Needs Advice by Sunday

There is a girl from Indiana who really likes my work and is looking for a photographer for her sister's wedding. I'm definitely interested in shooting this wedding (which will be Sept. 8 of 2012), but because I know by then I will still have little or no wedding experience, I told her I wasn't comfortable doing it alone. Of course, I recommended Sandra right off the bat. I also told her I don't know what I would charge, so I would research during the week and let her know by Sunday. She's such a sweet girl, and besides, I am supposed to shoot a cousin's wedding around the same time anyway, so why not?

Well, I've searched my behind off for answers, and as you can imagine, I've gotten nowhere. Thus far, all I can think of as a compromise is to find her a photographer that wouldn't mind having me as a second-shooter or whose work would be similar enough to mine to satisfy her. Do you have any ideas/advice? Should I just throw out something like a $75-per-hour price and find my own second-shooter to give some of the money to?


Anyhow, yesterday I was supposed to post pics from orientation and, since august 5th's photos are to be lumped with a different day's photos, I would skip to the 6th's. So here are those, barely and carelessly edited because I need to get to bed. Sorry!

Waiting patiently for our first advising session at Ohio State.

Pride.

Evidently it rained a little on the 6th. I had to giggle when I saw this because I'm pretty sure I've already taken a photo very similar... Guess I just really like that, um, porch ornament?

Today, I give you the 7th's photo and two almost completely untouched photos from this evening's photo "adventure". (vignetted and shrunken. oh, the editing. lol)

It may have rained on the 6th, but the 7th was sunny and warm!

Speaking of sunny and warm.

I'm still trying to figure out how he got out there. And how he's dry.

Lastly, I wanted to post that one unedited dandelion pic. This is what happens when you crank up the saturation and contrast settings on your Shooting Mode (in my case, Landscape mode is my chosen "default").

Are your eyes shriveling yet?

Time to hit the hay! I have less than 6 hours to sleep before I head out with my friend Katie to see the Ohio State Reformatory (site of the Shawshank Redemption and numerous other famous films). They don't allow "professional" cameras, so my pics will be lower quality than usual. Still, I CAN'T WAIT! AAAAAAH!!!!!

Goodnight. :)

P.S. Happy birthday, Aunty Julie! I love you more than the sun, the moon, and the chicken wings I always beg you to make.

Among the Ivy Leaves

I don't have anything to say today. It's a miracle. lol

Wishes at Rest

Today I felt like playing with two different methods of color splashing. For this photo, I took one in color and then converted it to BW in-camera. In photoshop, I placed the rectangles over the BW version, pasted the colored version on top, and created a clipping mask. The only other editing done was to Auto Contrast the two photos and add in the tag/quote. Sharpening was done in-camera. :-)

The bottom one is the usual kind of color splash, but again both versions of the photo were made in-camera. I hope you enjoy today's photos.

Portfolio and A Ditch

Oh, what a creative title.

My image for yesterday: BW Film Photography Portfolio-- Lines. Click for full size.

I spent 8 hours printing yesterday. Can you believe that?! EIGHT HOURS! That, my friends, is why I was not up to posting by the time I got home. Eight hours left me with a plethora of prints that were not perfect but were very decent, so I'm going to sell them for different prices depending on their quality at the art show on Friday. Yay! However, the above prints turned out perfectly (the scanner wasn't doing a very great job, so just take my word for it LOL), so they shall be my eight portfolio photos. The professor himself chose all but the first and last one, so I'm hoping for an A- or so. Maybe. *nervous mode* I can't believe this is due tomorrow already. ARGH!

Alright, enough of that.

Today's challenge was to take a photo featuring water in some way, so I headed down the street. With all the rain we've had lately, there was bound to be some water, right? Here's my shot in my preferred crop:

However, Sandra liked the flowers better and suggested this crop:

I find this amusing because we had such conflicting tastes when it came to this photo. Believe it or not, I detest flowers. I don't know why, but I do. They're great to photograph sometimes, but I just don't want to look at them very often. I favored the rock and the water on the left side of the photo instead, but figured the flowers would add some contrast and interest. Sandra, on the other hand, could do without the rock and the water and is a big fan of flowers. Most people-- normal people-- probably do.

That brings me to my somewhat photographically irrelevant question for you. What would you prefer: a rock, water, or a flower?

For Sandra

The competition. AKA the result of my practicing blurred water motion. Note to self: 1/10 is not slow enough! Use the tripod.

Splish Splash

Today was a photographic failure. I had to cheat so badly to get this photo. My white background had distracting silver brads on it, so blanked it out except for the shadows because this photo is extremely boring otherwise. I don't know. Hope you like it more than I liked editing it. lol

I thought I'd try this out thanks to Shayne Gray's inspiring post, but I couldn't get enough light no matter what I did, and then when I finally got my flash working how I wanted it, I couldn't find an object that would create a good splash. This tiny one was created by a heavy Mexican coin. You might be wondering "Why Mexican?" Well, the answer is that it's magnetic and I could use my nifty magnet pen to get it out of the water from behind my tripod. Laziness for the win!

Other objects I tried include a 50 cent piece, a gold dollar, a golf ball, and three different sizes of rocks since I had no fruit to use. Nothing created a splash. I'm starting to think that glass was cursed (or, uh, specially made not to splash?). Any pointers on what I should have done?

Prints, Edits, and Stripes

I took this photo a few days ago with my awesome new  High-Def  Panoramic Fisheye Lens (for the millionth time, THANK YOU SANDRA! *hug*) and somehow completely forgot about it. Came across it today while cleaning out a card and couldn't leave it behind. Hope it was worth it. :)

Now, today's challenge was to feature stripes somehow, so here are my photos for the day.

Wind chime from my bedroom window, using my 55-200 mm lens.

My poor, abused guitar by my other bedroom window. Today was all about daylight!

Finally, I will show you my terrible school prints, starting with the most overexposed: my dog, Ursa.

I've got a LOT of learning to do. Maybe next week will be better! *fingers crossed*

Lomo Droplets

Today, I felt like experimenting, so for the first time, I tried droplet photography. I'm pretty happy with it. Definitely something I'd like to try again. These were processed with my Lomo filter again (if you like the look, check out this tutorial).

This is what happens when you use Lomo processing on black and white photos.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!






In case you're curious, here's my setup:

A water-filled cup with a tiny hole in it inside a bandanna hung from my tripod over a pan half full of water with a mirror in the bottom. The pink came from a metal tin lid with checkers on it, but you can use anything you want for the reflections. I used my reflector because the room is so poorly lit.


It would be much easier to put the pan in a sink and turn the faucet on to a very slow drip, but my sinks were in use so I had to improvise.

The cup in the hanging bandanna from above.