Holiday Spirits

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Curves Practice

After resisting for so long, am now learning photoshop photography basics, things like using curves for contrast and toning. Here's a couple of curve-manipulated photos from the desert. It's gonna take a lot of practice I believe.

After messing around with photos in the 'digital darkroom' -- I realized that I've got a few rolls of film that need to go down to the real darkroom -- gotta practice the atom-based stuff as well...



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Learning opps

Couple of quick learning opp notes. 1) Took a class at PPSOP with Cheryl Machat Dorskind -- the color class -- I thought her material was top notch compared to some of the other online classes (not bashing other classes at PPSOP, just saying that she jumped a really high bar). There is a bit of overlap with some of the other intro PPSOP courses, but that just means she's reinforcing the good techniques. In general, that class was a good kick in the butt and reason to get up and stretch the shooting routine and skills.

2) I read David Nightingale's chromasia blog, but never considered any of the tutorials -- they were always a bit too much on the the photoshop / digital manipulations side of things. However, I've come around a bit on photo manipulation / enhancement (the dangerous path of HDR leads here), so this type of stuff interests me a bit more lately. David's stuff is a bargain -- 5 pounds per tutorial -- for decent material pulled together in a single place. The real bargain to me is the lifetime subscription. Regularly 75 pounds, discounted to 67 pound now (about 107 US) for all his current and future tutorials seems like a really good deal for that type of training and continuing education.

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Synesthesia

Some people have synesthesia, the ability to experience senses of one type when another sense is stimulated. Good example would be hearing sound triggering perception of color, or language triggering perceptions of taste. If I am tired, loud sounds will give me flashes of purple, but I think that is more from fatigue than synesthesia. Anyway, thinking of the sound-color relationship set me off on a rainy night outdoor shoot with a hand-made musical note aperture for my LensBaby...


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Happy

I'm happy that they're happy. Photo shoot on white, transferred to peach toning for happiness.

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Pastel Sunset

Sunset. Joshua Tree National Park. 11-22-2009.

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Boomer

Boomer from Gears of War.

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iPhone Pics

I never think about taking serious photos with the iPhone, but I was at various DisneyWorld parks last weekend without a "real" camera and decided to give it a go. Turns out there are great photos you can take with an iPhone if you work on your composition and keep an eye out for the interesting. You don't have any control over depth of field or zoom, so you have to drop to the basics of line, color, shape, pattern, etc. Was trying to prove to myself that I could still make interesting stuff with a more basic tool.

Above's a montage of some of the more interesting iPhone captures. Also, below is an opportunistic bonus iPhone snap taken the last 15 minutes we were there...



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