Waiting for Rain

I made up my mind that I wanted to take pictures in the rain and while we were waiting, we took pictures along the Bike trail. There are a couple of really neat wooden bridges and I had Rachel model on them. I only had to crop and adjust the lighting in this photo.

Right as we got to the bark river, it started pouring and the pictures turned out nicely. I played with the overlay technique on this picture. I had a photo of a blue sky and perfect reflection of the clouds in the lake so I copied and pasted the reflection and overlayed it on this picture. I pasted it again, rotated it and made it a mirror image of the bottom half. I like the way the reflection in the river is not gray as would be expected during a storm.
I took the picture of Rachel dancing in the rain and overlayed a picture of a purple thistle from earlier in the day. I really like how the flower frames her and enhances the colors. I clone-stamped out a car and road signs from the background.

Self Portraits

Family is really important to me and since I will be graduating in a week, I think this photo works really well for a self portrait. My cousin, Angie, is 15 days younger than me and people would often mistake us for twins when we were younger. I took this picture of her and our cousin's daughter at Angie's graduation. I adjusted the color balance, applied a Blur to the background, enhanced their eyes and clone stamped a truck out of the background.

I took this picture at my cousin's graduation last weekend. The timeing was just about perfect and I managed to catch most people and their caps in the air. I am using this for a self portrait because I am nearing Graduation myself and this has largely been my frame of mind since spring break. I cropped the photo, adjusted the colors and contrast and clone stamped out the school name.

This photo was taken on the Outdoor stage and because of the natural shade in the courtyard, I think the lighting came out very nicely. In photoshop, I made my eyes pop and made color adjustments. I also applied a Guassian Blur to the background.

Falling

“Falling” - Iration

We met at a concert
You were wearing converse
I'm not good at playing it cool
You said I was funny
I spent all my money...

What A Shame

"What a Shame" Shinedown

There's a hard life for every silver spoon,
A touch of gray for every shade of blue.
That's the way that I see life,
If there was nothing wrong then there'd be nothing right.

Portraits- Back Light (Silhouette)

To take the silhouettes, I turned the exposure down on my camera so that most of the detail was lost in the model. I took pictures of her posing and jumping but this one is definitly a combination of them both. She was either about to jump or just coming back down. The arch in her back and the poof in her skirt make her look like a ballerina. I worked on this photo a lot in photoshop because, originally, the picture was tilted with the horizon line running between the corners. I tilted the whole picture until the horizon line was straight, and then cropped a rectangle into it. The corners where then white so I used the Clone Stamp to bring the images out to the edges. I then applied a Gaussian Blur Overlay with an Opacity around 20%.

Portraits- Posing

This photo was taken in a two-foot wide alley downtown. The bricks bring in a lot of texture and I had Hannah prop herself up between the two walls. I adjusted the colors to make them warmer and cloned stamped out some signs in the background.

Yellow Wallpaper

In order to represent the "Yellow Wallpaper" I found a spot where the paint was peeling. I had my model hold onto the peeling paint like she was ripping it off the wall like the woman in the "Yellow Wallpaper" ripped down her wallpaper. The woman in the story also felt like she and the women in the wallpaper were trapped behind bars so I took the picture behind a railing. In photoshop, I cropped the picture and applied a Gaussian Blur Overlay and lowered the opacity.

Green

Green represents prosperity and renewal and it is a very refreshing color. The plants are plentiful and prosperous while the rain drops are very refreshing. I think that the way the leaves are overlapping creates movement and the rain drops add texture. In photoshop, I used the Soft Light Paintbrush to enhance the greens.

Pink

In this image, I wanted to prevoke the calmness of the color pink. The flower was hot pink and to avoid having that energetic feeling in the picture, I took the picture at sunset in low light. I also set the flower on a beach lifegaurd chair to bring the calm, relaxing feeling of the beach into the picture. In photoshop, I applied a Gaussian Blur Overlay to brighten the white in the chair and then I erased the flower to keep it the original color.

Blue

Blue is my favorite color, so naturally, I chose to use blue for one of my color images. Blue represents youth and empasizes quiet moods and contemplation. The two feelings are rather contrasting because children are typically energetic and loud. However, I tried to capture both the youthful and calm feelings in this photograph by taking a picture of a quiet playground. In photoshope, I applied a Gaussian Blur Overlay to enhance the colors. To blur the background and to make the monkey bars stand out more, I flattened the image and then applied a Gaussian Blur to the whole image and erased the blue monkey bars. Lastly, I used the Hue Paint Brush to tone down the orange color in the shorter set of monkey bars to make sure the colors weren't competing.

Attractive

I think fruit is generally something that is attractive because of its natural color. Here, however, someone left an orange peel in the grass instead of throwing it in the garbage. I took this photo at grass-level and postitioned the camara so the orange peel would fall in the bottom third and the fense in the top third. In photoshop, I enhanced the color of the orange making it slightly darker.

Attractive

I used this for one of my attractive photos because the detail and coloring on the fish is beautiful. However, the fact that it was caught and is now being held is, in my opinion, repulsive. The worm on the hook is also visible and I tend to be easily grossed out about worms and fish in general. The photo was taken around high noon on a sunny day so I used photoshop to soften the lighting on the hand and remove the shine on the fish's scales. This was a difficult subject because I wanted to have good compostition, but at the same time I had to hurry so we could get the fish back in the water. I fit the subjects into the bottom two thirds leaving the top third open and the fish's head and worm fall in the right third.

Repulsive

In this photo, I used rust as an example of something repulsive. This was taken at the new fishing pier at Fowler and I think it's repulsive that something new is already showing signs of aging. It's difficult making a pole into the focal point of the image, but in order to do so, I took the picture at a different angle and made the pole slant through the image. The pole falls on the right third and the horizion on the top third to add some compostition interest. The colors in the background are all shades of gray so I used photoshop to enhance the red and orange colors in the rust to make them stand out.

Repulsive Photo

The repulsion in this photo arises through the over growth of the weeds and moss. The green colors of different shades add to the attraction of this photo. I think the detail in the weed also adds to the attraction because complexity is often beautiful. What I like most about this picture is the angle. I set the camara on the ground and shot upwards at the weed. Because of the slant in the weed, the base is very centered but the "sprout" shoots up into the upper right third.

Filters

Blur/Overlay Blur/Overlay

"Glowing Edges" Filter
"Fresco" Filter"
Neon Glow Blur

Nature's Alphabet

I searched for letters on a hike and consequently, I feel too many of my pictures are brown. I like color so I'm a little disappointed with the way the letters D-I look on the contact sheet. My favorite letters are P, Q and U because I was able to use more creativity to create them. I like the way the Macro turned out for P and U blurring the background. Q is interesting to me because it was created with a shadow falling on a log.

Space

For my Space Montage, I chose a backgound from National Geographic. The background has sand and water so I was able to play around with reflections and shadows. The images farther in the background are smaller as to create the illusion of space.

For our "Tiny Planet" assignment, I used a picture I had taken after a storm up north. The shorelines lined up well to begin with so that made it easier to make the seam disapear. The sun was beginning to set so the light on the trees is very warm and the colors are beginning to be reflected in the clouds.