A Few More to Share

Posted on March 23, 2014 by marey mercy

I’ve processed about 20 of the photos from last Monday’s shoot, and my energy and interest is starting to wear down. Still, 20 shots isn’t a bad payload at all, so it’s all good. The levitation shots didn’t work out at all, so that cut down on the end results considerably, but I do still have some nice jump shots to process that won’t involve too much beyond the basic editing, so in the end I bet we get closer to 30 out of the whole thing, which actually may be a record for me.

Here’s a few more I’ve worked on in the past few days, which actually isn’t many because I’ve been doing other things, including getting obsessed with Mad Men about six seasons late so I’ve been binge-watching that, plus getting my hair done yesterday which took a ridiculously long time to look basically no different after I was done (roots touched up and a simple trim for $200 and it took almost three hours because my stylist was running all kinds of behind), plus my father-in-law has been in the hospital getting his gallbladder removed, so lots of other stuff going on.

I have to say, Candace’s son was amazingly well-behaved while we shot photos for three hours, but he was a little shy in front of the camera, doing more giggling than actual posing. Still I did get him to jump about five times, and this was one of the best ones (he didn’t quite grasp the concept of looking at the camera while leaping). What can I say – super-cute kiddo, and I’ll have a few more to process of him later (although he was part of the 85-mm lens switch without changing camera settings fiasco, so most of his portraits came out blurry).

And there’s one of his mom – too bad they’re not a more handsome family. huh (/sarcasm)? This was one taken with the 85mm too, so I futzed with it enough to hide the blurriness, hopefully.

And there’s another one of Tamara, for good measure. You know I love hair flying about! I had to bring my own fan though – that’s one thing the studio didn’t have.

This is one of many cool leaping shots I still need to process, although obviously I did process this one. I just remembered I still have lots of yoga shots to edit too – so it looks like I’ll get another good week of editing out of this shoot. Not bad for the $70 or whatever I ended up paying for the studio, and I can feel my interest and energy coming back just thinking about the nice photos still available for processing!

Shoot Loop

Posted on March 21, 2014 by marey mercy

I randomly worked on a few shots today, so I’ll just upload them quickly and see what comments arise from each one. They aren’t unified in any way, but I’ve given up on generating thematic blog posts at this point when it comes to photography. So here goes, and I guess the theme is “the shots I’ve processed since I last uploaded.”

Hang with me and this is bound to happen at some point

One thing this shot makes me think of is the fact that I really want to upload some pics of the studio and the tiny little space I was working with for full-body and jump shots. The backdrop ends right above Tamara’s head, so many jump shots were ruined by heads or hands moving past that line. But I liked this freewheeling leap, so I did the best I could with it anyway.

I really liked Tamara’s profile here. This one was taken pretty early in the shoot, as we all were trying to loosen into our roles; as the photographer, I’m still unfamiliar with guiding people through the process of getting their pictures taken, but this was one of my first attempts to get the models into a position I liked and provide them some direction.

And now for my favorite of the three I edited today (didn’t edit nearly as much I usually do when I’ve got new material to work on; but Candace and I wanted to make a shopping trip during Spring Break, so that’s what I did with most of my day).

The idea to pose while lying down came from Candace; it was my idea to have them close their eyes. I took a lot of shots while they were down there and have several I want to process, but so far I’ve only gotten one done. Many of the shots were ruined by the fact that I was unwittingly standing directly in front of a light source while shooting – I had to get up on a step stool to aim down at them, which not only created shadows but also made for some wonky framing; still, there are a few that are salvageable.

That’s it for today, but tomorrow I should be able to edit more, as well as possibly take a few shots of my hair after I get it done (it’s time for my 3-month trim and dye job). I like to take pics right after getting my hair cut because my stylist can actually dry my hair so that it appears to have volume, whereas when I do it it’s pretty flat (unless I leave it curly, in which case it appears unbrushed). I can actually feel hair brushing against my shoulders now, which hasn’t happened in well over 10 years, so it’ll be nice to show you all how much it’s grown.

Porch Song

Posted on March 20, 2014 by marey mercy

Since yesterday’s post was all shots of Candace, today I’ll share some photos of Tamara, the other model from Monday’s shoot. But first I want to share one of Candace I forgot to share yesterday:

There was the slightest bit of color in those trees, so Candace tried her best to trudge through the weeds and stand in front of them; this angle was the only one I could get to and manage to get any of the purple buds in the shot. It’s weird, but I kind of like it. Moving on now to Tamara:

There’s the big-ass hair wreath I got for a steal off Etsy; it matched this old ball gown nicely. The sleeves on this dress absolutely make it; they are long and light and flowy and take wonderful photos, so I blew the fan on her and told her to just wave her arms around while I took some shots.

I did less processing to this second shot, although I still did some – I kept the color more true to the original though, and didn’t use any filters. I rarely smile in my own shots as I tend not to look natural when smiling for a camera, so I’m always glad to get a nice shot of someone with a lovely smile – and this one came out great.

I also loved this next one, but it came out a bit yellow in spite of my ExpoDisc, and try as I might I couldn’t correct it without something else going wrong, color-wise:

Notice this one was taken on the fabulous front porch I was so excited to use. Another thing you’ll probably notice is that I barely took any shots using it. There are a few reasons for that: first of all, when I got to the space the woman working there informed me that they actually don’t allow any outside shooting due to liability issues. I guess my disappointment was evident, because she ended up agreeing to let me shoot on the porch as long as I didn’t tell anyone (which of course I just did, oops), but quite honestly after shooting inside for two hours I was pretty burned out and not all that excited about using the porch – I’m sure the fact that I knew we weren’t supposed to shoot out there probably affected my attitude as well, as I am generally a rule-follower and wasn’t anxious to go take pictures somewhere I wasn’t supposed to. The other reason was that the night before the shoot a slight cool front blew in, and it was a little cold outside, so Tamara wasn’t all that game for hanging out on the porch anyway. In the end, this is one of the few shots I took out there that I liked, but I really loved it, in spite of the yellowness.

Right at the end of the shoot, Tamara pulled a prop chair onto the set and just started posing in it very spontaneously, which I liked but unfortunately most of the shots are a mess because I was just sitting on the floor and feeling tired and sloppy so the framing is all wonky. This one came out great, but in looking over it now, I think I may have overprocessed it:

I thought there was something interesting about this shot, her expression is stern in a very vintage way, but the pose is so relaxed; I really liked the contrast. Also proud of the fact that her boots were actually black, but I managed to tint them dark blue without it being obvious. Oh, and throughout the shoot she was complaining about her being too flat, so I actually fluffed it up using some Photoshop trickery. Here’s the pre-Pixlr’ed version, though, which I’m starting to think I like better:

In looking the two over now, I think the Pixlr version has too much going on. What do you think?

Back Alley Photography

Posted on March 19, 2014 by marey mercy

Perhaps if I ever get a studio of my own, this is what I’ll name it. Moving on.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I was interested in taking photos in the dirt road that serves as a back alley to the studio I rented Monday. As it turned out, by the time we got around to taking pics back there, I was pretty burned out and lacking in energy and ideas, so I ended up snapping a bunch of sloppy pics of Candace and her little boy while we all discussed what we were going to do with the rest of the day. I did remember to set my white balance with the ExpoDisc, but other than that I didn’t do too hot with the back alley shots. I forgot to change my settings and speed up the shutter when trying to take jump shots, the light was harsh overhead, and my framing was generally awful. What can I say, after putting makeup on two models and then shooting them for two and a half hours straight (we got started with the whole day at 9 AM and didn’t finish up until 2 PM) i was tired.

Still, there was one shot I really loved and wanted to process; it always happens after a shoot that no matter how many I take, there will be a very select few at the top of the list of favorites for me, and I always process those first. This was one of those that I felt I absolutely HAD to edit, so when I woke up this morning I decided to work on it right away (then I got busy and didn’t get back to working with photos until about 10:30 PM, which is why I’m throwing up this sloppy post at two in the morning).

Candace had on a dress she wore in the indoor shoot, then threw the infamous faux fur vest on over it simply to get it ‘carried’ to my car, but it really worked here to give the impression that she’s a super-glam mom, and the fact that she’s in the vest with her sunglasses standing in a dirt road is even better. I figured while I was editing this one photo, why not edit everything else from this section of the shoot that I might want to work with so I can present it as a little collection here. These photos are weird though; they have such a snapshot feel to them that the only way I felt comfortable with them was to mess with them a lot, which means of a lot of obvious processing and Pixlr-ing, which I’m sure will make some of you happy. Take this next shot for example:

I wasn’t much into jumping during this shoot, but Candace totally was, so she wanted to do some leaping about before we left for the day. Unfortunately, this is one of the shots where my tired screw-ups came into play, as I forgot to change my camera settings to stop motion which resulted in all of her leaps being blurred. In spite of that, I liked how she was posed in this shot, as if she was levitating by accident instead of jumping. It was blurry, so I edited it with very heavy shadows and contrast to blend her in better with the tree branches; then I superimposed two photos over it in Pixlr (bonus points if you can see the face, which is one of the two photos I embedded into the original shot). I think with the creepy color and the added texture, this one works, but it’s pretty unusual for me. Candace will probably love it.

This next one definitely had better clarity…

and I liked the movement and the sentiment it captured, but it wasn’t an overly thrilling shot by any means. I don’t usually add borders to photos, but I dunno, here I was just trying to add interest. I added a border to the next one to conceal Candace’s legs a little, since I didn’t think she’d be comfortable with me showing them from the particular angle I took the shot. What can I say – I was trying to capture her son grinning while holding onto her leg, but the angle on her was a little inappropriate. Hence the splotchy border that kind of covers her up but still conveys the message of the original shot.

It’s now after two AM and I am tired, so forgive me if this post isn’t riveting. I was also determined to get some alley shots put together for this post, so my eyes and arms are tired from working at the computer for so many hours. I don’t know how many of these particular pictures are keepers, but I love the first one for sure, and that second one is growing on me. Anyway, they’re done, so I’ll move on to some aspect of the indoor photos next.

Pictures Accomplished

Posted on March 17, 2014 by marey mercy

Monday was the day of the big shoot, and although I was nervous in the beginning, things went OK overall. The studio was a lot smaller than I expected, and by the time we’d gotten about halfway through I was getting sloppy – for example, I noticed after the fact that when I switched to my 85mm lens for portraits, I forgot to change the camera settings so most of them were out of focus, stuff like that – but since we took over 600 photos, I was able to salvage plenty even when I screwed something up.

My right arm is killing me, because I’ve been editing obsessively since I got home around 5 PM and it’s 11:15 now, so I’m going to keep this post brief and just share the first little sampling from the shoot. I’m most likely going to be working with these photos for awhile, so as I get into more specific sections of the shoot in days to come I can talk about issues I encountered throughout the day. For now, let’s just look at the ones I processed initially (some of these I chose first because my friends really liked them, others because I did).

I think I mentioned previously that I had a vintage vision going on for the shoot, so I processed this one in a manner that gave it that feel. The poses were a little awkward here, because it was at the start of the shoot and it always takes awhile to get in the groove, but I thought the stiff formality of it rather worked in this shot. Of course, there’s the wreaths I spoke about in a previous post, and the costumes are all mine as well – you probably recognize some of them from other photos!

My friend Candace (on the right) has no shortage of crazy concepts, and she is game for anything – the posing here was her idea. It was a very crisp, clear shot originally, but to give it a ghostly quality (and to make it make some kind of sense) I added a little movement blur, and some subtle fog at the bottom, as well as some texture.

Tamara is very into yoga, so once Candace mentioned it might be fun to try out a few yoga poses in nightgowns (Tamara’s dress is actually an old ball gown of my mother-in-law’s) she started to loosen up a little too – literally as well as figuratively. I love this next move she executed (I can’t remember the name of the yoga pose) but I’m a little concerned it looks like she’s doing something obscene…? I swear she isn’t!

The yoga photos are pretty small, because the truth is this studio really wasn’t big enough for full body shots – I actually have more width to work with in my little office! So I had to crop the hell out of them, which is a shame, because it makes them noisier and reduces size so much. Working with a paper background was nice as that’s not something I’ve done before, and it eliminates all the wrinkle and crease issues I have with my muslin, but there just wasn’t very much of it. Literally right out of the frame to both sides of Tamara in the shot above, the paper ended and we were just looking at studio. It’s really a place for portraits only, but oh well. We made do (and for added fun, it was clear the woman working in the office there was not used to photographers using her space for this sort of thing – I think it’s a family portrait type place only, being in the part of town it is – so she kept peeking around the corner to see what the hell was going on, in a nice way, but still I got the feeling we were freaking her out just a little bit).

True to the weird ideas she comes up with in shoots, Candace also chooses crazy shots to want processed, which is amusing to me because as you can tell, she is photogenic as hell (she has skin that gives meaning to the phrase “peaches and cream”) and she cannot take a bad photo, but she always wants copies of the ones where she’s half-blurry, or falling out of a tree or something (just kidding, no one fell out of any trees during this shoot). Anyway, she chose this one as a favorite, which I popped off without any real thought or focus while we were standing in the back alley after the shoot talking about what we were going to do next. Notice she is wearing that fabulous faux-fur vest I got at Nordstrom a while back; the owner of the studio also rents out props, and told me I should rent out that vest to people for photos because it’s so fabulous. Remember who convinced me to buy it in the first place? Yep. Candace.

Obviously I Pixlr-ed the hell out of this one, because why not? Candace likes ’em crazy. If you look closely, you can see that I superimposed the photo of them facing each other into the trees. And yep, there’s the fur vest!

Soooo much more to come. Remember, over 600 shots people. In my mind, I will focus on a different section of the shoot in each post (yoga poses, jumping, levitation, portraits) but most likely that will not happen, and I’ll just work on a few each day then upload those results. Get used to these two faces though, because you’re going to be seeing a lot of them for awhile!

Wreath on edge

Posted on March 12, 2014 by marey mercy

I’m trying with the titles, people, I swear.

Recently I ordered a few floral hair wreaths to use in my upcoming photo shoot on March 17th, and for some reason Wednesday I decided to snap photos of them. Unlike almost every single photo I upload to my blog, these are pretty much SOOC with the exception of one, and I’ll explain that one when we get to it. I did do some RAW editing before converting the files to .jpeg, but that’s it. I did this mostly because it was late in the evening when I took the shots, and I didn’t want to invest too much time in processing them, but also they just didn’t need much work. I used the ExpoDisc again so the white balance seemed fine, and I had my new 50mm lens on the camera which created some lovely, lovely bokeh and interesting focus, so I just kept the editing to a minimum to get things done.

Two of the wreaths are dried florals; one is baby’s breath and the other is dried violet. These two were bought off Etsy from a fairly new shop there called Junkyard Dandelions – they only have one review, and that one is mine. They are both incredibly pretty and well-done, with nice ribbon detail to tie in the back. They’re sturdy but appear delicate and they look exactly like the photos on the site.They shipped very quickly, and the seller/designer was pleasant to communicate with. Also they were not expensive – about $30 each – and for the price I think the quality of these is outstanding:

Adorable little bunny tag

Lace detail

I also bought, from another Etsy vendor, a floral wreath with very large flowers; it was only $20 which seemed like a steal for such a large piece. However, when I got it in, I felt it looked a bit cheap and fake (the flowers are silk). In spite of that, I still like it as I think it will work for other portraits if I end up not using it in this one (it was much more colorful than I really wanted for this shoot anyway). When I photographed it, it actually looked better than it does in person, so it’s all good. Plus, it really was a good deal for the size of the thing:

And now, for the grand finale to wrap up this little post, is the one shot I did more editing on after processing the RAW file. When you see it, I think you’ll understand why, because this shot was worth putting out the extra effort for sure:

If you ever needed proof that Sprocket is one seriously special dog – photogenic AND patient to boot – well here it is. He is so sweet-natured that even though he clearly did not enjoy having this thing on his head, he sat there with his head up like I asked him to so I could pop off a few quick shots. The framing isn’t great here, but that’s because I did have to snap the shot in a hurry, but it’s still a winner. This beats the time I managed to get a shot of him wearing angel wings, I think. And this shot also gives you a sense of how big that wreath is. Sprocket’s a ninety-pounder, so that sucker is big.

Eh, what the hell, I’ll upload one more Sprocket shot. I processed this one too, beyond the RAW processing. I like his facial expression more in this shot, but the focus was on his nose and it blurred out the flowers a lot, so in my opinion the one I shared above is the better photo of the two. Let me know if you disagree (and the flowers are around his neck here because this was the second attempt I made to take pics of him with the wreath on, and he would not sit still for me to put it on his head again. He just wasn’t going to fall for that twice).

Ugg Shots

Posted on March 10, 2014 by marey mercy

You’re welcome for that title. Moving on.

I’ve had this silly idea for awhile to make a pyramid out of all my Uggs and take a photo of it for posterity, and tonight I got in the pair I bought last week when I was home sick – banana yellow, thank you very much – and decided it was time to do it.

Would you believe I left a pair out by mistake? Damn.

I was actually a bit disappointed in my Ugg pyramid – I envisioned it being taller. But while it was up there, I decided to take more photos of them. I think this proves that I will, in fact, take pictures of anything. I will also share those pictures on my blog, no matter how trivial and stupid they are.

The bows are cute, but they don’t really tighten even if you re-tie them, so these boots end up being really loose, which I don’t like.

I like the texture of the suede in this shot. Interestingly, this blue is my absolute favorite color, but I don’t like it as a boot. They’re too bright and cute and no matter what I wear with them (with the exception of one long blue hippie-looking sweater), all attention is drawn to my feet.

I just liked the composition of this. That’s my one leather pair of Uggs with the rhinestone bows; they’re unusual and quite luxurious. And there’s my new yellow pair at the top.

I’ve noticed several really cute photos on Pinterest of cats sitting inside Ugg boots, so while I still had the shoe pyramid going I tried to incorporate Simon into some of the shots. He would NOT settle into a boot, but he did like the empty boxes.

My Ugg-foot is a respectable size 8. Yep.

Simon about to scale Ugg mountain. OK, so he didn’t even try.

As far as photos of cats posed in front of shoes go, this one is pretty sweet.

I used my new ExpoDisc with these shots, and I continue to be pleased with the results of that thing. Now if I can just get my hands on a decently-priced 70-200mm f/4L, I’ll be happy – at least until the next must-have purchase comes along (I think I can eventually get that lens for between $400-$500, I just can’t do it this month as I’ve got my play money allotted to some other things. But I can save up about half of that and try to score one next month).

And just because I have nowhere else to put this – a new grocery store shot!

It’s a chicken selling…chicken. Wait, is that weird?

Ice as Nice

Posted on March 4, 2014 by marey mercy

We had another unexpected day off Tuesday – an ice storm blew through the city early in the morning, and although the temps didn’t get low enough in our area to ice up the roads, it did knock out power at the school, so the administration decided to cancel. I was already up and halfway ready to go when I got the call, so I decided I’d try out the makeup my friends want me to do for their shoot and see if I could pull it off, and I figured if I was going to go that far I might as well take some pictures.

This is the look my friends/models want for their shoot

I don’t know what magic fairy dust was sprinkled over me on this occasion, but I must have done everything just right without realizing it, because the makeup and the portraits I shot came out amazing. I’m not saying that because they’re portraits of me, of course, but because the makeup really popped on camera, the lighting was dead-on, and to be honest, there just wasn’t a bad shot in the bunch. Well, of the portraits anyway.And although I didn’t pull off the exact look of the makeup in the photo above, I got the idea down.

A few things I did different with the makeup that helped me out here: the last time I was at the MAC counter stocking up, the salesperson gave me samples of a new color-correcting BB cream they’d just introduced. I hadn’t tried it yet, but decided on this day to slap some on underneath my foundation – I have the yellow tint to cut the red in my skin. I have other color correctors on-hand that I normally use (just for photos; I find it’s too much under my daily makeup because my skin is dry and can’t handle too many layers of stuff without looking cakey and accentuating my pores) but I think this one worked better to create a nice neutral base to my skin. Or maybe it had nothing to do with it and I just lucked out with the lighting, but my makeup was really on point here. Another thing I learned is I can use MAC’s Studio Fix powder foundation on my neck and decollete and it works quite well to cover up my sun damage and hyper-pigmentation. Again, I wouldn’t do this for day-to-day because I’d end up with makeup all over my clothes, but it worked incredibly well for photos, which is when the sun damage shows up the most anyway – I’m really happy with how much of my discoloration the powder foundation was able to conceal. I also think working against the black background helps the studio lighting pop better, because the light is being absorbed behind me rather than bounced back at the camera. It makes for crisper photos overall.

I had loads of Madame Alexander dolls when I was a kid.

I have a lot more portraits I’d like to edit, but I had other things to do and didn’t want to spend all day at the computer processing shots, so I’ll have to share those later. For example, I realized late in the afternoon that I needed to go vote, so I grabbed Doug and we headed out to our local elementary school, getting there right as class let out for the day and fighting through traffic the whole way as a result. We were both so flustered when we got inside, that we rather forgot we were there to vote in the primaries, and pitched a bit of a fit with the poll worker for asking us if we were Republican or Democrat before we remembered why we were there. I’m sure we appeared just super intelligent, not to mention being the only Democrats they’d probably encountered all day. Anyway, go Wendy Davis.

Back to shooting. I was less successful with my experimental shots, but that makes sense since they’re, you know, experiments. I had a vision of shooting myself standing up with my hands over my face, looking windblown, and then having several images of myself dancing about behind me, all blurry and ghost-like. The shot of me standing still was easy enough, and then I slowed the shutter speed way down so I could dance around and get some blurry movement pictures with the idea that I would create a composite shot to put them all together, but the end result didn’t quite work:

It’s not bad, but I didn’t take any blurry shots that were posed in a manner where I could place them fully off to my left, like I managed to get one placed to my right, so it’s not symmetrical. Everything was positioned with me leaning out to the left in such a manner that to get the image placed fully to that side, my arms and/or legs would have been completely cut out of the frame (side note: in almost all my movement shots, I lean my body to the left and almost never the right. I don’t know why). I’m not sure I’m even articulating this well, but suffice it to say that I had to stick the second blurry image almost directly behind me instead of having it be off to my side as I envisioned. Also, I was using the camera in portrait mode, and using landscape would have given me much more room to fit the blurry images in, but I didn’t think of that at the time.

I also thought I’d try some levitation/composite shots, so I got a trusty kitchen chair, threw a black fleece blanket over it, and went to work.

I bought the blue gown off eBay for twelve bucks, by the way. I thought it was an usual color for this type of nightgown, since they’re normally more pastel, and I liked how the white lace contrasted with the bright color.

I played around with a feature in Paint Shop Pro called ‘drop shadow’ that required me to select just what I wanted to have a shadow in the photo (in this case, my body) and then it created the drop shadow on a separate layer. I then messed a bit with different settings and opacity levels for it to try and make it more convincing, but quite honestly I didn’t spend too terribly long doing this. I was a little tired of editing at this point, and I’m discovering that all this photoediting of composite shots and leviation poses and adding shadows and stitching different photos together blah blah blah kinda bores me. Probably because I don’t really know how to do it all that well, so I get frustrated and bored with it pretty quickly. So, I think the shadow here could have been better – softer, probably – but it isn’t bad. So there it is.

More from this set later. I know I won’t have another day off tomorrow, because true to Texas, although it was 31 degrees here last night, it’ll be back up to 70 by tomorrow – so it’s time for me to wrap it up and get to bed. Crazy weather! More later!

Location Device

Posted on February 22, 2014 by marey mercy

I went out with a friend to scout locations this afternoon for some upcoming shoots and took some pics while we were checking things out. Last week I booked a studio near my house that has what’s got to be the worst website ever – very little useful information and almost no shots of the space available, but I knew the area where the studio was located and figured it would be OK so I went ahead and reserved it. All weekend slots at this studio are already reserved into next year, so I had to get time during our spring break so I can go over there during the week. I’m hoping some of my friends will be willing to come along, so I don’t have to take photos of myself while there, but I made sure to block out enough time that I can take self-portraits if I need to. The space was surprisingly affordable – $40 for the first hour, $30 for each hour after that, so I went ahead and booked it for three hours on March 17th.

Since I didn’t have any idea what the space looked like, though, my friend Candace and I decided to drive over there after a leisurely Saturday lunch to get a glimpse of it. Unfortunately for us, it was all locked up (I found out later they had a big photography prop swap meet earlier that morning and had just shut everything down for the rest of the weekend). So, I took a quick pic of what I could see, which is the yellow building in the iPhone pic below:

As you can see, there’s some nice outdoor space and a quaint front porch to utilize here as well, so I’m happy with that. I also liked the dirt road leading to the little shopping center’s parking lot:

I could see a few cool shots happening here, too.

I’d actually brought along my Canon, so we decided to venture out a bit and see what we could capture. Unfortunately, my lack of skills with shooting outdoors got the better of me again, and some of these pics didn’t turn out as nice as I would have liked. I’ve got to start reading up on how to do this properly if I’m going to take friends out on location for photos. Anyway, here are the shots I got of my friend, who ended up getting way too excited about jumping once she got started:

Really wonky light and color in this one – 😦

These were all taken at another little shopping center area in the “old town” part of the neighborhood; in this center there’s a beer garden/concert venue that has a pretty cool space for all sorts of events and photos – hence the stage in the photo above.

I don’t know if it’s the lens or my camera settings that makes everything wonky color-wise when I shoot outside, or if it just wasn’t the right time of day when I was taking them, but I really struggle to get picture quality I am pleased with later when I edit. It’s almost as if this lens shoots too clean, and there’s an overabundance of clarity that makes it hard to draw the eye in to the subject of the shot. Maybe I just need to put more distance between my subject and the background to correct that, but the color always comes out weak also, and even with the 17-40 lens there’s too much aberration for my taste. I think the 85mm would have taken prettier pics, but then the aberration would have been worse, so who knows. And I can’t zoom in and out with the 85mm soooo…I’ve had all these complaints before, haven’t I? And yet I still haven’t figured it out.

See, like in the shot above – where’d the blue sky go? And there’s no pretty bokeh, just some slight blur. Overall, I think results like this is due my lack of technical knowledge regarding how a camera functions; I’ve tried to learn but it all goes to oatmeal in my head when I try to sort it out. So, how I do figure things out is by taking shots I’m unhappy with, then looking at what I did that time and trying something different the next. The truth is, it’s gotten so automatic for me to shoot in Tv mode (controlling shutter speed only) while in my studio so I can get the level of clarity I want in my jump shots that I’ve forgotten there are other modes with which I can work. Sometimes I remember to switch to Manual mode when shooting outside or with the 85mm, but more often than not I forget to do so – and these shots are the result. I kept the camera in Tv mode during this walkabout simply because it was easiest for me to use, and as I always get rushed when shooting candidly or working with others I stuck with what I knew. But the shots would have better if I’d slowed myself down. Lesson learned.

In spite of all that, based on these shots, I also think it’s time for me to suck it up and get the 50mm f/1.4 that would be an upgrade from the cheap f/1.8 I used to own, but is still a far cry from the $1500 I’d have to cough up for the L-series version. It’s a good compromise cost-wise as well as great compliment to the two lenses I already own, and I feel the need for something new without spending a fortune (I can get the f/1.4 for about $350 – in fact, I’m off to buy it as soon as I finish writing this post).

Anyway, I know that it’s a cute photo and all so who cares, but I’m always going to be bugged by imperfections even if no one else notices.

The beer garden was quite big and had all sorts of cool little photo opportunity areas, like this one. It’s an old cigarette machine that’s spitting out some sort of artist tokens rather than cancer sticks, and I loved the color as well as the scratched-up mirror. Using that mirror eventually led to one of my favorite shots of the day:

So much to love here – the texture the mirror’s surface added to our photo as if I’d Pixlr-ed it, but I didn’t, the frame within a frame of the mirror and the borders of the machine, the cool reflection of that sitting area in the background – just a really fun shot.

I actually a took some non-person photos during this outing as well, but of course I was interested in processing the shots with humans in them first. I should be able to share the other pictures from this set soon, but I’ll leave for now with my other favorite photo using Candace as the subject. She was doing some leaping on the concert stage, and unlike my usual process I kept the camera in landscape mode rather than flipping the body over into portrait (which I do to create more height in the jumps) because I wanted to get the width of the stage. Her body got a little blurry because I was sketchy on the best camera setting to use, but I think this one turned out well:

So, pics of inanimate objects from this set to follow.

Glitterbug

Posted on February 17, 2014 by marey mercy

I woke up this morning determined to take pics with my new black backdrop, but the truth is I felt inspired by nothing. I’m tired of my costumes, tired of doing my makeup, and tired of posing for portraits and jump shots and whatever else I might pose for. In short, I am tired of myself. Along with learning Photoshop for reals, it is most likely time for me to start working with other models, so I can actualize some of the photographic visions I have in my head that involve locations other than my little studio. I want to be solely behind the camera, and process shots of people other than myself for awhile (by the way, I had some sort of allergy explosion tonight and I am hopped up on Benadryl, so this won’t be the most well-written post I’ve ever created. Sorry).

I have no idea yet how to go about all of this, so this morning I dragged myself to the grocery store to get the week’s shopping done, fully intending to come back home, suit up, and show up for photos even if I was frustrated and bored by the whole prospect. I don’t mind telling you, I was pretty grouchy about all this. I’ve been through it with other art forms as well, but the truth is that trying to create when one is out of inspiration is the pits. But I was determined to keep on shooting.

Then, on the way to grocery store, my best friend called and asked if I wanted to go shopping, and I jumped at the opportunity. She’s my best shopping partner, and I knew going out with her for a day would be way more enjoyable than shooting yet more photos of myself (oh how times have changed, a year ago I would have blown off leaving the house to get more pictures). So, I turned the car around, told my husband I’d get the groceries later, and got dressed to meet her up at the Galleria. Turned out to be the right choice.

We shopped, we ate a fabulous lunch, I picked up some makeup and a few bits and pieces here and there – then on the way out of Nordstrom I spied this, and just had to try it on:

It was a size medium and a bit too big, and it was wicked hot, but it was on sale for $43 and my friend talked me into buying it when I initially decided to put it back. I’m really glad she did, because it is kinda fabulous in a hideous sort of way (and no, there were no birds or other animals harmed during the making of this jacket – it’s fake). The jacket inspired me to take some photos when I got home, but it was about 3:30 before I got the chance to get started, so I quickly slapped on a ton of this white glitter pigment I bought at MAC years ago and barely ever wear, and slopped on a ton of sparkly eye shadow to complete the “look.”

The end result of the makeup was weird, and the shoot was fairly frustrating. As I said, that jacket is ridiculously warm, and it was about 70 degrees today where I live, plus my husband in his middle-agedness has decided the house needs to be perpetually 80 degrees. And from what I could tell through my LCD screen, the shots weren’t coming out so hot anyway, but I played around with lighting to get a decent effect out of all that glitter. When processing, I realized a lot of them were pretty cool, but I tried to stick to just a few to process.

I ended up using a silver reflector and a remote Speedlite off to the side to get a more glittery effect, and the result of that is a lot of shadows I am not used to for portraits, but I forced myself to live with it so I could get some good contrast in the shots.

Usually that much shadow around the eyes would make me crazy, but I decided to go with it when processing. This hasn’t deterred me from my new plan of enlisting friends as models and venturing out of doors for shoots, but at least I got some use out of my new jacket, and some new photos for the week. Plus I got to test out the new black muslin, which was OK, but I found it shows wrinkles more than the white one I used for so long and finally took down (I edited them out the shots by darkening the background). At least I don’t have the white balance issues with this one, where the backdrop turns out a different tint in every shot. Black is pretty much going to be black every time, so that’s reliable. And I do think it gives shots a much more dramatic feel.

I think my next backdrop should be gray, though, to get a happy medium. Black does some pretty harsh things to my lights, although adding silver reflectors, which I don’t normally use, probably messed with me some too.

I wanted to try some black and whites with the makeup, since I thought all that glitter would make a B&W look really intense and grainy. It did, but in general taking out the color made the photo boring anyway. I think that’s because the black background and my reddish-brown wig together so exactly mimicked the colors in the jacket that it appealed to me. But here’s one I decided to go ahead and transform into black and white: