Getting Catty

Posted on June 5, 2014 by marey mercy

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

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

Did someone say treeeeeaaaaats?

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

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

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

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

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

Simon about to attack a treat

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

http://youtu.be/7oeXFbfUkmY

Office Race

Posted on June 1, 2014 by marey mercy

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

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

Un-insert big ugly bookcase here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lightening Up

Posted on May 31, 2014 by marey mercy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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:

Overall, not bad for shots I didn’t really want to take or enjoy taking. I think this last one is my favorite of the bunch:

More Christmas Pics

Posted on January 4, 2014 by marey mercy

Some more shots from Christmas Eve – I’m finally getting back to them.

My dad

My niece Chana and nephew Ben

My brother Scott and my sister Kim

The Christmas Ducklips Contest – not sure who won

In many of my shots, the color was rather washed out and boring, so that’s why some of them are black and white. If the color wasn’t vibrant I found the shot looked better that way.

I have a few more to share, but I want to show their editing process, so I’ll save those for later.

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!

Sunday Photoshoot

Posted on December 2, 2013 by marey mercy

I ended up with a full day Sunday to take photos, so I went all out with the drag makeup, which took an hour to apply (here’s a link to the tutorial I attempted to copy; obviously I failed at replicating her look but it at least got me somewhere interesting).

Using the softbox for this shot; lots of light on the face and sharp shadows. Also, I wore some different foundation for this shoot, and the results were a little splotchy, IMHO. I can tell on the neck more than anywhere.

I’ve ordered a new backdrop but didn’t have it in time for this session, so I was using the same brown background I’ve used for over a month. Quite honestly, I’m completely bored with it, so I wanted to be able to at least change its color while processing – something that isn’t as easy to do as you might think. The mottled background means it blends too easily with my skin and other clothing tones, so I knew I’d need to wear something that would completely contrast with it or editing would get too messy. I also needed to cover as much of my skin as possible to avoid it blending into the background, too (I wasn’t able to change the background color of the photo above, by the way – too much of my skin matching up with the backdrop).

No softbox here, using a Speedlite mounted on the camera and bounced off the ceiling. Much softer light, but more shadows. I aimed a ring light at my face to help eliminate some of the peskier shadows this lighting tends to create.

I decided on a costume gown I got for 75% off at the grocery store right after Halloween – it isn’t exactly season-appropriate, but it was a good contrast for my backdrop, and it was surprisingly appealing when moving to boot. An interesting ombre effect on the skirt and sleeves, and an awesome overlong bell-shape to the sleeve all created interesting images when flinging the cloth around. I was very pleased with both the color and movement of this thing when I saw the photos (you can tell I was able to change the backdrop color on these easier, too):

By the way, I never use a softbox on full-length shots. Only portraits. Just the Speedlite camera-mounted and bounced off the ceiling, and two umbrella lights at 45-degree angles to the subject.

Not happy with that one foot, but whatever.

As you can tell in the shots above, I got bored with the short red wig (since it doesn’t incorporate any movement into the shot), so I switched to one called “Cool Kitten” from Gothic Lolita Wigs (it’s now discontinued). As a kitty wig, this thing sucked; the little cat ears were just some wig hair wound around two little styrofoam triangles, and didn’t stay put at all. But when thinking about what hair to wear with the dress I remembered this wig, and thought it might work to use the styrofoam ears as a base for some flowers and give the whole outfit something a little more Renaissance-faire and less Gothic-bride. Worked out great.

My skin tone is really all over the place in these photos.

I also played around with my two Speedlites a bit to create some cool shadows. White balance on these shots was a bitch though, and I came out a little green, so I just decided to go with it and added a vintage filter to exaggerate the effect. Not as pleased with these as the others, but it’s something different.

It’s not easy being…well, you know.

And of course, there was jumping:

I may have oversharpened this one.

In looking over all these photos, I fear they may have suffered from the I-must-edit-every-shot-I-like-now syndrome that takes me over at times. I edited pics from 4 PM to midnight, and at some point in all that work I got sloppy, as I always do. When will I ever learn? Oh well. There are loads more from this shoot I can process more slowly and meticulously throughout the week.

Including photos with props, like this one!

A few more shots

Posted on November 5, 2013 by marey mercy

Just a few more from Sunday’s shoot that I’ve had time to process. As I mentioned earlier, I forgot to alter my lighting setup when I switched from portraits to full-length shots, so these suffered a little from that error. They weren’t nearly as crisp as I like them to be, and the light was blown out a little – so I used Pixlr to disguise these flaws a bit. Plus, I’m getting bored of the beige backdrop now – it wasn’t nearly as easy to transform into another color as I thought it would be, and was next to impossible to do in these full-length shots (you need a lot of contrast between the subject and the background – which is why people use greenscreens so often – and that mottled beige background did NOT contrast with what I was wearing at all) so without some Pixlr-ing they weren’t all that exciting to me. At first I wasn’t excited by them even after giving them the Pixlr treatment, but they’re starting to grow on me.

Can anyone spot the kitten in this photo? I purposely left him in the shot.

I always try to go easy with the Pixlr effects, because it’s a very popular free program and I don’t want my shots to scream that I used it. I don’t know why this matters to me; I guess I just want the edits to blend well into the shot and not have any one particular filter or effect stand out to people.

Clearly though, I like the scratchy textures Pixlr offers.

Love the movement of the skirt in this one.

I used some interesting overlays here – one was a space filter, and fire was another. I kept them subtle so you wouldn’t be able to recognize what they are; I think the end result looks rather ghostly.