Airplanes!

Posted on October 31, 2013 by marey mercy

As I’ve mentioned in several previous posts, I went to the Wings Over Houston air show with my father last Saturday. I’d never been before, but my Dad is crazy about airplanes – particularly the B29 bombers his father worked on during WWII. The last B29 still flying, Fifi, was there, along with many other antique planes, but due to the sequester there were no military aircraft this year. This meant attendance was low, but that was fine by me as crowds aren’t my favorite thing in the world. I’m more a fan of the modern, high-speed, showy planes, though, so not getting to see any of that stuff was a bit of a bummer. Still, we had a good time, and of course I took photos. Once again I decided to just take my iPhone and make do, although there were loads of nice cameras around. This was just two days after Ramone disappeared, though, and I was still feeling very sad about that, and I just wasn’t in the mood to lug my big camera around to take pics.

I actually drove out to my parents’ house Friday night and spent the night with them, since my father likes to get to the airshow right when the gates open. He also likes to park his car at a shuttle pick-up and ride the bus over, which means getting to the shuttle station at 7:30 AM (my father is perpetually early; it is not a habit I picked up from him). I figured his idea was better than driving through all the traffic, and since the air show is nowhere near my house but is fairly close to my parents, I stayed Friday night with them and got up early Saturday to head out with Dad.

First ones inside. Yep.

Dad wanted to get there at 8 AM so we’d have enough time (two whole hours) to check out the planes. This sounded excessive to me, but it turns out he was right – in fact, we didn’t even get to Fifi in time to go inside or even get close to it, because at about 9:30 they had her blocked off and ready to taxi over to the runways. I got some video of her later though:

Love the sound of those engines.

Some the planes made you pay before you could go inside them; others offered up their interior for free. I believe this was taken in one of the free ones – no idea who they are, but I’m sure that guy with the iPad knows:

No air show photo-post would be complete without a little airplane art:

I did plenty of color shots too:

A propeller aimed at the moon.

I probably should be able to tell you what plane this is.

But I can’t.

For a little vanity, here’s two shots of me in propeller reflections:

I should have tried jumping.

My legs aren’t really that short.

Time for a video break: Apparently the show performs some sort of re-enactment every year. This year it was Pearl Harbor. While watching it, my first thought was I bet they do the same plane choreography every year and just give it a different name. Kind of like this re-enactment:

OK, so theirs was a little bit better:

Interesting side note about this battle: Right at the end of it (it went on for quite awhile, because my dad and I went to get lemonade and came back, and it was still going on) they set off about eight of those explosions at once, and it scared the crap out of everyone (as you can see, by the way, we were in the front row of the gated seats. My dad buys up two boxes every year then gives the tickets to friends and co-workers). Right after this, the entire field filled up with smoke, and the faint wind blew it all right over the spectators – then stayed there. For about 20 minutes we all felt as if we were being barbecued. People’s eyes were watering, and everyone was shielding their faces and starting straight down – it was a quite a miserable sight. My next thought was that I would have lasted about fifteen seconds at Pearl Harbor, or anywhere one bomb detonated, much less many bombs – because I was completely incapable of functioning due to the smoke alone. Throw shrapnel, enemy fire, and airplane strikes into the midst and clearly I’m a goner.

Believe it or not, my father actually DID sustain an injury during this battle. At some point during this 20-minute smokeout, a cinder flew into his eye. He did not figure this out until much later in the day, when he eventually ended up at a clinic getting it checked out. But for the rest of the time we were at the show his eye was watering and he was in a fair amount of pain. Being my dad, he tried valiantly to enjoy the show in spite of it, but we ended up leaving about an hour early because he couldn’t stand it anymore. That’s a big deal for him, as he’s been going to this air show every year for at least 20 years and I doubt he’s ever left one second early. Anyway, you’ll be glad to know he is fine now, and was actually feeling much better by the next day. But he was hurting pretty badly that afternoon.

Smoke ring from one of the explosions.

Honestly the re-enactment didn’t excite me all that much, but the acrobatics sure did. I tried to take some video, but as you can see, I got disoriented and started filming all sideways. I guess that’s a fair indication of how ineffective I’d be as a stunt-plane pilot.

You can hear my dad and I freaking out at the end, LOL.

I was pretty pleased with the iPhone’s performance once again; I managed to get some nice arty shots of the stunt flyers with it:

Pretty clear for a phone camera!

Backing up a little here – the entire show kicked off the way any good air show should: with skydivers plummeting down to earth attached to huge American flags while the Star Spangled Banner played.

OK, so you can’t see the flag in this shot, but AMERICA YAY!

And a few more arty shots to wrap things up:

Reflecting on the air show. Get it? You’re welcome.

This is an old airplane of some sort. It’s airplane #5. That’s all I’ve got, sorry.

Sounds reasonable. Unless there’s A MAN ON THE WING OF THE PLANE! Sorry, I always have to say that at least once.

Follow the instructions

I realize this whole thing might appear to be the antithesis of the way I’d prefer to spend a Saturday – but the truth is, I had a ball. For next year, I think I will take my real camera, and will definitely be there bright and early with Dad at 8 AM, front row. You bet.

Nostalgic Neighborhood Home Tour, Part Whatever

Posted on October 23, 2013 by marey mercy

I don’t even know what part we’re on now.

A few things happened to reduce the amount of photos I have of these next two houses: #1, as previously mentioned, is the fact that by the time we got to these homes the tour had gotten crowded, and there were lots of people milling about either getting in the way of shots, or the shots were getting in their way. #2, however, is that after the tour, I came straight home and went on a processing binge, spending hours editing shots, and quite honestly, by the time I got to these last two sets I was a bit too delete-happy. Things like that happen when I get tired and really should stop processing, but the obsessive part of me continues on, making editing mistakes and, in this case, deleting shots out of a sense of fatigue. For example, with this house, I took loads of shots of this sunken sitting room which was definitely my favorite part of the house, but by the time I got to looking them over on my computer, I decided screw it, I’m tired and I want to finish this task – I only need one good shot of that room, and deleted the rest. Then when I went to write this post, I realized I wanted more than one shot of that area – but it was too late. So. That’s why even though this was the most impressive house on the tour, I don’t have as many shots of it.

This is the house, by the way, that was a private school for awhile, and was also used by a local church for a time. It was built in 1913 and sits on a double corner lot. It is beautiful, but not cold or ostentatious; it is still homey, but definitely more of a show home than any of the others on the tour.

I would love to show you pics of the servant’s quarters in back, but I deleted them.

So many fabulous wraparound porches on these houses.

I can’t recall if that’s the front or back door to the house. I guess it’s the front door, since there are so many people using it.

I loved this little study area:

The smaller the space, the better, as far as I’m concerned.

Lots of little antique touches in this one, too:

Carved wood Bible cover.

Two shots of the den:

They also had a lush backyard (this pic was taken through the window, though – they didn’t want anyone going back there):

This is another outdoor shot, but in looking at it just now, I realize it’s actually from a different house – I just don’t know which one:

Whatever, it’s pretty; I’ll put it here anyway.

Prepare to ooh and aah over this kitchen, it’s pretty gorgeous:

And here it is, my favorite part of this house, which I really wish had more photographic representation. But one shot will have to do. This is a sunken sitting room off to the side of the house. I love the tile, the high ceiling, and all the windows. If this were my house, I’d put up police tape and never let anyone else in. I’d also never leave.

I have no idea who these women are or why they are in my sitting room. They must have cut through the police tape.

Nostalgic Neighborhood Home Tour, Part 3

Posted on October 22, 2013 by marey mercy

After leaving Rosecroft, we wandered one block up to an usual home for the tour – a new construction, it was built in 2011 by two long-time residents after a fire destroyed the original home. Although from the outside, the house was true to the era of the area’s old homes, my husband and I found the interior to be similar to what we might see in a new home in the suburbs where we live. We didn’t stay long at this house, and I wasn’t motivated to take photos. I get why it was on the tour – to show people that a new home can also be constructed in the area, if house restoration isn’t a potential buyer’s cup of tea – but personally I was disappointed that the interior of the home was so bland.

So, no photos of house number two. Next up was a 3,300 sq. ft. home which was one of the first three built in the area back in 1912. As Lana mentioned yesterday, the trees in this part of town are so old and beautiful, and they feature prominently in my childhood memories. In my great-grandmother’s neighborhood, all the trees were dripping with Spanish moss, and the sound of cicadas would lull us into naptime on lazy summer days. However, all those huge trees made it difficult for me to get exterior shots of this house, as it was barely visible from the street – so you get a shot of the porch instead.

One thing you’ll start to notice in these shots is that the spaces got progressively more crowded as they day wore on, and it became increasingly difficult for me to take photos without random people wandering into the frame. I also became more and more rushed, as I didn’t want to be obnoxious about framing the shots and therefore ruining other people’s experience of viewing the houses (people immediately jump out of the way and wait for you to finish when you’re taking photos, even if it’s just with your phone). It was also incredibly bright outside, so a lot of the shots I chose to convert to monochrome were altered because the outdoor light blew out most of the color in the shots anyway; plus I felt doing so made those blasts of light look more arty and intentional (in several of them, I even went ahead and made the light brighter for added effect).

View one of what I call the den. I’m not sure that’s technically the proper term.

This is actually a split staircase, but because the house was crowded when we visited it, I was not able to get a clear shot of the other side. When taking the stairs from this direction, you would turn right to continue up to the second floor. But if you took these stairs and turned left instead, you’d walk down another set that led you into the kitchen.

The brochure says the wood is silver pine. I say it’s GORGEOUS.

Another shot of the den. Who wouldn’t die for this woodwork?

Lots of smaller spaces in this house too, which I’ve already mentioned I love, so getting the full dining room into the shot with my iPhone wasn’t possible. And when I look at these homes, I just wonder why we feel nowadays that we need so much damn space anyway. In a contemporary home in our neighborhood, the ‘dining room’ would have to be twice this size to be considered livable, not to mention it would need to be completely open to the kitchen and the den!

Another shot where the light lent itself to a monochrome treatment. This may be my second favorite shot, behind Rosecroft’s den picture.

This a nice shot of the sitting room – for the life of me, I cannot remember where in the house this was located:

I mainly wanted a shot of how the wainscoting covered the ceiling here too, but I threw the fan into the bargain. Probably should have kept the original color, so you got the idea that this is still in the yellow sitting room. But, my compulsive editing got in the way of the consistency level. Sorry.

So many lovely details in these old homes, like these little sitting areas located beneath many of the windows. This was a consistent detail from home to home – except for the new construction.

We certainly weren’t nosy enough to check, but you just KNOW this is also a storage area. So many places to store one’s wigs!

I really didn’t find the bedrooms in any of these places to be anything thrilling; maybe it’s just me, but maybe it’s also the nature of these homes to consider the bedrooms less necessarily showy than the public areas of the house. Maybe it’s both. Anyway, this is one of the few bedrooms I even bothered to photograph:

I didn’t ignore the bedrooms on purpose, it just happened.

This house is situated on two lots, so the owners had a decidedly larger outdoor space to work with than most of the others featured on the tour. As a result, it was the only one we viewed that had a pool. I don’t have anything much to say about this one, since clearly it is not a restored feature of the original house, and it certainly doesn’t evoke any childhood memories of the area for me; my granny sure as hell didn’t have any swimming pool in her backyard aside from the little plastic ones she stuck us in when we were small. She did, however, have lots of trash cans in her backyard which she used to burn leaves in on fall evenings (not illegal in the city back then).

Yep, there it is. A pool. You’re welcome. The trash cans must be stored elsewhere.

Up next: one seriously huge-ass house (at least for the area, although still small by today’s standards) that served, in part, as a private school in the early 1900’s, and was also owned by a local church for a while (during which time it was painted purple and, according to our docent, got “pretty much trashed”). While it was too big for me to consider it homey or reasonably see myself being able to live in, it was certainly impressive and stunning. The sunken living area and the kitchen, in particular, are amazing. Come back tomorrow!

Nostalgic Neighborhood Tour, Part 2

Posted on October 21, 2013 by marey mercy

Before jumping into this post, I must preface it with a warning: I know next to nothing about architecture, home design, decoration, restoration – anything to do with houses, much less historical ones. So my names for things, and my descriptions, will be completely ignorant. I apologize. If I were more motivated I’d look all this stuff up before writing about it, but I mostly want to share pictures and the memories they evoke for me. I realize this makes me lazy and sloppy, but it’s my blog, so if you want to read expert writing on this subject, go read someone’s blog who’s getting paid to write. Moving on.

(And as previously stated, all pictures were taken with my iPhone 5S. I love how easy and portable a smart phone makes photography!)

The first house we toured had a name – Rosecroft – and was one of the more modest homes we visited. For that reason, I liked it best. It was still small and homey, and although it had been completely restored, all the renovations were fairly true to the original home. Call me crazy, but I actually prefer small homes to large ones, small rooms to big, and dark walls to light. I guess my ideal living space would be a cabin – something cozy and warm. Light, airy rooms feel sterile and drafty to me. So this house, which had retained the narrow hallways and tiny spaces of the original, felt very homey.

The house was named by the original owner, artist Charles Sherman. The name is seen here over the porte cochere (the brochure calls it that – I would have called it a car port, because I know nothing).

The rose motif carries over into the house, where stenciled art graces the sunroom. This is original artwork, which was restored by the current owner.

The sunroom, showing the rose stencils in action. The stained glass windows are a new addition.

Oh, how I did love his bathroom! I know that sounds weird – but the bathrooms in both my great-grandmother’s and grandparent’s houses were so distinctive, and different from what we had in our modern home, that they are etched in my memory. Tile everywhere – hexagon tile on the floors, and shiny tile on the walls, the counters, just all over. And in my grandmother’s house, it was ALL pink! And then of course, she kept pink toilet paper on the roll (remember colored toilet paper? I know it’s horrible stuff, but I miss it). Then my great-grandmother had a claw-foot tub, so I enjoyed seeing another one of those here, too. The tile on this guy’s floor was new, but it is very true to the original tile of the houses of the time (I think – remember, I know nothing). In all the other houses, the bathrooms appeared to be the one area where the owners modernized a lot, but I feel this gentleman did a nice job of maintaining some of the original feel (of the bathroom? Weird, I know. But still, it mattered to me).

Could have used tile on the walls, though.

And now to share a shot that really captures a childhood memory for me – the glass doorknobs. Every door in my grandmother’s house had glass doorknobs (and that house had a lot of doors – every room including the kitchen had doors to close it off from all other parts of the house) and when I was a kid, I thought they were diamonds. I figured out at some point that they were not, but still considered them incredibly fancy and extravagant. This house maintained the glass doorknob feature throughout the house, so I made sure to get a shot of some:

The back of the house, where the two bedrooms were, was quite small and cramped, and although I loved that about it (the hallway was teeny-tiny, yet there were still built-in cabinets in the walls) I couldn’t get any decent shots of anything. So this house, although it was probably my favorite, doesn’t have a lot of photographic representation. Not that I didn’t try:

A shot of the den, taken from the front sunroom.

I also didn’t get any decent shots of his kitchen, once again because it was so small. But you can see a little glimpse of it there in back of the den. Here’s a shot of the den taken while standing in front of the fireplace:

Probably my favorite photo from the whole shoot. I don’t know if there’s a name for this feature, where the driveway pulls up right alongside a side door of the house – but I love it. So glad I got this shot.

Sadly, this next one is the last photo from this house. It felt rude to me to spend too long setting up shots and getting obsessive with the photos, so I tried to do what I could quickly and move on. Since the den area was the largest part of the house, well, that’s where I took most of my shots. This last one was taken from the kitchen:

One of those dudes is my husband. Unfortunately, the owner of the house (whom everyone is listening to, as you can tell) can’t be seen. He was an incredibly friendly and interesting guy.

Oddly, both houses I liked the best have the least photos to represent them. Again, this is partly because the spaces within both places were very small, but also, I think when touring them I was more interested in experiencing the space than taking pictures of it.

I’ll share my shots from the second stop tomorrow.

Nostalgic Neighborhood Home Tour – Part 1

Posted on October 20, 2013 by marey mercy

Wow, do I have a lot of photos and things to say about them. Through a random Google search a few weeks ago I found about the Eastwood Civic Association’s annual home tour – a neighborhood which is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary this year. You can click the link to read about the history of the neighborhood, as I do not need to restate what’s been said just fine over there; what I’d like to focus on instead is the fact that my grandparents on both sides of my family, as well as my great-grandparents, and at one time, my great-great grandparents, all lived in this area. In relation to my great-grandmother and grandparents in particular, I spent a massive amount of time in neighborhoods very close and very similar to this one, if not in the neighborhood itself (my grandparents moved out of the area entirely by the nineties, and my great-grandmother died in 1982, so I am not exactly sure of where they were all located; I do know that Eastwood is definitely an area we frequented and drove through on a regular basis, so if she was not in it, she was close by). The architecture was mostly in the Craftsman style, as was my great-grandmother’s home, so when I read about this home tour I decided I wanted to check it out, if for nothing else to give me a reason to revisit this part of town and peek inside some homes that might remind me of my childhood (my GG’s house and neighborhood is one that still features prominently in my dreams on a regular basis).

A typical street in Eastwood. The sign is not typical, unless it’s Home Tour Time, but you probably figured that out already.

To be honest, the entire time I was a kid growing up this area (I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and great-grandmother, much to my delight) the neighborhoods were worn-down, crime-ridden, and still in decline. It’s been in the last ten years that interest in Eastwood has been on a slow rise, and homes are still being bought and restored at a decent price – but it sounds like that may be changing. It would definitely take a long time, but the potential is there now for a huge profit down the line for homeowners who buy in cheap, and I admit part of my interest in going out there was to consider the possibility of buying a house now as an investment. I thought it would be thrilling to live in the old neighborhood, but after walking around and touring the houses I decided it’s not for me. It was still a nice experience, but the people buying homes are decidedly younger, hipper, and more tolerant of the high-crime areas left and right of it; I’m too accustomed to the relative cleanliness and safety of the suburbs to move into what is still a high-risk area with the hopes of the situation improving 20 years down the road.

And the dogs don’t want you there either.

Although viewing the homes was nice, I wasn’t as overwhelmed with nostalgia as I thought I’d be anyway. Perhaps that’s because this was a walking tour, and the walk from the ticket tent to the first house involved passing by several blocks of dilapidated crack houses on the way over – I unabashedly admit to convincing my husband to turn around and head back to the tent so we could get in our car and drive the five blocks to the first house instead of walking past so much blight. Typical middle-aged suburban woman, I guess, but I accepted that about myself long ago (the truth is I’ve been a typical middle-aged suburban woman far longer than I’ve been middle-aged). The way people are raving about Eastwood here and there online, I expected the surrounding area to be more cleaned up than it was, but if anything it’s gotten worse than I remember (statements like this are why I took the word “Eastwood” out of my blog post title, because I don’t want people searching for information about the neighborhood, finding my post in a Google search, coming here and reading what I’ve said, and blasting me in the comments for being lame or defaming the neighborhood).

Some damn fine houses out there, though.

I took a ton of photos of the houses we toured as well as the neighborhood (once we got to the heart of Eastwood it felt much safer to walk around), and try as I might I could not get them all edited in time to put them into one post. That’s probably best since it’s way too much stuff anyway, so for this one I’ll show the photos I shot as we wandered from house to house around the area. Keep in mind I left the ‘real’ camera at home, for the usual reasons (too big and bulky, too obtrusive, etc.) and used my new iPhone 5S to take shots – it’s supposed to be a much better camera than the 4S I had before but honestly I can’t tell the difference, as I thought the camera on my 4S was fine. Because they were iPhone shots, I did take lots of liberty with editing, because I either want a perfectly crisp and clear photo, or I want something arty – perfectly crisp and clear didn’t to happen due more to user error than the phone, so you’re gonna get a lot of arty .You’ve probably figured out by now that I’ve actually already started the photo tour, so let’s continue:

Another typical Eastwood street. It’s hard to tell, but I was trying to take a photo of that distant black cat in the road. Eastwood has a lot of cats, in the roads and elsewhere.

Another yellow house. With a front-yard fence. Eastwood has nearly as many front-yard fences as it does cats.

So much about this next house reminds me of my grandparents’ old home. Small, cracked pavement, a fairly large, defined front porch, and the main entrance set to the side of the house. There was also a long driveway with a car port which didn’t make it into the photo. What’s missing here is the wrought iron scrollwork their house had everywhere. I think that was more of a 50’s thing? Not sure, but I didn’t see that on many houses here, which indicates my grandparents’ area was newer than this one.

The pale-colored brickwork on this next house is a dead-ringer for the house my great-grandmother owned. In fact, the entire housefront looks a lot like hers – another large porch and brick steps leading up to it. We never used the front entrance to her house, though; her driveway was long, and led to a side entrance which took you through the screened-in porch where all the kids had to eat their meals.

Not my great-granny’s house, but a reasonable facsimile.

My husband made me stop and take a picture of what he claimed was a “crazy lady garden.” He later explained it was actually a “bee garden,” which made no sense to me, but he seemed so confident I would understand that I didn’t want to ask.

Yep, you’re in Eastwood:

The moose out front shoulda told you.

.Another front porch that reminded me of great-granny’s. I never knew my great-grandfather, by the way. He died before I was born. Well, he was my GG’s second husband, and not my biological great-grandfather, but that’s another story.

I probably should have titled this blog entry, “The Fence Post.” You’re welcome.

This place has been in business for over 50 years. I don’t believe they’ve ever updated the decor.

It was bright outside, and y’all know how I love me some lens flare:

Look at the left hand corner of the house, framing the covered car port: yep, white wrought iron! Now that’s what I’m talking about.

Another typical Eastwood street. If right about now you’re thinking, man, this looks kinda junky, you’re in good company, as I don’t disagree (double negative? Oh well). But it does have appeal in spite of it. If nothing else, you can see the potential.

Crap. This may be way too many photos for one post. But I’ve come this far, and I’m determined to get through it. Can you believe we haven’t even gotten to the houses on the tour yet? Sheesh.

My husband pointed this sign out to me as we walked past. At some point during the day he learned to stop pointing things out to me because he realized I’d stop to photograph every single thing he prompted me to notice. So you can thank him for the number of photos in this post.

Quaint, non-junky house. And bonus: no fence!

But this one IS protected by chain-link? The whole fence thing just stopped making sense to me.

Ripped-out tree; must be recent as the leaves are still green. But hey – at least there wasn’t a front-yard fence that has to be replaced!

If you stuck with me for all of this, you’re probably NOT looking forward to massive amounts of home photos tomorrow. But I promise we’ll be going inside some of these suckers next time. Stay tuned!

More Maegan

Posted on October 14, 2013 by marey mercy

Edited some more of the shots I took of my niece yesterday, focusing on the ones she told me she liked best. Of what I processed, these are my favorites.At some point I’m going to take a few of the more unusual shots from this session and play around with them, but for now I am trying to get the photos that she likes finished so I can send them to her. Priorities you know.

I may have over-whitened her teeth a bit, if such a thing is possible.

I also may have overdone it with the fan, but I can’t help it. I love hair blowing around.

It was not a pretty day outside when we took these; in fact, it’s been rainy here the past few weeks which is unusual. My sister’s backyard is small, and has a huge building backing up right against their fence, but we made do. I was going to try and edit out the building and PS in some sky, but I didn’t think I was capable of doing a good job of it, plus it’s a lot of work for something no one else is going to care about. It’s a nice enough shot, but I do wish we’d chosen a more scenic area for it, probably somewhere in the front yard instead of the back.

I think this next shot is my favorite so far. It’s got most of what I like: the angle is slightly off-kilter, the lighting is good, the hair is blowing, and her expression is just goofy enough to be appealing without going overboard into totally silly. Although I am a fan of totally silly also.

Adorable!

Maegan

Posted on October 13, 2013 by marey mercy

I got up Saturday morning and decided I wanted to take pictures of someone other than myself. I texted one of my older sisters who lives relatively close by, and asked if any of her teenage kids were up for taking some photos. One of them was, so I threw a bunch of gear in my car and headed on over.

My niece Maegan, the one willing guinea pig.

My sister mentioned to me while I was visiting that she keeps waiting for the day I quit my counseling job and become a full-time photographer, but taking photos of other people makes me too nervous to really consider doing it as a career. Not just taking photos of others, but taking any photos where the end result is important to anyone other than me really throws me off my game.

Not that it stopped me from forcing them all to do jump shots.

First of all, when others are waiting on me to get the pictures taken, I become very nervous and rushed, which usually leads to poor decision-making, such as the framing of these jump shots here. They’re crooked, in many of them the subject isn’t centered in front of the fireplace correctly, body parts are cut out of the frame, and the color is really off (the color thing is more a result of processing than photo-taking, so at least that can be corrected). When it’s just me, I can get as picky as I want with every little detail of a shot, but when a shoot involves others I literally forget to care about such things, because I’m concerned with them getting bored or feeling uncomfortable while I stop to sort such things out.

Not bad, because the color and clarity are nice and they both look lovely, but it’s terribly framed. They’re twins, by the way.

There’s also the issue of camera settings, and the need to constantly adjust them throughout the shoot. It’s another area where I get nervous, rushed, and sloppy. I was switching flash settings as well as ISO and shutter speed throughout the shoot, and doing this is still unusual enough for me that it takes me a long time to get it done, while the model stands around and waits for me to figure it out (when it’s just me, I set everything up once and generally don’t have to change). And for most of the portrait shots I did here I used my portable softbox, which I almost always use for my own portraits because it does a wonderful job of eliminating shadows and lines on my 40-something face. Turns out that on an 18 year old, however, I don’t need that extra hit of bright light on the face, and the result of using it here was that her face was brighter and “flatter” than it needed to be.

Without the softbox, her face would have had more depth and the background would have been softer.

Take this shot, for example – I had the softbox off for this one, and you can see how much more dimension the entire shot has. This is one of the best I’ve processed so far:

For the hell of it, I’ll show you the original shot for this one – because it leads me to another stumbling block I have to taking shots of other people. When I showed up at my sister’s house, I’d bought along this bright blue fleece sheet I found on Amazon a while back. The mottled color makes it a nice backdrop, and I thought we could throw it up somewhere and make it useful. But once again, I got in a hurry and took the first solution that came up rather than doing things the best possible way, so we ended up throwing this backdrop over a curtain rod that was hung above three big windows facing her backyard. The end result of this was some really weird lighting and background shadows I had to correct in the originals:

You can see the dark line around the bottom of the backdrop; that’s where the windowsill was behind the sheet. I did an OK job of editing that out in Photoshop, but it was a bit of a pain.

I also brought along my big fan, which is why you can see her hair blowing around in that shot. It did look pretty bizarre with the two of us crammed up against the back windows of the den, with a fleece sheet hung over a curtain rod, my niece sitting on an old Pier 1 stool we’d brought in there from the kitchen, and me sitting on the coffee table right in front of her to get the shots. Real professional.

Oh, and I also brought wigs. No softbox on this one either, and it looks so much better.

I would have so much to learn and so much gear to buy before I could ever feel comfortable offering my services to strangers. As it is, at least I don’t have to worry about totally letting people down because I shoot them for free. There’s so much I’d need to learn how to do quickly, like adjust to different surroundings, learn how to shoot outdoors in particular, and also to feel comfortable directing people. My poor niece was floundering for what to do most of the time, and I felt creepy giving her instructions (“fling your hair around a bit” – I mean really, ew) as well as awkward. When it’s just me, I can screw around until I hit on some idea that I like, but with someone else just standing there waiting for me to instruct them or make suggestions, I lock up.

Fortunately, it’s hard to screw up when photographing a pretty teenage girl. Wait – does that sound creepy again?

I’m sure my niece and my sister will be totally happy with the shots, and notice none of the flaws in the photos that are bugging me right now. For example – my sister commented when we were looking over the photos on my computer, that she thought it was cute how her daughter was not wearing shoes. Good lord, I hadn’t even noticed that she wasn’t wearing any! She also had on this big red plastic watch that, had I been on top of things, I would have insisted she remove, because it was so distracting. And if we need further proof that others don’t notice such things – when I posted these photos to Facebook Saturday night, my niece downloaded one of them and made it her cover photo. Since Facebook reduces photo quality significantly when uploading, she not only downloaded a seriously degraded copy, but then degraded it even further by re-uploading it to the site. I admit I got pretty twitchy when I saw her Facebook page with this grainy, blurry version of her lovely picture there as her cover. Arrrrgh! I am working on getting the HQ versions copied to a flash drive which I can mail to them, so they have better originals, but I have a feeling she’ll never even realize she should change out the crappy pic with a better one. And here I work so hard to maintain clarity and quality…go figure.

Noooooooo

I certainly never noticed stuff like this before I got into photography myself, either. But looking at that photo above helps me understand why professional photographers guard their originals carefully and have strict rules about what can and can’t be done with digital versions of their work. I’d die if that highly pixelated photo got associated with my professional name because a client didn’t understand how to handle digital images. Not that it’s a real pressing issue with me, because again, I would not feel confident asking someone to pay me for photos until I knew I was capable of producing high-quality work and executing a shoot efficiently. And going out on location and shooting photos of someone else is such a completely different process to what I normally do, that I’m not sure I’ll ever be up for learning. Not that I didn’t have fun today; it just reinforced many of my reservations about going pro.

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!

Medusa shoot

Posted on September 22, 2013 by marey mercy

I had some time to work with one of the wigs I got from Target today. I also did some more light experimentation, but those shots are so different from these that I am going to create a separate post for them later.

I don’t have a whole lot of preliminary stuff to say about these, because it’s quite late and I’m tired, so I’ll just show you what I’ve had time to process so far. Between this shoot and the tutu pics from last weekend, I have a ton of stuff still to work with, so I may lay off doing any more shoots for awhile until I can catch up.

For this first one, I decided to change the color of the snake wig to match the backdrop and the dress. That’s not something that always works out, but it was easy to pull off this time. I also have a plastic shower curtain hanging up behind me; the creases in it can’t be steamed out, unfortunately, but it still creates an interesting backdrop, and I managed to pull off some cool stuff with it in my light experimentation shots I’ll share later:

Not bad, but I do like the bright green of the wig so I didn’t do this again.

For the second one, I cut up this cheap old Cleopatra hat so I could use the silly-looking snake that adorned it as a tongue. This really didn’t work all that well so I don’t plan on processing any more of these. But the Cleopatra tongue-snake did match the silliness of the wig, so it was worth a shot.

I’m torn on this next one. I love the color but at the same time, I think it might work better and as black and white shot. I can’t make up my mind which one is the real winner. The goggles, by the way, were purchased off Amazon a few years ago, and have been used in several shoots. This dress was an eBay vintage find; it was pricey but it’s great for photos:

I pulled out all sorts of old props and doodads to throw on with the wig; one of them was this bellydancing scarf I picked up somewhere. In this shot I’d flung it around a bit and I liked the way it was moving across my face here:

The sequined gown I am wearing in most of these shots, by the way, belonged to my mother-in-law. It is full-length, all sequins, weighs a ton, and cannot be pulled over my hips to save my life. As a result, I had the whole thing yanked up like some sort of weird miniskirt during the shoot. Also, it is backless with one of those little hooks at the neck to keep the entire top from falling down due to its weight; there was no way I was going to be able to fasten that hook on my own, so the dress is being held together at the neck by a chip clip. Nothing but the classiest for me – YEP.

More pics to come!

mareymercy.

Art, Horror, and Other Obsessions

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