Catching Dreams

I spent almost the entire day editing photos from fun outings that I never got to. It was a nice way to distract myself from being so upset about my lack of sufficient financial aid (and the very real possibility that I will, yet again, have to consider taking a year off to earn enough money for college).

One of the photos I edited was from my Indiana visit in March, when some friends and I joined Sandra's husband at the City Methodist church to celebrate him acing the EMT test. Which version do you like better? If neither, what did I do wrong?

Here are a few of my favorite black and white shots of each girl from the past couple weeks (that I've edited in the past 24 hours, anyway).

My ex-classmate and now partner in crime (literally, if you ask J. Imes), Katie, in action.

My fellow brown girl and new model, Abby. I so want to steal her hair. Watch out, guuurl!

The super-adorable and equally sweet Becca, who I hope to work with more. I love meeting people like her!

The ridiculously gorgeous Emily. No one will ever be able to rock that hair accessory the way that she did. 

The awesome and adventurous girl I can't believe I didn't meet years ago, Ellen. Do you believe in soul-pals? LOL

And, of course, today's photo. It's just a snapshot of part of our newest dreamcatcher, which I'll be using during this weekend's fun Native-American-inspired photoshoot with, of course, the fabulous Katie Dawes!

I cannot wait for this weekend. Hanging out with my friends has seriously been so much more beneficial to me than they could imagine. I'm going to hate when we all become too busy to have these weekends anymore.

Anyway, time for bed! Goodnight, y'all. :)

Dawes, Ortiz, and the E's

Today was an absolutely wonderful day, even if it did end with me sobbing uncontrollably. My friend Kaytlin ( Katie Dawes Photography) and her two friends Emily and Ellen came from over an hour away to do a just-for-fun senior photoshoot.

We started off at the same barn where those awesome vintage cars were (see http://xolexo.blogspot.com/2011_06_12_archive.html), but come to find out, the property was NOT abandoned, and the neighbors were far from friendly. They called the owner and gave him our license numbers, and he was SUPPOSEDLY on his way, but after waiting half an hour to no avail, we left. However, I did leave the man a message with my name, number, and a heartfelt apology for the mistake.

Once we left, we went straight to the Muskingum river for some more photo fun. Here are my favorite shots of the models:

Ellen lying on the mossy ground. She was possibly the most daring model I've ever worked with, and that's really saying something. :) Thank you, Ellen!

Emily sitting on a rock in the river. She, like Cortney (of my church senior shoot), never stopped shocking me with her adorability. :) Thank you, Emily!

I wish I had the time tonight to edit a photo of Katie, but don't worry, you'll see one soon. Don't think you got off that easy, Kaytlin!!! ;D

In case you were wondering, the owner of the property did end up calling me back, and though his voice was so sweet, his words were anything but. I couldn't stop crying for almost two hours after speaking with that bloke due to a cruddy mixture of my already overactive emotions, a lack of antidepressants (ran out yesterday), sleepiness, guilt for my misunderstanding and accidental offense, and overwhelming sadness about the fact that a property so beautiful will go unappreciated. Regardless of how uncalled for his name-calling and harsh words were, I was wrong for assuming the property was abandoned. I have learned a valuable lesson from this day:
     Don't just assume that a burnt down property strewn with rusty old ivy-ridden vehicles that obviously haven't been cared for in years (and, for the record, has not ONE "private property" or "no trespassing" sign) is abandoned. If you're going to shoot somewhere, RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH!

On the bright side, that man did mention a nearby, similarly aged hotel that IS open to the public [while he was calling me an idiot, mind you], so I will definitely be checking into THAT. To every dark cloud...


As for August 3rd's photo, I'm going to leave that for another day because it involves multiple photos and this post is already far too long. Instead, I will give you August 4th's photo, taken by a pier during a break from some random ride. I will probably edit it properly in the future, but for now, I hope you'll enjoy the 2-minute edit. Goodnight!

P.S. Chloe's comment has not gone ignored. I intend to post the unedited version of the dandelion pic in a post with less content.

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 1

The key to making a template is to make everything impermanent. It may be a challenge, but there's always a way to make a change temporary in Photoshop. You just have to find loopholes!

A template starts with a blank white or black canvas. I started mine with a 5x7, 300 px resolution white canvas because 5x7 is a nice, standard photo size that can easily be changed to either 8x10 or 4x6.

Let's begin with something simple. Using your rectangle tool, make a shape that covers roughly three-fourths of the canvas in the opposite color (for instance, I have a white canvas, so I'm making a black rectangle.)

Now, make another shape in gray. This can be any shape you want from the Photoshop presets. It should be between half and two-thirds the height of the canvas and however wide as you see fit. You can always change the size as we go. Place it where you think a photo would look nice.

Use Ctrl+J or Command+J to duplicate the layer twice. Line the three objects up so that at least two overlap your black rectangle. Look! We already have some sort of design. This is technically already a generic starter template.

ADDING PHOTOS


Place your photo over whichever shape you want it to occupy. Resize as needed.

With your cursor on the line between the photo and the shape layer, hold down your Alt key and click the line. This is called creating a Clipping Mask. The photo will only show up where the shape is. you can move the photo around to get the correct placement.

From now on, any changes you make with the shape layers will be applied to the photos. For instance, if you change the gray layers to "Hard Light", the photos will appear to be set to Hard Light although they are still normal photos. You can change the Blending Options any time you want.


Part two will come soon enough. For now, experiment with this method. Make your own different starter templates, and show me what you do! :)

All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

 Couldn't decide which orientation was better, so you get both. 

Yeeeeah, I have to be honest: yesterday, I did not take a photo. No, I wasn't uninspired or anything. I was just having a terribly manic day-- seriously, I went from maniacally happy to so angry that I couldn't see straight anymore for no reason whatsoever!-- so I thought I should just force myself to sleep. In place of yesterday's photo, I thought I'd share the only picture I managed to edit.

The beautiful Ms. C, whose senior shoot will be an entire portfolio in itself. :D

I don't know what's wrong with me, but after yesterday and today's equally extreme health issues, I'm really worried. It's probably a medication problem, in which case it'll be over soon (luckily, I have a dr.'s appointment this week), but if it's not, I don't want it to jeopardize what I've been trying to build these past few weeks (/months?). Please bear with me. I'm trying my best!

On the plus side, today was a wonderful day otherwise. There was a huge cross in the sky made of strange dark clouds, and I reheheally wish I'd had my camera on me to capture it. It was so amazing to see. Hopefully, someone else experienced the great anomaly, too. Otherwise I may be sicker than I thought... LOL


Goodnight!

Reminisce

Today, I received a call from one of my middle/high school close friends who I've lost touch with in the past few years. It really made my day. We talked until his phone died! In honor of him and the chain of reminiscence he started, I thought I'd take a photo that had to do with memories.

Little did I know, that was the daily challenge. LOL So much for creativity.

My high school graduating class.