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

random.

Last week we played in the studio again! The focus was still life but we spent a lot of time just playing.

These images were a total experiment. Painting with light...very fun. They are lit with nothing but flashlights.

Not sure why I like this one so much but I do.
It reminds me of Frida Kahlo...

And of course, what's a still life if flowers don't get tossed in the mix at some point? so here we are...

here and there

I thought I'd post of few images from random days shooting at CDIA. Our class started in September and it's been an awesome experience so far and I'm really looking forward to some of our future classes and their challenges. But for now here are some odds and ends for ya.

a few from one of the sculpture gardens.

The National Art Gallery has a lighting installation in the hallway that connects you to the contemporary art wing. A group of us rode the moving walkway through the lights for at least 45 minutes. My favorite pic of the lights was posted on the first blog post. (note: they're shot with tungsten white balance, minus the B/W of course)
Simple pleasures.

why I love photographers: This is Robert, our professor. He was right there riding the walkway with us the whole time shooting away.

So great.

Below are images from an alleyway just outside the Foundry Building. Quite beautiful (and handsome) models if I do say so myself.

one of my few self portraits. hello.

around Georgetown for fun

Better safe than sorry?

there's something comforting about symmetry...

 

sometimes just being alive feels good.

holy crap...Photoshop.

Last week I dove head first into Photoshop...but it turned into more of a belly flop...

My BA is in Graphic Design and even then I avoided photoshop as much as possible. But now there is no way around it, so with the help of CDIA I'm going in. It's truly unreal what's possible with that program. Below is an example (attempt) of basic masking, blending modes and a bit of "clean up".

this is the final image

these are the 2 images that were used to create the final

  

more on photoshop soon!

Great Falls...Awesome.

I've never been to Great Falls and it was about time I did. I drove over just in time for the sunset. The evening hours are probably my favorite time of day. You can't ask for better light, everything looks gorgeous.

There is something captivating about water...maybe it the raw power it has but at the same time it's quite soothing.

We'll start with soothing...

and then raw power...

where's waldo...

this little guy didn't seem too impressed...

Great Falls has lots to offer; climbing, kayaking if you dare, hiking, relaxing, or even a good old bar-b-q! Definitely worth the trip if you've never been.

The Porcelain Goddess

Our challenge the other day (at 8:30 AM) was to spend an hour or so shooting "bathrooms". yup. So, off we all went to every bathroom in our building, surrounding buildings, stores that sold "bathroom stuff" and so on. The goal: make it interesting. I'll never look at a toilet the same.

how my head felt at the end of this project.

Thank you CDIA for keeping school and my mornings interesting!