Today was one of those days, when you pull the memory card out of the reader and hit the delete key on every image take so far today because they was nothing worthy of showing anyone, let alone myself. Which is when I usually ask my kids for ideas. So here’s my son enjoying a banana. I had to do a little work in the post as this was initially poorly underexposed, mainly due to the poor lighting conditions in my dining room! Here’s my photo for day #9
ISO 1000 ƒ/2.8 T 1/60
Here’s the saved JPG from the RAW file(yes, there is a little more wiggle room with a RAW file, but i’ve had this work equally as well using High JPG’s):
It’s just a bit dark, because of time I just used Aperture(Mac App Link) for the processing:
I adjusted the exposure so that the histogram was just touching the right hand side and played around with a few others tools as you can see in the screen shot above.
It’s a fun image and nice Monday save.
I’m just starting this list of books that have been helpful to me. There are Amazon links included.
Photography Books
Art of Photography-Bruce Birnbaum
Amazon Link
This book reads like a text book. It’s an exhaustive text. This book really got me thinking about the process of creating art through photography. Photography is not just about snapping a photo and hoping for the best. The setup, composition, lighting, exposure and development of the digital negative all matter. I especially enjoyed the chapters on development of the negative and creation of the print. Even though most of book mentions film photography the message applies to a digital work flow as well. Not even the film photographers print photos straight out of the camera. If you’re a fan of photography and want to expand your horizons, this is a great start.
On-Camera Flash Techniques for Digital Wedding and Portrait Photography-Neil van Niekerk
Amazon Link
I really had no idea how to use my on camera flash until I picked up this book. I always thought on camera flash photos looked liked flash photographs. Then I picked up this book, it got me thinking about the way I use my flash and what I needed to learn to get better shots when you have no other choice but to use a flash. Wedding photographers, in my humble opinion are on camera flash pros. Receptions are usually dark places. Neil van Niekerk really explains is approach in a way that that made sense to me. He extensively discusses snoots and other flash modifiers that is helpful especially if you’re not sure what to buy.
This is my daughter hanging over the couch today! Day 8 of 366.
ISO1000 ƒ/4 T1/40
So here’s the saved JPG from the RAW file:
I liked this, but I decided to go with sepia tones and to crop the image square as well. So here’s a screenshot of my edits in Aperture
Here’s another image from today I thought was fun:
See all the fun you can have hanging over the couch!
Good friends of ours have two dogs Bella and Mitzy, the Maltese sisters. Whenever we go over for a visit my daughter wants to play with them. So today we got to play with the dogs, so I grabbed a few pics along the way.
ISO 1000 ƒ/4 T 1/100
Post processing was handled in Aperture(Mac App Link) as I was pleased with its B&W conversion. Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW file:
I liked the lighting but wanted to clean it up a bit so here’s a screenshot of my saved edits in Aperture:
As you’ll notice I did do a bit of dodging to her face and i burned the background just a bit as well in addition to the vignette, sorry I haven’t figured out to show burning and dodging in a still image. Maybe someday I’ll get brave enough to do a video screen capture.
Here are some other captures from today as well:
Had a few minutes at home today and noticed these tulips in the kitchen window. The light was fairly harsh at the time I took this photo so I decided to try a bit of processing to see what I could come up with.
ISO 1000 ƒ/7.1 T 1/2000 at 62mm
Here’s the initial jpg saved from the RAW file:
So I didn’t do a whole lot in Aperture but I did do some minor levels adjustment and added a bit of contrast as seen in the Screenshot below:
Which led to this image:
So then I opened the file up in OnOneSoftware’s Perfect Effects 3, which is included in the Perfect Photo Suite
I added 2 effects one Snappy Warm and then I added a new layer and added the Polachrome filter and adjusted the opacity to 50% on the top layer to soften it just a bit…
Tulips in black and white always intrigue me, while I love the color of tulips, there is something about the soft textures of their petals that comes out when the color is removed.
Came home from work and it was dark but I found one of my kids Piggy Bank’s. So I decided to see what I could do with it. Here’s my final image, Note if click on the image a larger image can be viewed :
ISO 100 ƒ/2.8 T 1/40 at 50mm with an off camera flash unit to camera right bounced of the slanted ceiling.
Here’s the saved JPG file from the RAW file, note I use Aperture for my initial RAW processing
A tad bit dull, but again I slightly underexposed the image to help remove the background clutter, so here are my edits in Aperture(Mac App Link):
From here I opened the file up in Perfect Photo Effects 3 from OnOneSoftware’s Perfect Photo Suite and used the Glow>Deep Forest effect for the final image. I think a few edits have been helpful.
Sadly, this piggy bank is empty.
Busy day at work today, left only some time to play with Kitchen Utensils. I have no idea where this spoon came from, but I liked the various colors, so I decided to play around with Depth of Field.
ISO 1000 ƒ3.5 t 1/30, plus an off camera flash bounced off the ceiling, placed at camera right
Here’s the saved jpg from the RAW:
A little washed out, so a few quick edits in Aperture(Mac App Link), a slight crop and a few other things as noted in the screen shot below:
Today’s image is not the greatest I’ve ever created, but I enjoy the challenge of attempting to make an interesting image of a wooden spoon!
So I got an idea to try some cross lighting today. So I got home tonight and grabbed one of the many toys around my house and grabbed a flash and used a cheap Cowboy Studio off camera flash trigger to light the ball.
ISO 1000 ƒ5.6 T 1/160
I purposely underexposed the image just a touch so that I didn’t pick up the table in the frame. Here’s the RAW image:
Kind of drab and dull but a start… So I did some quick edits in Aperture(Mac App Link):
Which provides a good start:
So then I wanted to remove the color so the eye was lead to the geometry, so into OnOneSoftware’s Photo Suite 6:
Then back into Aperture for a final crop and some slight sharpening on the ball. I think it turned out better than I was expecting.
Even though today was a holiday here in the USA, I went to work for most of the day, but headed home a bit earlier than I usually do. I found this “Hand Cultivator” in the kids sandbox. I just always called these and other hand garden tools “Trowels” but a quick check at Homedepot.com(this link will show both a trowel and a hand cultivator) and I discovered that a Trowel is a Trowel and this is a Hand cultivator. I guess it could be called a hand rake as well. Ok, enough, it’s a Garden tool that has turned into a sandbox toy.
ISO 1000 ƒ/4 T 1/160 at 70 mm
Here’s the original Saved jpg of the Raw file:
Here’s how the image looks after a few quick edits in Apple’s Aperture(Mac App Link):
That looks better, but I wanted to see what a ground glass effect would do to the blurred areas. For that I jumped into OnOneSoftware’s Photo Suite 6:
So I added to filters on two different layers. The Sunglow-Glow and the Ground Glass- Texturizer I adjusted the opacity of the texturizer to 61%.
Now I know the difference between a trowel and a hand cultivator.
Spent a great New Years Day in the backyard tossing the football around. My son loves to get his football jersey on and helmet and then punt the ball to me and if I catch it I’m supposed to run it back for a touchdown! Here’s my first photo posted of 2012.
ISO 1000 F/2.8 T1/3200
Here’s the original Raw File(saved as a JPG for posting)
Looked pretty good but I wanted to focus the eyes on the nose of the ball…
So I played around with the sliders a bit in Aperture(Mac App Link) which led to the final image.. I think it’s an improvement.
