Photostory

Here it is! My photostory is a day in the life of a creemee stand employee, starting with waking up, and ending with a half-asleep drive home...

 Note: I originally had an embedded slideshow but it wasn't storing all of my pictures, so here is a link to the slideshow on Google+ .

Portraits

This assignment was harder than I thought it would be; in part, due to my inability to find time this week due to work, and sick/hospitalized family members (no worries everyone will be okay).  I kind wish that this assignment had been a week later, because I just found out I'm going to Boston Comic Con next week, and I will totally be able to get some killer photos!  Anyway, here are the photos I took from this week.  

The first is of my sister in her natural habitat in front of the computer, in the dark.  I found that not using flash, and just allowing the light of the computer to illuminate her, had the best affect.  She is definitely the focal point of the photo with everything around her, with the exception of the computer , shrouded in darkness.  I had taken many pictures of her face, but this was my favorite.  I like that her purple hair, and the downward angle obscure her face, but you still know exactly where her focus lies.  

The second photo is a self portrait.  I stuck my face between two open bathroom cabinets to create multiple mirrored faces.  When I was younger this was something I always enjoyed doing because, depending on the angle, you could see my face go on for infinity.  I thought it would be wicked cool to try this with a photograph.  Not only is it just cool looking; but portraits are to capture the likeness of a person; people have many different faces they change on a daily basis, for various situations, my face at work is totally different than my face at home; I was kind of trying to capture some of that with this picture.  

This assignment was very interesting and it forced me to think about the meaning of a portrait.  I definitely think you could take a portrait of an object rather than a person, so long as their was a person-like meaning behind it.  I also don't think that a portrait has to be of a face, if you can make an object into a portrait you most definitely don't need a face for one.  With the picture of my sister, I liked it better without having a clear image of her face, you can still see she's absorbed in the computer where she spends most of her time (not saying it's a good thing).  

The hardest part of the assignment, other than finding time this week, was lighting.  Finding the right lighting to, appropriately set the mood was difficult.  I won't lie, I definitely edited the images to achieve a lighting that was more effective. I have to say, Photoshop is my best friend now.  

Photostory Plan

For my photo story I was thinking I could kind of do a day in the life of a creemee stand employee.  I would take pictures throughout my day from my perspective.  I have some pictures so far, they may not be the ones I use, but these should give you an idea of what I'm going for.  I plan on doing a lot of editing with lighting color, compositions, etc...Let me know what you think!

Photo Edits Week 10

This week I used the same image I used last week for the burn and dodge assignment.  I wanted to eliminate my sister's shoulder (or maybe backpack, I'm not exactly sure what it is) from the image, it was the one part of the photo that was driving me wonky.  I used the clone tool to try to disguise the shoulder, and then I used the dodge and burn tools to try and make it look more natural.

Before:

After:

For the other two images this week, I applied text.  In the first one I created and applied a watermark.  In the second photo I played around with the text tool more and applied a quote to the image, I also put it in a box to give the text a better backdrop and make it easier to read.  

Here they are:

Dodge/Burn/Filters

For my dodge and burn image I used one of the photographs from when I went hiking a few weeks ago.  I thought the image was a bit to bright, so I was primarily using the burn tool.  I ended up using the dodge tool to redirect the light.

Altered:  

Original:

I also darkened the ground, mountains, and undersides of clouds to give more definition.  

Now here are my filtered images.  This was a lot of fun, I've always enjoyed playing with filters on a variety of programs and this was no different!  

With this one, I used the photocopy filter on Photoshop.  I love how it gives it a cartoon like appearance, but still managing to look incredibly realistic.  Plus, with this filter the image didn't lose it's sense of depth. 

This filter is the glowing edge filter.  I liked how this filter illuminates the sign, and each word within the sign; this looks like it belongs in a nightclub.  

Color Adjusted Photos

This week I used Photoshop to adjust the lighting and color of two photographs.  There are many tools throughout Photoshop that allow you to adjust the whole picture, or adjust parts.  I used the color selector tools to manipulate individual colors in my photographs.  The Hue/Saturation tool is one that I used frequently as well as the Selective Color Tool.

Here are my adjusted images.

Original:

Adjusted:

With this one, I was trying to make it darker, like later in the day.  I like how it almost has cartoon like appearance.  

Original:

Adjusted:

With this one I was trying to be more subtle.  I changed the counter top, making it green, and changed the lighting and shadows a bit using the Brightness/Contrast tool.  The image has more of a green hue.  

Photoshop

I decided to take a picture of my sister in a cave from a couple of weeks ago, and combine it with one of my landscape photographs from last week.  I am somewhat familiar with Photoshop, but I've never manipulated two images like this before.  It was a lot of fun!  I used the smudge tool to try and blend the two images together and make it more natural, it definitely helps.  Anyway, here it is!

And here are the originals:

Landscapes

I went to New York this week and hiked, with my best friend, along an island in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River, between the U.S. and Canada.   The island was truly beautiful and I was able to capture, what I think, are some really cool shots.  There are actually six images instead of four, I couldn't bring myself to narrow them down any further.  

This isn't from the island but rather from the drive over.  There is this one stretch of northern New York where there are miles and miles of these wind turbines.  I think they're so awe inspiring and alien across the otherwise normal farmland.  They fascinate me so much, I couldn't resist snapping a picture for this assignment.

The rest of these are from the island.

The last two are my absolute favorites.  We were under tree cover so the lighting is a mixture of dark with speckles of light.  The shadows in the water are incredibly evident which give the illusion of motion.  I was fiddling around with framing and the "rule of thirds" a lot, and generally the position of my subject in the frame. 

 There is so much to think about with landscape, endless possibilities, I was really surprise at some of my results this week.   

Rule of Thirds

I was out biking a couple of days ago, when I saw this railroad crossing in the distance.  As I approached I instantly thought of this assignment, especially after I saw the bridge in the background.

Here is the first one, the centered shot:

Here is the second shot, the third line:

I definitely like the second one better.  The centered image seems off balance because of the pointless stuff to the right of the crossing sign.  The tracks and the bridge give the illusion of depth, but the field to the right seems very flat and out of place.  If I were to keep the centered image I would definitely crop most of the right side.  In the "Third Line" image you can see even more of the track which really draws your eye through the photo, and the track and the crossing sign seem more balanced.