Architecture & Studio Portraiture

These last two weeks at CDIA have been a blast and very busy. Probably 2 of my favorite classes so far. Here are a few quick photos from Architecture and Interiors with Judy Davis (freaking awesome) and Studio Portraits with Michael Cunningham (also amazing). I feel very lucky to have had these two talented photographers as professors.

Thank you to my beautiful classmates!

Use your creativity wisely.

this is just one of many. creatives probably have the most power...they give the cause a voice that stands out.

Madness.

fire and ice

What an exciting weekend here in DC! Our first snowfall of the year that actually left behind a dusting of snow and not puddles of rain...yet. On the opposite end of exciting there was a terrible car accident/fire in front of my house this Friday evening!

After a lovely evening out in Alexandria at the Evening Star upstairs lounge (thanks Julie and Chris. check it out, great food, atmosphere, lovely bartender, good wine/beer selection and they play TCM on one of the TV's!), we came home to a car sandwiched between two lightposts, a street sign and in the median! It just happened and the guy was just rolling out of the car checking himself over making sure he's still in one piece...terrifying . There were a few stories rolling around the street of how he managed to get his car into that position but I'm not sure what really happened so we'll leave that to the papers. His car was covered in smoke and his gas was still revved up and sparks were flying under the car. Needless to say, not good. People standing by took action to block the road, get the kid out of the way, made sure nobody else was in the car and called 911. I just so happen to have my camera around my neck and decided since everyone was luckily ok and safe I would start taking pictures! : )

Firefighters, police and an ambulance arrived pretty quick and got to work.

the fire lasted a while. The air smelled of burnt rubber...not pleasant.

finally they were able to get it out and under control.

there's a fire 20 ft. in front of me and I'm looking left at the reflections...hmmm

On a lighter and cooler note...uhhh...if freaking snowed!!!

There's something about snow that get's me all excited and giddy like a little girl who was just given a puppy! I woke everyone in the house up, Liz  and I ran around outside in our robes and boots then decided to get focused...
We got dressed. I grabbed my camera. Time to play.

The neighborhood was beautiful!

And the snow battles begin!
This is one of my roomates, Kristen. I'm about to get nailed.

about to get nailed again!

Liz's first snowfall!

Meet Mac!

Awesome.

ps. sorry for the cheesy title...

Monticello.

Good old TJ. Our third president, author of the Declaration of Independence, philosopher and that's just the beginning. Not a bad resume. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have lived in that day in age...seems to be a life full of hardships but grand rewards as well (depending who we are speaking of).

Monticello, probably one of the most beautiful historic sites in the DC area.

We had company in town that have never seen Monticello and one being a history major it was a must! So, off we went, family and friends, piled into "Driftwood" rolling three deep and headed down the road. Liz and I drew the short straw...

I love all the gadgets, clocks, etc Jefferson created. There were maps, clocks, globes, sundials, all over the plantation. This compass he had connected to the weathervane.

The sundial.

The architecture of the house evolved through Jefferson's time living there. The domes, octagon rooms were pretty unique then and still now but personal favorite is the underground rooms and passageways he had.

This is also where his brewery and wine cellar were located. He installed some sort of dumbwaiter that went from the dining room to the wine cellar so the servant didn't have to disrupt dinner they could just send the bottle up!

And the kitchen. I adore the copper pots and pans!!!

Even when the gardens are entering winter mode the plantation still maintains it's stunning landscapes.

The lighting was beautiful that afternoon, sun was shining, good company; and for that I'm thankful.

Faces

I was going through my photos on my hardrive today attempting to organize a bit better and decided I should share one of my first projects at CDIA. It was our "Faces" project. Our goal was to take 50 photos of 50 faces. I chose to do "typefaces" in honor of my design background. : ) Midway through my shooting I had a flashback to Design 1 with Don Martin and the millions of line thumbnail drawings! He is still one of my favorite teachers so here's to you Mr. Martin...

The last being my personal favorite. CDIA...holler!

More Photoshop

I hope everyone had an awesome, relaxing holiday! I know I did, so much so that I just left a pile of "unfinished business" for myself when I came back down from holiday-land.

One being that I wanted to share a couple images from last weeks class at CDIA. I'm slowly, and I mean slowly, getting more acquainted with photoshop. We covered a ton of information last week including HDR, panorama, basic beauty retouching, uhhhh, crap, a lot more but my brain hasn't fully come back from holiday.

Beauty retouching...what a tough subject. It is abused all the time. I think a great thing to say to yourself before you start thinking about retouching any person, or even place is "just because you can, doesn't mean your should"...

The world of fashion especially is a big culprit of false beauty as I will call it. I like things to be as natural as possible unless you're doing some specific project that it clearly "NOT natural." I could dive into this subject and show you tons of everyday examples of retouching abuse but I won't...just bear in mind if it looks seriously unreal...it probably is.

Here is my attempt at basic beauty retouching. This girl is quite a beauty and really doesn't need any help from photoshop or myself. 

before:

after: if I were to redo this retouching I would take some of the skin softening off and bring back some of her natural smile lines... 

this image below is an example of a 3 image panorama and then tonemapped for added color.

I have some of my holiday outing photos to post soon but until then...have a great Monday!

crazy animals

I'm missing my animals today...so here are a few pics in honor of
"the crazies".

long day at the river...not a bad life.

and of course...The Lovely Lady