Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Playing with my home "studio"- Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

Oh my, oh my, oh my! It has been over a week since I have put up a new post on my blog. It's not that I haven't wanted to post, but that the day seems to escape me and another day passes. I have been spending a lot of time editing photos that I took during the Bloom workshop or photos that I have taken recently. I mainly spend the time editing since I am still looking for my style, trying to nail it down so that editing will go faster overall. I recently edited these gorgeous photos of my neice and nephew, but I want to ask their mom if I can post the pictures here before I put them up...maybe next time.

This time, I'm posting a few of Noah that I took using my natural light "studio" that I set up with my seamless background paper in the dining room. Noah, he is my little funny bunny! Nate and I have since figured out how to set this studio up more efficiently in the kids bedroom. In their bedroom they get lots and lots of creamy natural light (no yucky color casts), and there is loads more room to photograph. The photo of Nicole was taken with the "studio" in their bedroom. She is CLEARLY pleased to have her photo taken (ha ha ha!)

These were editted using Brenda's Color, Child's Play Pastel Wash and Contrast Boost.






Blasted to you Flickr who oversharpens my photos.....ggggrrrr.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I took these especially for my Mom- Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

I took these photos especially for my mom, who I thought needed a bit of cheering up!

For once, I got some great photos of my little girl. How? you might ask. The trick is to have Noah standing nearby. I think, Noah is her most favorite person followed close behind by Elmo and Abby from Sesame Street. Noah was pretending to take pictures of her with his camera while at the same time he was attacking me with a stuffed Elmo doll (which is probably why she is smiling so much). Trying to take her picture and fend off Elmo (and Noah) a funny site...if only Nate was taking pictures of me taking pictures.

Hope these bring you a smile today, Mom! Love you.



Processed in Adobe Camera Raw. Used Brenda Acuncius's Color Boost action and Urban action (all opacities adjusted). Used Moira Compositor to create storyboard.

Monday, August 16, 2010

My final assignment from the Bloom Workshop-Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

It seems like I am posting A LOT of photos of Noah these days and I feel bad that I don't post more of Coley. So I am feeling particulary bad as I write this post because this is yet another one with pictures of Noah. These days when Coley "sees" me with camera in hand, she will just look at the ground and not make eye contact with me to save her life! That stinker! On the other hand, Noah has become such a great photographer's helper. He helps me look for great places to take photos, and sometimes even helps me to set up my equipment. It doesn't hurt that he is just so darn cute and fun to photograph.

Below I am showing the last of my photography assignments for the Bloom Workshop. Our last assigment was aimed at Storytelling. We were given 5 different quotes/verses from the children's book "Oh, the Places You'll Go" and had to choose one to put into pictures. We were limited to no more than 8 pictures to tell the story. Here is the quote that I went with...



You'll get mixed up, of course,as you already know.
You'll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And here is my storytelling assignment (featuring Noah of course).





I promise my next post will have a picture of my sweet Nicole!

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Noah goes on a field trip- Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

My little Noah is growing up so fast. Just this last month he moved up into the Pre-School classroom. He is now in the 3 - 5 year old room. This transition was bitter/sweet, he was leaving his wonderful teachers Barry and Penny (he had been in their classroom for almost 18 months) but he was going to go hang with the big kids and get to do big kid things...like field trips.

The first week he was in his new class they were going on a field trip to the local pool. Nate and I didn't really know what to think about this, do we let him go, is he too young, he can't really swim, he will ride a bus, what! As you can image Noah REALLY wanted to go. So to get over all of the fears/questions that we had on sending Noah out on his first field trip we decided that I would follow along in my car after the bus and hang out as a parent chaperone at the pool.

Noah had an AMAZING time taking the bus and swimming with all of his buddies and teachers. When we got him home he was EXHAUSTED. Swimming field trip = no afternoon nap. Needless to say he went to sleep early and he slept like a rock.

And because this is my photography blog, let me tell you a bit about the pictures...I took all of these with a 70 - 200 mm zoom lens that I rented (it is a beast of a lens at 3 lbs), aperture set at 3.5, ISO 100, and fast fast shutter speeds (> 1/500) for all shots since we were outside in the bright sun. I edited the photos in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) only, adjusting for white balance, contrast, and brightness. Lastly, I got a new photo compositor (Moira Compositor)that does automatic layouts in photoshop with a click of a button. I used the compositor to create the different grouping of photos, so that I can show more pictures for the same amount of work that it takes me to show one. Anyway, hope you enjoy the pics!

loves...jay.



Friday, August 6, 2010

Just a sweet picture of my Nicole- Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

During the Bloom photography workshop I learned how to set up a "fake" natural light studio in my dining room. Before I purchased the gray seamless paper shown in a recent post below with Noah, I used a chocolate brown curtain panel purchased from Bed Bath and Beyond. The first time I did the studio set up I was so excited to try it that I just grabbed the curtain panel out of the packaging and started shooting. First mistake! The background had so many fold lines and was a nightmare to fix in post-processing. But, I got some really great photos of my sweet Nicole. So here is the final edit from that very first session with my "fake" studio. Other techniques applied here that I learned in the workshop are canvas extension, cloning, dodging, burning, and applying textures. Most of these techniques were used to even out the background because of the fold lines. Someone suggested (who will remain nameless) that I should try ironing the background...what's that?


Gggrr..I don't like how Flickr oversharpens everything!

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

What I can do with my camera- Blogging all about Pebbles and BamBam

Well the Bloom Photography Workshop is almost over (insert sad face here). I have learned a lot of really great basic photography concepts, that when put into practice really result in fantastic pictures. Also, the group of women that I have had the opportunity to get to know in the workshop is the icing on the cake! I plan to keep in touch with many of these women since I view many of them as my friends.

The second part of the workshop is titled Create. This section really aims to dig into one's creative side. Those of you that know me well, know that I am more the analytical type. So needless to say, this section of the workshop was tough for me! Our first Create assignment was to put words into pictures. For example the words Light and Magic. The second Create assignment was to tell a story with pictures.

I am posting some of my work from the first assignment, my pictures for Light and Magic. I will post more of the second assignment after I turn it in tomorrow night! Tara and Steve, our neighbors were such good sports to let me use them as my models for the first assignment. I printed 8 x 10 photos of these pictures for them as a Thank You.

I titled this post: "Look what I can do with my camera", because before the Bloom Workshop I don't think I could have gotten shots like these. Hope you like them.

LIGHT


MAGIC