Fun in the sun

So, I've got a secret.  Rather, I am a secret, a secret admirer of this photographer, Esther Hernandez, who is just so fabulously talented.  All of her work is stunning and I especially love her series entitled "Canteras Beach".  All of the images in this series are intentionally blurred causing a dreamy effect, and she frequently applies texture which creates a painterly edge. 

So, anyway, these images included in this post are my beach scenes from Rockport, Texas, and my homage to Esther.  Thank you Ms. Hernandez for your inspiration.
 

The photo above and below are of my beautiful daughter, Drew.
 

At the beach

I'm up late tonite, probably because I slept all day.  Watching my favorite show (It's Complicated) and working on some old shots.  I've also listed these on my etsy shop for purchase.

Bright Eyes (How to)

There are several ways to brighten the eyes in a photograph.  I'm going to show you how I do it, and I am currently working in Photoshop Elements 7.

First, of course, you'll open up the desired photo.  This processing works best if you choose a photo of someone with a good reflection of light in the eyes.

Enlarge the photo so that you can easily work with the eye areas.  Choosing the lasso tool, draw around the first eye.  Then, hold the Shift key down while you use the lasso tool to select the second eye (shown below).  Keep in mind that your selection does not have to be perfect.  Right click on the photo and you'll see a drop box appear; select the Feather option and set it anywhere between 5 and 9.

Now go to Enhance on the toolbar at the top of the screen; it drops down and after selecting Unsharp Mask you will see a pop up box appear.  For this shot I've set the Amount to 160, the Radius to 9.0, and the Threshold to 0, but your settings may vary a little depending on your photo and preference.

Select OK, and voila! 

Below is a before and after for your reference.

Well, I hope you find this tutorial useful.  As I said before there are several techniques for enhancing the eyes, so I may post other methods later as well.  Until then...enjoy.

Bree and the Great Pumpkin

Baby Bree came back to see me again for a holiday portrait.  She is just so delicious, I look forward to many more shoots with her.

I decided to include more before and after shots again.

We got in a mommy and me portrait as well (above).

I'm crediting the holidays for bringing about some surprise shoots.  My baby, Bree, is back for more.  Her mommy and daddy want her in Halloween mode.  The recent engagement shoot with Mike and Alicia has brought about a family shoot for a friend of Alicia's and is scheduled for the weekend after this.  And I have an old friend from elementary, who has rekindled our friendship on Facebook, inquiring about Christmas pictures.

I'm exhausted just thinking about it all - excited, but exhausted.

Mike and Alicia

I had the pleasure of putting together some engagement portraits for Mike and Alicia, and besides fending off our famous "everything is bigger in Texas"-sized mosquitoes, this was such an easy shoot.  The lighting that day was really beautiful, and the couple - sweetly affectionate.

I enjoyed trying out the Coffeeshop Perfect Portrait action which seems to give a duller portrait some pop! To accomplish this, I actually had to adjust these to a lesser contrast first and then apply the action, which, by the way, I obtained free from The Coffeshop Blog.  All this was applied after I had finished my own tweaking: a mosquito removal here, a little liquify there, etc.

I love seeing fellow photog's before and after shots.  Maybe because I feel I'm seeing some secret part of their artwork that I'm not really supposed to witness, but that's about all the "trouble" I can handle getting into these days.  In light of my appreciation to all those professionals who so graciously share their "secrets", I though this session provided the perfect opportunity to do the same.  So here ya go.  (Big thanks again to Alicia and Mike! ♥)

Lil' bug

Found this little bug while weeding my garden today.

Photo manipulation practice continues, and I'm certain my methods leave a lot to be desired, and a class would be awesome, but who has the time.  So I'll continue to practice, and surf the net for information, and practice more. I'm betting the model, my daughter Drew, will become exhausted with me long before I've mastered the manipulating technique. (After all, the shrink ray really takes a lot out of you!)  Until then...

This piece is actually three separate shots combined. The first shot being of my daughter pretending to sleep with a stuffed toy.  We set up on a white sheet spread out for staging in her bedroom.  The second shot was of the shell which measures approximately 1 inch in legnth.  I took many shots of many shells, some placed on a black background, others on white.  The third and final shot is the nature shot.  This came from the garden in my front yard.  There were several areas and several angles but the rock and greenery in this shot is from one take, although while working on this I had to duplicated this layer.  I don't believe I added any textures to this, so any appearrance that I did is "accidental".  In the end, I really need to be more learned on better shading techniques.

Therapy (Series entitled: Consequently, me)

Another turn in my photography/art.  This piece is inspired by several of my flickr friends.  I really wanted to try my hand at some manipulative photography.  This was my first try and I have much more in mind, but it was eating at me to get something done, and I was the only "model" at the time.  I hate having my picture taken, so I really thought of this as therapy in that way (hince the name).  The plan is to do a series entitled "Consequently, me", which will tell my story defining me and my life's path.  In that right, the title of this piece (Therapy) stands true, as it still defines me in that I have, at times, resorted to my dream state to escape my reality.  When surrounded by unhappy or unsatisfying circumstances, which I don't feel I can escape in actuality, I create my perfect world in my fantasies.  Maybe you can relate?

I have plans to do other series as well, so I may flip-flop between them, but you have to go where the heart leads, right.

Bree

Here are a few shots from my first "professional" infant setting.  Baby Bree was one month old at the time and absolutely adorable.  I could have held her all day.

I was super pleased with the end results, and consquently, photoshopping was quick and painless.  Therefore, I played a bit and came up with the piece below.

Kaitlyn

My gorgeous niece, Kaitlyn, is a natural in front of the camera.  She was an absolute doll to "work" with and I came away from this shoot with so many photos, it was difficult to narrow down.  I have discovered a real passion for creating triptychs.  They seem to capture so much personality and mood, but can you tell the mosquitoes were attacking my poor model?

Senior Shoot - Colton

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to post the results of my last senior shoot.  I've had so much going on lately and blogging has only now moved up to the top of the list.  The following are a few of my favorites but you can find more on my flickr.

I have to admit, I've watched one of my favorite photographers do series shoots like the one above, and I love, love, LOVE them.  So here is my first take on a series shoot of my handsome nephew and again, I love it (and him).  It is probably my favorite from the shoot because it seems to capture an intimate moment that I know ALL the girls hearts will melt over. ~ Congratulations Colton on your 2010 graduation, your future is SO bright! Best wishes and lots and lots of love to you.

(forget it girls, you're not ready)

My 2nd assignment

Saturday!!  Saturday I get to do another senior shoot.  This time it's my nephew.  Another freebie in exchange for experience.  I have some ideas I'm really excited about, but I'm still nervous because it's my sister and I'm not sure if she has some preconceived ideas that I will be competing with.

Also started a second flickr account, Skin & Bone, for posting my textures on it.  You can check them out here.

1st Senior Shoot

Last weekend I had my very first senior shoot!  This is Simone, my cousin's daughter and she was an absolute pleasure to "work" with.  Although we fought the sun and some wierd shadows created by the surrounding foliage, I learned a lot and got some really great shots.  I'm alreadly looking forward to a second senior shoot with my nephew, but until then you can check out the other shots from this session on my flickr.

Both Drew and Wolfie were such good sports letting mommy practice portrait shots, but they are such beautiful models too.

It was such a wonderful weekend with my babies.  It's highlight would have to be teaching Drew to ride her bike without the training wheels.  It exhausted me but I'm not sure who was more excited and proud with her accomplishment, me or her.  And now, she can't be stopped.  Although, I counted five wardrobe changes because she kept riding her bike through the water puddles, but don't even try to keep her out of the water. 

Wishful Dreaming

Dreaming, 8x8

Wishful, 8x8

This weekend I worked on a canvas painting...uh... IF it can be called that yet.  I have been staring at this white canvas for at least a month now and I was itching to get some paint splashed on it, but after several attempts now, I got nothing.  Is this artist's block?  I've got an idea of what I want to do, but I haven't got an end result yet.  It's my first painting in... I don't know how long, so I've got all this pressure built up that I want this one to be SO fantastic.  Something cool.  Something both guys AND gals would enjoy.  Something I would place on my own wall.  Obviously, I'm going to need to sketch this one out first.  Until then, more photography. 

The above shots were taken at least a year ago.  I had played around with it for a while and revisited it recently, hence this.

On March 16th this year, I made it to the front page of etsy.com for the first time (see the muffler shot in the middle of the first row, entitled "Demuffled No. 1"). Sadly, I didn't even realize it until today.  But today, I couldn't be more excited about it! Looking back, I realize the clues should have tipped me off...duh. (I had a load of fans mark my shop as a favorite. I thought it was just a busy day on etsy.)  Regardless, today is a good day to realize my frontpage debut - I was in desperate need of good news (it's been in short supply lately). So YEEEAAAAHHH (jumping up & down now)!! And lots of thanks to Jean at 3squares for including me on her fabulous treasury.  I do appreciate it.  And you know what?!?! She has some fabulous stuff listed in her shop too!  Like this beautiful peruvian blue paisley necklace, and totally creative copper and silver bracelet, then there is a too cool Hearts of Romaine heart-shaped necklace that is to die!! Seriously this artist is too talented and I could go on and on and on about her creations but you should really jump over there and see for yourself!

The carnival came to town last weekend and these are a couple of shots born from the event.

Title:  Racing Stripes

Title: Widow Maker

Both are available in my etsy shop.

I've been out of pocket for a while.  Been in sort of a funk that I seem to go in to when it gets overcast for too long. It's amazing how the weather can effect a mood. But instead of going on and on about my crybaby excuses, I created more "Mood Swing" textures to share.  All of my textures are free for your use as a layer in your image-editing software creations for both personal or commercial work. However, the unedited original may not be sold or distributed in any way.  Enjoy.

1. Sweat | 2. Impatience | 3. Stoked

4. Determination | 5. Stimulated | 6. Forgotten

FREE!! New "Mood Swing" Textures

1. Bloom | 2. Grow | 3. Love | 4. Dead Grass Green | 5. Relief | 6. Fascination

7. Satisfaction | 8. Lonliness | 9. Energy | 10. Blah | 11. Whatever | 12. Boredom

I have created some new textures for your use and abuse. You can download these and/or any of my textures from my flickr site.  The above are part of my "Mood Swing" collection.  Enjoy, and I would love to see some of your art created with them. 

By the way, these are FREE - no strings attached textures.

One of my canvas textures - again, it's a FREE for all!

Available here.

I have been photographing for my personal enjoyment for about 15 years. And I took photography classes at the Art Institute of Houston. But I’ve never really done any macro photography. So, last year I got a new and awesome camera for Christmas from my eldest son (must have done something right), and just recently coupled it with a new lens that has macro capabilities.

I went on a “field trip” recently, stalking out my first macro shots and it went nothing like I hoped.  Actually, it was awful.  For one, the sun did not cooperate…AT ALL.  (Do you think there is a secret to photographing under dull grey skies? – I’ll google it later.  Maybe!  It is called pho...to...shop.)

The dyptech (above) was the first thing I looked at when I exited my vehicle. I thought that I would do a few practice shots before looking for that perfect one – turned out to be closer to twenty practice shots! After the fence, I went for a walk hoping something would either “pop out” at me or jump up and down screaming for me to photograph it. No such luck.

Macro Photography Lesson Number 1: the photographer must learn to look at everything with a completely different perspective…duh. And this (MUST) take practice, practice, practice. Because - I’ll be honest (and embarrassed) - I am one of “those” that looked at a fantastic macro photo and thought, “It’s just a leaf! There are a billion leaves out there! So I’ll just zoom in on one. That’s easy! Right?” WRONG! (LOL) So before I go on, let me apologize to all of the macro photographers out there, for my ignorance.

Next time out, I’m thinking I’ll grab a picnic blanket and just relax on it for a while, allow nature to come to me, rather than me stalking nature out. Or, maybe I’ll simply walk around my yard and practice, practice, practice. I’d definitely be more comfortable there anyway. (Secret about me, I can’t stand the idea of people watching me photograph.)

Anyway, comment back with your constructive criticism (or whatever), maybe a photography tip you have found useful and don’t mind sharing. - I L♥VE L♥VE L♥VE TO HEAR FROM YA’LL!