Strawberries

We bought some strawberries from the farmer's market on thursday. For the market to table theme on one of the Flickr groups I'm following I took these pictures.

I'm not really happy with the strawberries and am planning to re-shoot them differently when we get more strawberries.

This is SOOC:


This is PP'd- curves layer (S-curve):


Here's the yummy salad I made using the strawberries:


All are dim window light with white reflectors to bounce back more light from the window. It was pretty stormy outside while I was shooting the strawberries, so I used the tripod. I need to remember to photograph the set-up as well the next time.

Garlic

PP'd with curves layer and sharpened




PP'd with soft light overlay ( I think...) and sharpened.

Both outdoors on my stone patio on a overcast day.

Cropped images

Hmmm... not sure why it chopped off the sides of the images. Must've been because I uploaded from Flickr. Here are the full size images: My Flickr

Food again

I'm not sure if it's because I like photographing food or if it's just a more willing subject that a 5 year old or a toddler, but here are some shots from another practice session.

Here it is straight out of the camera (SOOC)


Here it is post processed (PP'd):


Natural light from a window. No reflector. I wish the shadows underneath weren't so dark- I should've used a reflector. Processing- I brought up the midtones with a curves layer, then added a multiply layer on just the garlic since there wasn't a lot of detail visible with the SOOC shot.



I got some beautiful eggs from someone and decided to try shooting them as well-

This one is PP'd, but just with a simple S curve on the curves layer and an Unsharp Mask. It is also natural light coming from where the top of the image is with me standing above them.

Here they are with more of a rim light-

It's actually the same lighting, I'm just positioned a little below level with them.

Here's PP'd:

I believe it was just a simple curves layer.

Food

Yellow bell pepper- over exposed in the red channel according to my Photoshop highlight warning blinkie:



Senigang- a delicious soup. I wish I had done it against a darker background so that I could've captured the steam a little better. Looks a little underexposed to me now that I've uploaded it to the web. I'm not sure if that's really the case or just different color profiles. I need to figure that out. Also should've sharpened both of these images.


I've found some really great food photography related blogs that I've put on my Google Reader so I can keep up with new posts and scan the titles of old posts and read them obsessively :)

Still Life With - this one has a Flickr group associated with it, along with monthly challenges that I'd like to participate in. (Note to self, build confidence up to post....)
Jaden's Steamy Kitchen
Teri Shoots Food

Hmm....food photography is fun....

Lighting Boot Camp part 1

At the suggestion of one of the group's mentors, we've been going through a lighting "boot camp." The idea was to analyze the images- where are the shadows, are the pleasing shadows or not, does the image has a 3 dimensional quality or is it more flat, etc. Our first assignment was direct lighting from a single source in the 3 basic positions- front, side and back. Next was to repeat the exercise, but diffuse the light in some way (I used a plain white sheet of paper) to see the difference between direct and diffused lighting). We also added in a second light source on the 2nd assignment to see how that affected the shadows. For the third assignment, we went back a single source, but used a reflector opposite the light to see how it differed from using 2 lights.

All of the exercises were very interesting and I definitely learned a few things. Direct front lighting is not flattering at all- it's why the first advice given to anyone trying to take better pictures is to turn the flash off. Side lighting definitely lends dimensionality, but a 90 degree sidelight would be flattering only in a limited number of scenarios, children's portraiture would likely not be one of those situations. A 45 degree angle was much better. Diffused lighting is nice and I really loved the effect of pointing lights at a piece of white foamcore board-


Very soft, dimensional light. I also really like the reflector lighting, the greatest differences seen with one 90 degree sidelight with reflector opposite (from left to right it was light, subject, reflector- or could be switched to reflector, subject, light) and a backlit subject with the reflector in front. I struggled a bit with getting the reflector in a position to reflect light well, but also to be able to get the angle of shot I wanted.

Images for the boot camp are all here.

Next, we're moving onto natural light.

Commercial vs. Portraiture

I find myself almost giddy with the possibilities of fields of photography to explore. At this point, most interesting to me are child & family portraiture and commercial food photography. I love a beautiful, well done portrait of a child- one that really captures their personality. I also love well done food photography- those image that make you want to cook a certain recipe right now because that image with the recipe can make you almost taste it. I've ordered a food photography book to start looking into it. Who knows, maybe that'll be the direction I go for a while when we move and my in-house portrait subjects are really, really over having their picture taken. Or maybe I'll go there first. We'll see!

Photography Workshop

I'm on the waiting list for Wendy Shulz Photography Class. I should be able to get into the class just after the first of next year (2009), which works out well. It gives us a chance to get moved and settled a bit as well as actually afford the $500 fee. It's a small online class, 6 students, 12 weeks long. THere are 6 assignments broken down into 2 week blocks and lots of individual attention. I am really, really excited! The class has gotten numerous excellent reviews on the vendor review site I visited.

On that note, I am currently working on a metering and exposure study group through the ilovephotography.com (ILP) site. I posted a thread wondering if anyone else was struggling and wanted to work together & got a pretty great response. We've been putting together assignments with the help of a couple of mentors that we recruited. Of course the reality is that only a few people are actually participating, but so be it. I've taken the responsibility for keeping it moving forward and am getting a lot out of it. Currently we are working through a lighting boot camp where we are using artifical lights to just see how light falls. The lights are set up in a variety of scenarios and images are posted for analysis. It's been really helpful for me and I"m starting to look at light differently- what direction is it coming from, how harsh or soft is it, times when a lighting scenario would be appropriate for certain subjects but not others.

My theory on it is that if I'm going to pay $500 for a photo course, I want to go from OK to good, not from mostly unknowledgeable to just OK. I can do this work on the front in and go into the course with a fair amount of knowledge to build on.

It also just feel so good to really start moving forward with photography.

Exposure practice 4/12/08

My 2 best from a practice session yesterday. Metered for their skin, which I'm having more luck with than using the gray card, though I'm not sure why.

Exposure practice 4/6/08

Metered for gray card.

Overexposed- there's some loss of detail on the right side of her face


Adjusted in ACR to have 1/3 stop less exposure, resulting in good exposure.


So much to learn.

An Introduction

I've dreamed for years of taking beautiful pictures. I've read photo magazines and even taken a few classes, though the dream often got pushed to the background to make room for the rest of life. With the birth of my children and the finalizing of the 12 long years in pursuit of my husband becoming an anesthesiologist, that dream has become something I can't push to the background any longer.

It's my turn to pursue my dream. I dream of beautiful images that capture the pure joy of play in a child. I dream of ones that capture the impish-ness, the life, the beauty and hope they represent for the future. I look at images that make me tear up because they stir something in my soul and I want to take pictures like that. For me, a well done portrait is art, pure and simple. It isn't a relaxing endeavor by any means. As I start this concerted and organized process of learning the technical, then aesthetic aspects of portrait photography, it is maddeningly frustrating. I want to be that good already and I'm not. At the same time, it is deeply satisfying to be pursuing the dream I've had for so long.

Welcome to my journey.