The Pictures I'm Not Thrilled With

First, it's driving me crazy that I ended that title in a preposition. Oh well, I'll get over it.

The second thing that's driving me crazy? These photos.

You see, I'm a perfectionist. Not to mention, in a classroom I become Uber Steph. Seriously. I'm seriously annoying because I want to be the best. It doesn't matter if it's just a friggin' 8 session hobbyist photography class. I want the teacher to look at me and think, "Wow, she's the best student I've ever had!" Well, not entirely. But, um, yeah, kind of.

In class last week, our instructor had one of us sit in a chair in front of the glass classroom windows. The lights in the corridor were off. The lights in the classroom were off. Only the emergency lights were on. We had to take pictures and turn them into portraits.

I didn't use my flash for any of them. I tried a couple of different high ISO settings and fast shutter speed and I just wanted to see what I'd get. They looked pretty good on my screen and I figured I could fix the lighting a bit in Photoshop if they were a little underexposed.

Groooooaaaaan.

Yeah, they suck. They're really grainy and the few that aren't are out of focus. And I should know better. Cue inner perfectionist, "Use the friggin' flash, Steph." (And you can tell that my inner perfectionist will not let me forget this.)

My only saving grace was that we could do whatever we wanted in Photoshop.

Blurry. Sigh.

Same thing in black and white.

A super saturated, funky color look. I wanted the emphasis on just her face and the chairs.

And finally, a grungy, retro look with a texture overlay and a vignette.

Now excuse me while I continue mentally flogging myself.

Everyday Life: Grocery Shopping With A Camera

Have you ever carted a camera openly around a grocery store before? Trust me, you get some odd looks. I felt like I needed to reassure all of the Harris Teeter employees that I was just taking photos for fun and wasn't part of some undercover FDA sting. Because, you know, I looked so bureaucratic and official with my jeans, hoodie, and 2 and 3 year old snot oozing accessories. *Snort*

Hollis encounters the lobsters.



Underwater Hollis.

I like how it almost looks like there's another little boy inside the case, peering out.



Frozen Foods.

I can't really explain why I like this shot so much. It was taken with a Flickr photography group challenge in mind, but I really like how the glass cases and the overhead sign frame the ordinary scene.



Meat market. (Or, "I'm not just a cute face, Mommy.")

Meat makes a surprisingly pleasing photo backdrop. Who knew?
I used a Michelle Black V! Revolution Sepia RAW preset, lightened the eyes and changed saturation on a few sections of the photo. I think the vintage photo look goes well with his little stylin' denim jacket.

Tomorrow I'll share a few photos I doctored in Photoshop from my last photography class. I wasn't happy with what I shot in class, but it's not like I can go back and try again. I did the best I could with what I had. Stay tuned....

Tree Limbs

For my photography class, our first assignment was to take pictures of tree limbs. Tree limbs just had to be involved. I stretched that a bit to include tree trunks. Here's what I have:

The two shots above are the same trees, but with focus in different areas.



Tree bark



Initials on a tree trunk



Tree fungus.

Tomorrow I have a few shots from a different location for me. I wanted to try taking photos of more daily activities, not just the fun stuff. Stay tuned....

Vintage Holden

Well, I started my photography class this week. I'll post about that a bit later, with a few of my "homework" photos.

For now, I have some images I altered in Photoshop to share. I've been using Photoshop Elements for at least 3 years. I'd finally reached the limitations of the software and kept finding all these neat thing I wanted to do that you can only do in Photoshop CS (the $700 professional version). Argh. So, I downloaded the 30 day free trial from Adobe and I bought some discounted CS3 software that should be here soon.

I'm already thrilled that I did it. Here are a few pictures:

I used the V! Revolution Vintage Bleach RAW preset by Michelle Black and overlaid a texture at 35% opacity. Then I used the burn tool in a few areas around the face and around the edges of the photo to give it a vignette look. Oh yes, I also erased or seriously lightened the texture overlay for most of Holden's face.




Here, I used Michelle Black's Moderna Barely X RAW preset and a Michelle Black texture with some burning to again create a vignette look.





This is the Moderna Luscious X RAW preset. Guess who made it? Yep, Michelle Black again.





This is the Michelle Black Black and White Rich Mocha RAW preset with a violet satin texture overlay by Leenda K set at 25% opacity.

I love these RAW presets by Michelle Black. She also has some wonderful actions for Photoshop CS that I love as well. Her Essential Black and White conversions are gorgeous, with rich depth and colors. I love the Rich Mocha preset so much, I may eat it.