out my macro lens and try to work with it awhile since my attempts to use it so far have been less than stellar. I bought this cheap ring light off Amazon a few years ago and never used it in the appropriate manner (I just stuck it on a tripod and used it to help light up my face for portraits) so I may dig that out and try to attach it to my camera for the first time, and see if it helps light up a subject for macro-photographing. I’m thinking I might connect the grocery store trip to photography and take macro shots of food; but that’s probably just because I’m hungry, so it’s off to breakfast now.

And I’ll break my general silence about work to say that all hell has broken loose up there in the past week, and next year is shaping up to be even more insane than this one, but in very unpredictable ways. I must be insane myself to sign up for another year of it, but since my idea of enjoying myself on a Saturday involves standing around under low-flying airplanes perhaps we already knew I was bonkers.