Aw, Nuts!

248/365; Sept 16; Peanut in an oddly lit bar

Ohio State still hasn't gotten back to me, and Welcome Week starts on Monday, so I guess I'm not going. :-( Monday was supposed to be the day I went to campus to get my parking permit, locker, transfer credits straightened out, and some fun time during all the WW festivities. Doubly sad.

Oh well! Tomorrow's another day. I've applied at a couple more local photo studios and am hopeful. Also, tomorrow I get to spend the night at my friend Katie's house. We'll hopefully be taking some shots of her gorgeous baby sister dancing, preparing for Sunday's Native-American-inspired shoot, and just being our silly selves, so if I don't post for the next night or two, it's only because I'm busy taking a ton of pictures (or resting from it). :D

Now, just for fun, I'll throw a few of my favorite shots from my shoot with miss Brandy Cruz née Gilbert.

Unrelated

Actually, I lie. We are related.
This is half of a really big drawing of my cousins Gabriella and Juliana that I never finished. The pictured half is Juliana. I made the mistake of starting the coloring with her, but then when I finished her eyes, they creeped me out and I couldn't finish the drawing.

Sorry about what looks like grain. It's actually on a textured paper, and that texture was relentless. Grr.

What IS unrelated is July 31st's photo. I evidently did not leave the house that day, so my pic is just an uninspired snapshot of Grandma's fake flowers.

Feeling Statuesque

Since my photo for the 30th was of lawn statues, I figured today's classwork photograph would be of a DRAWING I made of a statue. Why not? We have a theme [or something].

July 30th's photo:

I seem to have a thing for grunging up lawn statue pics. And can you tell what my favorite texture is? lol

Today's (August 24) photo:

And now, seeing as it is 2:38 AM, I am going to sleep!

Puportrait Time!

Today, we let Ursa out in the front yard for the first time since she got hurt. She absolutely loved it up there. After awhile, though, none of us could see her from the doorway, so I went to check on her and maybe snap some action shots, but got a rather strange surprise. She was... in a bush?

Yes, in a bush. Evidently, Grandpa had poured some water in there a few hours beforehand, so it was nice and cool when Ursa decided to hang out there. We had a heck of a time getting her back inside. Grandpa had to pick her 70 pound self up! LOL Anyway, it was a good opportunity for me to get some shots of her! :)

Prettyful Things

Thursday's post did not include Thursday's actual photo since I was going to visit Sandra's that evening. Of COURSE I took photos there! It was fun playing around, even if we did get eaten by mosquitoes in the process. :D

Friday, July 1:
It was a lazy day, and I didn't feel like working with my Nikon, so I just grabbed the Sony Cybershot and attempted to take pictures in the living room. Crappy idea that led to crappy photos, but honestly I just didn't care. It was such a "meh" day.

Geometry

Saturday, July 2:
Photoshoot early in the morning with the Bow Knows Best people again. It was a lot of fun, even if the children begged to differ. :) They were so adorable!

Again, I am not posting today's photo right now. I'd like to see where today takes me.

Fun in the Sun

Today, the weather finally cleared up, and my aunt took us girls to the beach. It was such a fun evening. Hope to have more like it!

"Felicia"

My silly babies

A surprise guest joined us on the beach...

...and got a little wary of the waves.

Saying hello to meeeee

Alright, good mornight, guys! ;D

Losing Track

It's been something like a week now, and I've lost track of what photos were taken on what days (and since there are a TON of them, I'm not going to bother trying to find out), so I'm just going to throw a bunch of photos from this week at you. LOL Sorry guys! Today's photo(s) will not be included in this post because there is still half a chance I will get to go to the beach with my aunt and cousins.

On another note, I'm in Indiana with most of my loved ones. Having a blast despite the pain that comes with it! :D

Laundry day

Waterfight

Me taking a picture of my photographer friend Eric Garrett taking a picture of me.

Samantha reading her birthday card

... plant. lol

The Getaway

Robert making "the family face"

Two adorable little girls I had my first photoshoot of the summer with

My brother about to douse mom with ice water

Faces Contest Votes, Anyone?

I know that I haven't been keeping up with my blog for the past couple of weeks, and I'll explain why and post my photos when I am ready to, but for now, I'd like to cut to the chase.

I have submitted two series entries into the Faces Photo Contest, open to all photographers of any skill level. If you're interested, entries are priced as such:

SINGLE ENTRY: $35 per image
SERIES: $50 per series
STUDENTS: $20 (single OR series)


My Series entry into the Self Portrait Category is:

My Series entry into the Environmental Portrait Category is:

If you like these images, please vote for one of them under the People's Choice section. You are allowed one vote per e-mail address, so if you have multiple addresses, feel free to show some love! I'd truly appreciate it. The direct voting links are as follows:

Self
Photo 1: Moment of Weakness
Photo 2: Camouflage My Sadness
Photo 3: Fool the Public

Environmental
Photo 1: Miss C Takes a Breather
Photo 2: Mr. L Weighs His Options
Photo 3: Miss K Makes An Offer
Photo 4: Mr. D Takes a Gander
Photo 5: Miss S Has a Look


Thank you so much if you do spare a moment of your time to vote for me. :) If not, at least thank you for still following me here.

Template Tutorial: Part 2

Last time, I taught you  how to make a very simplistic, basic template using shapes and clipping masks. Now, it's time to spice it up!


Find a texture that you really like and place it over the background layer. I chose this texture by DyingBeautyStock because it seems universal enough for my needs.

If you want to change the color of the texture, you can use whatever method you want. Personally, I'm going to use the non-destructive method of adding a Solid Color fill layer over the texture in whatever color I want and setting its blending mode to Hue. That way I can change the color again any time I want in the future.

Add a layer mask to the rectangle layer. (Layer -> Layer Mask -> Reveal All) Use an interesting brush-- in my case, a grunge brush-- that is black and set to 100% Opacity to brush away the side in whatever fashion you please. Diagonally tends to be most interesting. Vary the opacity and the brush itself to make a fun, unique edge. Don't lose too much, though! You don't want to lost your background photo. If it helps, you can hide the overlapping layers so that you can see more of what you're doing.

Experiment with this method on the other three shapes too, but take care to remember not to mask too much away. Keep your black brush's opacity low.

Just for fun, I'm going to add a thin rectangle across the bottom to add sort of a ribbon effect.

The rest is up to you! Embellish where you want, adding borders or text or even other little shapes to make the template your own. I personally recommend changing the layer styles so that the photos and the background texture will match better. In my case, I changed the blend mode of the main shapes to Hard Light and then added a border called a Stroke to everything, including the ribbon.

I also changed the ribbon's blend mode to Darken and darkened the edges of the whole thing by creating a new layer, using a soft black brush to paint over the edges, and then changing the blend mode until I was satisfied. Here is my finished product minus text.

Remember that text follows the same basic rules as photos: play with the blending options and don't be afraid to experiment with Strokes!!! You can get some very interesting results.

Precious

Today's photo is a picture of a regularly edited photo I took over Spring Break, re-edited in my style. Most of the texture is in the original photo because my computer screen is extremely dirty... hahaha

Ah well. Hope you like it! :)

Also, I'm afraid I'm losing you guys, so I feel the need to make a tutorial. What are you all interested in learning to do?

Connection

Today, I made a very strange mental connection between the texture photo I snapped and a panned photo I took for my old digital photography class. The two were nothing alike, but once I tweaked their colors, the connection became a little clearer. Still, it's rather strange. Don't you think?

The Texture

Ye Olde Pan

Oddly enough, I just checked dailyshoot.com to find that today's challenge was to take a photo that emphasizes the horizon. Ha!

Spent the day editing photos rather than taking them yet again. I'd share, but I'm wiped. You'll see the best of them when I finish up this particular shoot! Goodnight. :)

Antiquity

After a long day of studying nothing but the Gothic period and the High Renaissance, I came home thinking about sfumato and chiaroscuro, Leonardo and Michelangelo, pointed arches and sensuous folds. Eventually, I gave in and decided to just take a picture that sort of mimics what I've been seeing all day long. Enjoy. (Please. lol)

In Front of the Glass

Okay, so today I just felt like studying photography and wasn't exactly up for executing it, so these are my quick shots. Perhaps one of them will strike your fancy.

Instead of taking some new pictures, I re-edited a few from yesterday and also have another photo of the corn silo taken from a slightly different location and orientation. Sandra, I hope it's a little more pleasing! :-)

Have a good evening.

Fore!

The Daily Shoot challenge was to take a photo from a low point of view. I was feeling all over the map so my photos are completely different. First up, we have... the blinds. Yes, the blinds. I get bored.

I was lying on my sofa playing with the settings on my camera when I shot this for the heck of it. I know it's really strange, but I like it for some odd reason.

Next, we have the bird. The cardinal, to be exact.

Definitely not a prize-winning creative masterpiece, but the reason I am posting this one is because it was almost completely unedited. I added a vignette and used the Unsharp Mask, but that was all. The contrast, the color, the framing, everything is right out of the camera. I've finally learned how to tweak my shooting mode settings so that there's more contrast and sharper edges without having to use the not-so-great Retouch Menu. I love learning things! Thank you, Manual.

Also, I spent hours today printing some of my negatives from the Minolta x-700. For the record, I am AWFUL at printing. One particular picture took me more than 9 tries just to get the contrast I wanted. What a waste of expensive Ilford paper!!! Luckily, we were able to get some more, but I have a feeling these boxes are going to go quickly. -sigh- Hopefully I can scan some of my decent prints and post them here for you guys to see my progress. :-)

Anyhow, enough rambling. Have a good night!