Catting About

Posted on June 16, 2014 by marey mercy

Well here it is the middle of the month, and already I am overloaded with photos. I’ve been shooting, if not every day, at least every other day, and the backlog is insane. But I may only have a few weeks off this summer, so I might as well shoot and edit and blog while I can. So let’s get to it.

While jumping about in new clothes Saturday, Simon eventually decided to try and get into the act. Well, he wasn’t trying to get into the pictures so much as he was trying to: a) crawl behind the backdrop and create a big visible lump in it, b) steal the remote after I pressed it and tossed it on the floor (mission accomplished on that one – one of my two remotes is now MIA), and c) attack my skirt and/or feet while I jumped about. I figured if he was doing to get into so much mischief while I tried to shoot, he could at least do me the courtesy of a little modeling.

He somewhat complied

And yes, I know those little white specks (which are mostly glitter from a previous shoot and Simon’s cat hair) are on the floor again in these photos; I noticed it after I re-sized these and saved them to the blog, so although I went back and edited the originals, I didn’t bother to edit them in the re-sized versions. Sorry. And, lesson learned about the need to seriously clean the black backdrop before shooting. Moving on.

As far as the photo goes, I’ve been learning a little about the burn tool in Photoshop, and how I can use it to enhance shadows; I think it made the movement in the skirt more pronounced here. Those little half-sock thingys are from, of course, Free People, and they are great for photos. I think they are considered some sort of yoga sock, but I wouldn’t really use them for that – I got them because I really don’t think my bare feet look good in my jumping photos (I am not a dancer, so really it’s that I don’t know how to point my toes very well while trying to leap about and I they often come out looking sloppy) so I thought this little half-sock might help distract from my less-than-perfect toes. I think they worked out great for this purpose. Damn that Free People, they really do have absolutely everything I want right now (I also bought some yoga socks with little cut-out toes in them [!], they look great in photos also. I’ll show some pics I took wearing them later).

Let’s talk about this next shot a little. I actually got two shots of me leaping while holding Simon; in the one below, I managed to get some nice height while carrying him, so it was definitely the better shot:

He looks thrilled, doesn’t he?

But as you can see, my hair was all in my face and the expression I was making wasn’t that great either. I much preferred my head in the other shot I took while holding the cat…

…but the leap was unimpressive. So, I pulled both shots into Paint Shop Pro and layered one over the other to combine my top half with my bottom half into one perfect jump.

I know this is the sort of thing a lot of people can do easily, but for me it’s still a chore to pull off, which is why I don’t do it more often. If it didn’t take me so long I’d have more perfect jumps out there, for sure. But I really have to care enough to take the time involved to do this. In this case, it was worth it, even though Simon looks like he’s about to bail on me (he was perfectly fine after the leaping, I promise).

This skirt, by the way, is NOT from Free People; it was purchased at this cheesy boutique called “Everything Bling,” or something like that – a store that is always blaring country music and has loads of rhinestones and lace. Yet every time I go in there I find something cool, so perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh on the cheesiness of it. Clearly it caters to me on some level. I bought this one in both black and beige and I do wear them everywhere because they are tiered and twirly and fabulous. I always wanted to get photos of it and hadn’t had the time until last weekend.I took a bunch of photos in this skirt, but the focus was off in most of the shots and I felt like they came out soft, so I didn’t process many of them. I did edit this next one, but I don’t really like how it came out; still not sure if I like it at all. What I do like is how it shows the great movement of the skirt.

I added blur since I felt it was a little soft and figured I’d make it look intentional. I even tried pulling this into Pixlr to see if I liked it better, but I’m not sure I do.

I dunno – I’m still meh about it. I did like this next one, though, if for no other reason than because it’s a particular leap I’m always trying to pull off and not accomplishing, and I managed to kind of do it here – kind of a little ankle-kick while leaning slightly forward (my technical dance terms, don’t you know). It would have been better if I’d been in profile, but when you’re as uncoordinated as I am you take what you get.

I hope you all noticed, also, that I took all these jump shots in my natural hair. We’ll talk about the four months’ worth of regrowth at the roots later, mmm’kay? Anyway, more yoga toes tomorrow!

Phoga

Posted on January 15, 2014 by marey mercy

Phoga = Photography + Yoga. Lame but I tried.

In uploading a few more pics from this weekend’s shoot, I wanted to comment on how much my yoga practice is helping me with my jumps and movement. It’s not that I am necessarily getting shots I couldn’t have gotten before, but that in doing the amount of leaping and moving I must do to get them I am feeling more free and loose. Usually after a shoot of any length I’m sore for a day or two, and on occasion my back (where I have a tendency to get really tight) will be extremely tender. But lately that hasn’t been an issue. And as I am moving and leaping it requires less effort, I’m less tired, and my joints and muscles feel more flexible. The entire experience has a more effortless quality to it than it had previously.

I think this shot best sums it up – again, it’s not that I couldn’t have pulled this off without yoga practice, but I actually got a lot more of these shots this time, as well as having an easier time pulling this stuff off. It’s as if my body is one long spring that used to be tightly coiled, and now it’s loosened so there’s more space between the coils with which to move.

I’ve found that the important little details like keeping the feet pointed and the hands looking graceful are getting easier too (one of my yoga DVDs actually has exercises for fingers and toes).

And most of all there’s improvement in my back. As someone who spends a ridiculous amount of time sitting at a computer typing blog posts and processing photos, my sciatic nerve can get really tight, especially in my lower back. My neck and shoulders feel it, too, to the point that I always now have to wear an arm brace when I’m on the computer; it’s more like tennis elbow than carpal tunnel, but it’s pretty much a bitch. Not that it’s going to stop me from my online endeavors though, so I just learn to deal with it. But, my lower back is definitely the biggest issue; many yoga moves I’ve been doing deal with slight backbends and spine twists that help to loosen those muscles up. This next photo isn’t anything close to backbend, of course, but I guarantee you I could not have pulled even this off a month ago (I’ve been doing some sort of yoga, even if it’s as little as 20 minutes, at least 5 nights a week since I started).

Sure, I possibly could have gotten that much arch in my back, but not while keeping myself on my toes and the rest of my body in alignment so the move looked graceful. And I probably would have been grimacing. Even as I was taking this shot, I was noticing the difference in how it felt to move this way. And, I not only pulled this off once, I did it about five times – again, without strain or struggle. This one just looked best.

So far, I’ve been cautious with the yoga and am just now starting to push myself with difficult moves. But I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s a very peaceful way to work out. I can’t say I’m seeing any improvement in muscle tone or definition at this point – something that after a month of regular weight workouts I would be seeing – but whatever. I’m enjoying this too much right now to care about that. Maybe later I’ll need to incorporate some of the free weight work I’ve done in the past and had gotten so bored with, but perhaps as the workouts get more challenging I’ll start to see some of my old body come back without that stuff, as I just burned out on it entirely. Or maybe I won’t care about that and can just enjoy being fit even if it doesn’t result in cut abs like I used to have. I haven’t had those in a few years now anyway, so I’ve started to get used to being a little softer. My husband certainly doesn’t care, and I still look good in my clothes and am wearing the same sizes, so it’s not like I need to go around built like Madonna. Overall I just need to get healthy again, and this is a good start to that.

Pink Outtakes

Posted on December 9, 2013 by marey mercy

I only have two outtakes from Saturday’s shoot, but they are pretty good ones.

This first one is deceptive – I actually know what was going on here; I was getting pissed that my Speedlite was overheating so early in the shoot and was intermittently not working. So I was staring at it trying to determine if it was going to work at all, dammit – and that’s when this shot went off (and yes, the Speedlite worked for this one). Why it looks like I am so happy as to have gone brain-dead is beyond me (unless it captured my moment of joy at seeing the flash start working again).All I do know is that I look like I just got goosed, or spotted the world’s most amazing firework display:

Somewhere during all my photo editing, I decided to deal with the white balance problem by using a high key filter on these shots. Yes it makes me look monochromatic, but at least I’m not yellow anymore.

My next one was taken when I was trying to blow a lock of hair out of my face. I thought this would look cute on camera. It’s not cute, exactly, but it is, well, something:

I honestly can’t decide if that is the best or the worst photo I’ve ever taken. Part of me wants to make it my new profile picture on Facebook, and part of me wants to burn it.

Those are the only two amusing outtakes I have, but I will add this one, which is from the other set of photos I shot Saturday. I used this amazing new dress I got from ModCloth (one of my favorite stores) that just felt like it needed to be danced in, and one of my custom gray wigs from Amore. I took these shots not by dancing, as I have learned that such shots only come out looking good when one is an actual dancer (with a normal, non-dancing person, dancing shots come out looking like grand mal seizures). I took them instead by looking up photos of real dancers on Google images and trying my best to imitate those shots. I pretty much failed, but I did get some interesting pics out of it.

These are the only two of this set I’ve processed so far (and yeah, I added a texture to the background of the first once, couldn’t help myself):

No dancers were harmed during the shooting of these photos. Trust me.

I think next I’ll post Part 2 of my headband wig review, plus I have two new headband wigs I photographed Sunday that I need to type up reviews for. So much hair, so little time!

More purple

Posted on October 7, 2013 by marey mercy

So this costume change isn’t much of a change from the photos I shared yesterday. Basically the difference is I have on these wide-legged purple pants I bought off Amazon when I was searching for dance attire to wear in photos (this was before I discovered the joys of online vintage shopping via eBay). The pants are actually praise dancing pants, and I can honestly say I had not heard of that particular term before when I bought them. I had heard of liturgical dance, obviously, but the phrase “praise dancing” was new to me. I was sure I was the only person among my friends who’d ever heard of it, but so far, everyone I’ve told about it has already been familiar with the activity. So I guess I was just out of the loop on this one. Moving on.

Anyway, I put on the purple pants to add more flowy fabric into my movements, and I like the way they turned out even though the purples don’t quite match. This was actually the first outfit I wore, and these were some of the first photos I took; I realized after the fact that I needed to move the camera back some as a lot of these shots do not capture all the fabric in the frame. Bugs me a little bit, but I liked many of the shots enough to use them anyway.

I just realized I only have a few from this costume so far; much more to come. It may not be until the weekend when I have time to work with more editing but I know I have more to edit from this section of the shoot.

I blurred the edges because I felt it made the cut off material look more intentional. Not sure that’s gonna fool anyone though.

What can I say – I could not be any happier with how these curtain sheers worked with the camera.

So just two for today. I am itching right this second to dig into the RAW files and find a few more to edit before posting, but I know it’s going to throw me off schedule if I do that, because I will get so engrossed in the work I won’t get myself to bed on time or anything. So I will have to be happy with only sharing two photos today. More later though! There are wigs and Mardi Gras masks involved in the next set of shots!

The purple series

Posted on October 6, 2013 by marey mercy

Oh Lord have mercy, I have a ton of these I want to edit. I think I might actually do it this time, instead of saying that then getting bored after processing 4 or 5. I’ve already processed 14 of them – using a backdrop that required no editing and sticking to the basics when processing helped to move things along for me. Plus, when I’m all dolled up in costume I feel no one wants to see 30 pictures of me in the same outfit just moving my arms a different way; with the purple sheers, it’s more about the shapes the fabric make than anything I might be wearing, so I think that gives this set more longevity. If that makes sense.

And by the way, I woke up with sore shoulders from all the steaming I had to do the night before to get the wrinkles out of both the backdrop and the sheers. I did get my husband to move the backdrop all the way up to the ceiling, and after all the work I did on it I am just leaving it up for now. No way am I folding it back up right away and creating more wrinkles! So, when I turned my studio back into an office I left the backdrop up and kept the pictures that usually hang there off the wall. The more I get into this photography stuff, the less office-like my office looks, and the more it transforms into some crazy photographer’s messy, chaotic work space. Oh well.

For reference, here’s how wrinkled everything was right out of the boxes – I took some test shots Saturday night, and yes I was in a pair of swim shorts because it was so freaking hot that day – but you can see how much better everything turned out after steaming (although according to my husband I have damaged the sheetrock by steaming the backdrop right up against the wall; didn’t have the heart to tell him I’ve been doing that regularly for the past two years):

This entire set needs Botox.

I did do a few outfit changes, although they were slight, so perhaps I’ll try to upload over the next few days by collecting the different looks together – but in many of them, you can’t tell what I’m wearing anyway. For today’s installment, I didn’t have much of a ‘costume’ on with the sheers at all, just black tights and a black leotard, and a black wig cap to hold my hair in place. (Moment of vanity here – the leotard was a weird fit on me, as things like that always are due to my long torso/short legs body type. The way it was pulling on me made me look much thicker around the middle than I actually am; my waistline was pretty much disguised, and I readily admit that there are a few cool shots I passed over because I looked, well, chunky. And yes, I did try to edit my waist into the shots, but you could tell. Moving on.)

I love how tall this one made me look, and the balance of the feet peeking out on one side, and then the opposite hand. Totally accidental on my part, of course.

Love the shape this one created.

This reminded me of an octopus, or a flower. The two do have things in common, you know.

For fun, I’ll go ahead and throw this B&W in here. The photo itself wasn’t all that thrilling, but I did like how I came out looking like some sort of sad, gothy sea-creature, so I thought a little monochrome might add to that mood. Throw in some overlays and textures via good old Pixlr, and there you go. Nice and spooky for Halloween.

I did make a collage of all these with the idea of sharing them in one shot, by the way – but I do not like how small it makes each picture. I prefer to share these full size, or as full size as they ever are when I post them on the blog. For a true high-quality copy you can check out my Flickr page, but I only post one photo there per day.So much more to come from this set!

Outtake Awkwardness

Posted on July 19, 2013 by marey mercy

I set up for a weekend shoot Thursday afternoon, and while I was at it I threw on a crinoline and attempted some sofa-jumping pics (I worked in the interior design industry in the 90’s, and to this day I cannot use the word couch when referring to that particular piece of furniture; it was considered in poor taste to do so, which is one of those completely random, useless factoids from a past career that has never vacated my brain). Anyway, most of the shots were crap, but I did snag this one, which I enjoy:

I have very veiny feet, and until my mid-20’s I had hair on my toes. My nickname in high school was “hobbit feet” because of this. True story.

I took this one shot where I hit the sofa hard and the face I made was so awful, I deleted it directly from the camera. The second I hit the delete button I realized it would have been perfect to upload in an outtakes post on my blog, and actually shouted “Nooooo!” but it was too late. So, the best outtake I cannot upload. But I did find a few lovelies to share.

This one illustrates the importance of being sure one’s Hobbit Feet are pointed

Nice framing

Believe it or not, I’m making an even worse face in the shot I deleted. But at least my Hobbit Feet are pointed.

I always watch a Rifftrax or old Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode while shooting. Weird, I know; but I can’t sit still to watch anything, so I use my shooting time as movie time. Sometimes between that and the industrial-strength fan I have blowing, I have a hard time hearing the timer count down This was one of those times I couldn’t hear it, and realized it was about to go off too late. I tried to scramble into some sort of pose, but I didn’t have time to come up with anything, so I punted:

When in doubt, make this face

I’m going to try out some new costume stuff this weekend, which will require a trip to Party City tomorrow. Time to buy more cheap crap! Maybe I can get my hands on some Hobbit Feet slippers or something. But it would probably be better to get my feet on them (or in them).