Thursday, March 31, 2011

Looking In - Before and After


   This is a before and after of a recent photo of mine.  As shown in the graphic, I used three textures by Shadow House Creation.  I shoot RAW and then use Adobe Camera Raw with Photoshop Elements 9 for Mac.
   For this photo I also used a B/W gradient map, boosting contrast.  Then I used a slight warming gradient map on his skin, leaving the background a slightly cooler tone.




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Quote of the Day:
      “Knowledge is like money: to be of value it must circulate, and in circulating it can increase in quantity and, hopefully, in value.”
          -  Louis L'Amour

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Little Girl's Sunny Portrait

     As I had my son at the park with some of our church friends' kids, I got to take a short series of pictures of this little girl.  It was full sun and windy, but we had a great time!







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Quote of the Day:
     Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas.
            - Paula Poundstone

Sunday, March 27, 2011

I Heart a Slice of Life

    This week the theme at " faces"is "A Slice of Life."  This picture is a good snapshot of a slice of my son's life.  He just loves playing in the park; I think he'd live in the park if we'd let him!










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Quote of the Day:
     I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.
         Mark Twain 

Saturday, March 19, 2011

A Day at the Park and a Train Ride!

      Today I took my son to the local park.  This is the largest park in the area, and Johnathan had the time of his life!



      There is one huge area which is divided up in three play areas for various age groups, and then a large swing-set as well!





      He turned out to be quite a little dare-devil!



      His favorite part was the train that takes passengers on a track around the entire park.  He has always been fascinated by trains and he was just transfixed by this "real" passenger train.





      Finally I broke down and let him take a ride!  Ok, so that was actually the whole purpose of going to this park.  It was all a surprise to him, and it was very rewarding for me to see how much he enjoyed it!



      And we rode off into the sunset . . .   Or however that goes!


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sugar Doughnuts! - Wordless Wednesday





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Quote of the Day:
     It's not denial.  I'm just selective about the reality I accept.
          - Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

Monday, March 14, 2011

Sunset Kiss - I Heart Sun Flare

      This week the theme at " faces" is "Sun Flare."  I love sun flare and and I love taking photos with sun flare in them.
      Now, before you go and re-calibrate your monitor; yes, this photo is very defocused.   I know it's a bit different style for me, but I like the way this one turned out.  I think it's ok to take a shot like this as long as you meant to do it!















UPDATE: Thank you all so much! This photo earned 2nd place in Angie & Amy's pick for this contest!






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Quote of the Day:
     I went into a McDonald's yesterday and said, 'I'd like some fries.' The girl at the counter said, 'Would you like some fries with that?'
      - Jay Leno

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Jumping Girl Montage

     I've posted a few photos of this girl already, but I thought I'd finish out with a montage of fun shots.  We set up an area where she could jump while I took her mid-air portraits.  We both had a great time!


Have a fun day!


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Quote of the Day:
     A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing.
         - Emo Philips

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Little L - Wordless Wednesday






To see more Wordless Wednesdays, go here and here.


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Quote of the Day:

     When you are eight years old, nothing is any of your business.
         - Lenny Bruce

Monday, March 7, 2011

I Heart Daydreaming!

     This week the theme at " faces" is "People's Choice" meaning that we get to choose our favorite photo to enter.  I liked this one of this young girl.  You may remember her, as I posted another photo of her a while back which you can see here.








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Quote of the Day:
     There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
        - Mary Wilson Little

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Just a Drop of Water . . . Macro Photography

       Macro Water Drops!



       I've wanted to tackle this type of photography for quite some time and finally got a little time for it recently.  Basically, it is a macro shot of a drop of water hitting a pool of water.  If you are satisfied with that explanation, then there is no reason to read on, just enjoy the photos.

       The Setup:  If you want the whole explanation of how I got these shots, here goes.  I set a clear pan on a piece of bright red paper and filled it with water.  Then I put another bright red paper eighteen inches above the pan and had a flash aimed at the paper from above.  Finally, I used a bright blue background with another flash aimed at it.  In this way, the water would reflect blue on the horizontal planes, and red on the vertical planes.  These are not photoshopped, except that I converted them from Raw to Jpeg with Adobe Camera Raw with high contrast and clarity, also boosting the vibrancy and saturation.  My camera sensor is needs to be cleaned so I did clone out some dust spots.  Several shots are cropped slightly to realign the center.









       Technical:  Shot with a Nikon 135mm F 2.8 with 60mm Extension Tube achieving Macro magnification.  1/200, F5.6, ISO 100.  Strobist: YN560 strobe at 1:64 power on background and a Smith Victor slave flash 1:1 on the top color paper.


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Quote of the Day:
   "No one can "get" an education, for of necessity education is a continuing process." 
       — Louis L'Amour

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