162/365

Picture info: ISO 100, 1/1600, f/3.50, 18mm, Av

I took a walk in downtown Kirkland today. Saw these boats lined up and had to get a shot.

In PP I tried to do a manual vignette instead of the automatic. I "hand cut" the vignette with the lasso tool and then increased the opacity of it. Not sure if I like it so much.

115/365

Picture info: ISO 400, 1/250, f/5.60, 187mm, Av

I spent the afternoon mowing the lawn, trimming hedges and weed whacking. In between tasks, I threw the ball for Bella. Somehow I found an extra one, so she had 5. I thought a shot of her toys and her bountiful backyard (Bella heaven) would be cool.

And, the obligatory desaturation and coloring of one object, of course. (can you tell I'm learning Photoshop?)

57/365

 

Picture info: ISO 400, 1/160, f/1.80, 50mm, Av

Not much of a picture today... but the day's not over! I may not be home in time to post a picture for today as I have a show in Tacoma. We go last, so I know I won't be back, unless I email it, BlackBerry style.

Anyway, this is a shot of my new LCD. The old one was getting some burn in and, well, I wanted a wide screen. I spent a lot of time today working in PS Elements and updating Flickr some. The boy in the picture is a friend's son and he's playing with a new birthday toy he got a few weeks ago.

In the meantime, I'll have some good music shots tonight, and I hope you'll check out my flickr pages.

48/365

 

Picture info: ISO 100, 1/160, f/3.20, 50mm, Av

Some friends have asked me to do a photo shoot this Friday of them and their kids. I heard Friday is supposed to be sunny so I took Hay out back into the bright yard to try some lighting shots. I've been doing some reading over the past few weeks and tried to see what I could come up with.

Obviously, direct sunlight was a mess. Dark shadows in the eye sockets and under the nose. Squinting on her face. Not usable, really.

For this picture, she stood on a rock with her back to the sun. It was bright enough out to not need any auxiliary lighting, but now that I'm thinking about it, maybe a white/silver reflector to bounce some light back into her face a little.

Anyway, I liked the halo around her hair, though there are some strands that are tinted red right at her part that I didn't try to fix (don't know how!)

I also did some layer work in Photoshop Elements. She had some Thin Mints at lunch and there were remnants under her bottom lip. Plus she still had some sleep in her eyes (re: eye boogers). I applied a trick with desaturating the photo and running a high-pass filter over it (technique cribbed from the Strobist site). I also dodged (lightened) her eyes a little. Here's the before shot:

 

Maybe next time I'll get a hairstylist prior to shooting. :)