I had some fun yesterday creating a still life featuring a coffee cup and then editing with 2 different presets from Kim Klassen’s Studio. The top photo is edited using the gentle preset, and the bottom one has the chocolate preset applied (faded quite a bit with the Fader and additional contrast reduced).
From our weekend wandering at Willow Lake
Lensbaby Edge 80
Textured with Kim Klassen’s bamboo for Texture Tuesday
The sun came out for awhile last weekend, but it was still cold as I ventured out to my studio (AKA garage) for a photo session. I opened the garage door for natural light, set what was left of my latest Trader Joe’s bouquet on some bead board, and had fun with my Edge 80 for as long as I could stand the cold. I tilted the lens down and to the left, focusing on the scissors for this shot. I liked the result and added texture to the image for Texture Tuesday.
And here is the same photo with a black and white conversion.
Happy Tuesday!
This may look like a very simple, ordinary still life to you- but to me it represents a breakthrough!
Mastering the combination of appropriate aperture, manual focus, and correct tilt of the Lensbaby has been a challenge to say the least. To create this still life, I had some seemingly simple goals. I wanted window light, soft focus on the window and edges of the photo, and, most importantly, the face of the little girl figurine/vase to be in focus. It was the last goal that was, of course, the most difficult. Out of the 31 photos I snapped, two had good focus on the face. This actually represents improvement to me!
I wasn’t thinking I would use the Lensbaby on still life, but now I see that I like the effect- and that, with lots of patience, I can create the correct focus and the amount of blur I want. Yay! In fact, still life is probably what I SHOULD be practicing on, because it is, well, STILL!
This was taken with the Sweet 35 optic at f/4. Textured with painterly and chill by Kim Klassen.
For Be Still- 52. Week 30 (a fresh start for 2015) and Texture Tuesday
This is one of my first images using my brand new (drum roll, please!) Lensbaby for my Nikon!!! Santa was very good to me this year- he brought me the Lensbaby Composer Pro System kit, which includes the Sweet 35, the Sweet 50, and the Edge 80 optics- and a couple macro converters. The Sweet 35 was attached to the Composer Pro, so that’s what I used for all my photos (I actually haven’t learned how to swap optics as yet). There is quite a learning curve with Lensbaby- more than a few of the photos I shot were completely out of focus- but I knew to expect that.
The above image DOES have a sweet spot of focus in the tree, blurring off into the clouds. I decided to convert it to black and white and texture it in Photoshop.
I am beyond excited to have these new toys to play with on my camera!
BTW, I’m taking a bit of a blog break- more of a long weekend, actually- to play with my Lensbaby and, more importantly, spend time with my family. I’ll be back Tuesday or Wednesday. See you then!
What to photograph on a gloomy, gray, drizzly day? Macros of bright Christmas cactus blooms!
Both images are edited with textures from Florabella. The top also has an oil paint filter added from within Photoshop.
The latest assignment in BeStill 52 was to shoot a backlit image of a chair in front of a window. I was stymied at first, because our windows are all tinted here to protect us from the Arizona sun, creating a difficult lighting situation for photography. Then I remembered the frosted front door window, which has un-frosted portions, letting in a bit of natural light.
Both images are textured with Kim Klassen’s anna texture for Texture Tuesday.
Friday night was Acker Night in Prescott, when most of the downtown businesses- restaurants, bars, shops, banks etc.- host musical acts to benefit music programs in town. It went on for blocks, and I have never seen such huge crowds downtown. We only managed to see a few blocks worth of entertainment during our walk around town with our friends, Debbie and Dale, but it made for a fun evening. Below are a few of the acts we enjoyed.
The group below was probably the most fun performance, and this photo is the only one I have of these guys not looking straight into the camera. I discovered that, in a small space, it is just about impossible to be unobtrusive with a camera- even though I was surrounded by iPhoneographers. I only brought my 50mm lens, which was a mistake. I chose it because of its sharpness and low-light capabilities, but found that the focal length on my crop sensor camera made it difficult in tight quarters (next year, I’ll use my 35mm).
I couldn’t resist taking a shot of Dale in his hat- it really suits him!
I loved this old truck we saw along the way.
And eventually it was time to say good-bye to the lights of downtown Prescott and head home.
Editing notes for the curious:
The layout of 4 photos in the beginning were all editing experiments in Lightroom using the Fader plug-in I downloaded a month or so ago and promptly forgot about. If you have a lot of presets like I do, you might enjoy this handy little plug-in. Basically, when you want to use a preset, you choose it from within the Fader and then have the ability to reduce the opacity of the effect, like you would in Photoshop. I normally tweak presets myself, but this gives me the ability to dial it up or down while looking at the results- very cool. What I don’t like about it is FINDING the plug-in in the menu in Lightroom- it’s not hidden, just inconvenient. I wish Lightroom gave you the option to assign keystrokes to an item on the menu- or does it?
The photo of the country band was edited using my trial version of Topaz Impression (which unfortunately expired yesterday)- textures added in Photoshop. The photos of Dale and the truck with the Santa hat also have added textures. The textures were from Kerstin Frank, Shadowhouse Creations, and Kim Klassen.
I’m finding I feel a lot more like doing still life photography now that I have a space dedicated to it- even if it is in the cold garage! Here are some odds and ends I put together over the weekend.
All are textured with Kim Klassen’s reentry texture for Texture Tuesday.
This was fun- and trickier than I thought! The BeStill52 challenge was to create a square, top-down composition where subjects were arranged on two sides of the square, leaving some negative space. Now, I am a big fan of negative space- but somehow these compositions were hard for me. I struggle with top-down photography anyway. I’m short, so getting the bird’s eye view involves standing on a chair or ladder. The second photo was easier for me, because I deliberately used small objects and shot it standing on the floor- yippee!
The photo below is of two old photo albums- my grandmother’s and my father’s. I didn’t see either of them until after my parents were gone, so wasn’t able to ask questions about them. I’m so curious about the open album on top- look how the photos are cut and arranged artistically! My father graduated from high school in Wolf Point, Montana about 1919 (!), and these photos appear to be of him and his high school friends. Was my father really a scrapbooker? I wonder if one of his girlfriends put the albums together for him. Anyway- it is VERY cute! My grandmother’s album features family photos from the 1920’s, often involving camping trips and excursions to the beach. The photo of the three children is my mother (left) with her brother and sister- taken around 1915.
And here is the photo of smaller objects- much easier to photograph!
Both photos are textured with Kim Klassen’s breakfree texture for Texture Tuesday.
Textured with Kim Klassen’s kk_thewait for Texture Tuesday
Here are a few more photos from last weekend’s walk in the neighborhood:
And here is another attempt at ICM (intentional camera movement)- this time edited with Topaz Impression (one of the Cezanne presets) and textured with Kim Klassen’s chill texture.
Linking up with Texture Tuesday today.
melinda anderson photography 