He Had His Own Photoshoot And Boy Do I Love Him!

You'll have to bare with me on this post...mainly because there are a lot of photos! There are a lot because they contain my 2 favorite living beings on this planet....My Tom (hubby) & My Lucas (my Lab).

After I was done with my self portraits the other night I invited my buddy Lucas to join in a few shots with me...check us out!:











And by this point it's like he's saying "enough, enough already!"



Then Tom joined in the fun with Lucas:



Converted to B&W:



And then we dangled his favorite rubbery purple toy over his head to get him to take these! And I love them!

The Eyes Have It...And Some Captivating Trees

The other night when I did my self portraits I asked my husband to sit in the seat so I could focus on him and then once it was focused I would be okay to sit there and shoot away.

It worked for a lot of the shots but then eventually became unfocused....so the process had to be repeated.

Why I was focusing I got to shoot one shot before he got antsy and wanted to depart before I started taking more photos of him....LOL!!

Anyway, the one shot I got....I love it because I love his eyes. :)

HINTS ON ENHANCING THE EYES:

With eyes like this I bring the photos into Photoshop and I use the dodging tool on the eyes to brighten them on a very low opacity (around 1-15%) with a small brush.

Then I use the burn tool (also on a low opacity) to burn the edges of the eyes and also burn back a little texture into the eyes so that they have some depth to them.

If you only dodge the eyes they sometimes lose their texture a bit so I just play around and enhance what is there. I like them to look realistic so I only slightly adjust what is already there to make them "pop!"










Now onto some trees! Trees seem to have been my thing lately...these were taken the same day that I took the tree I wrote about a couple weeks ago in my blog post called The Story of the Tree. I found 4-5 great trees that day on my way home but with the lack of light I had to bump up the ISO and try to hold the camera very steady.

When I edited the photos tonight I saw a lot of noise in the photos so I decided to embrace it and add more texture to the shots. Not sure if it works....need opinions (be sure to click on the photo to view larger):





For this one, the noise in the sky really bothered me so I decided to burn the entire sky! Normally we would scoff at what we call "blown out skies" but I purposely make the sky look like this and I like it. Who's to say we can't have a bright white looking sky like this in a Black & White? Why do these perfect photography rules need to always be followed? Who's to say what the rules are? Isn't photography and artform? Aren't our photos our own personal artistic creations? I think so!

Sorry for the rant...I just really feel this way sometimes. I sometimes see photos critiqued in a negative way that don't follow the "rules" that I think are beautiful so I just make sure speak up with my own opinion when this happens...



Just food for thought....

To view more of my landscape shots click here: http://jenweaverphotography.smugmug.com/gallery/2750159/1/249268735

Great Photography Articles, Tips & Techniques!

Oh! And one more thing I forgot to include in tonight's post directly below this one....


Great articles below!!!

Five Simple Steps To Get a Great Shot

5 Most Common Digital Photography Mistakes

7 Bad Habits of Digital Photographers

85 Great Photography Blogs, Galleries and Sites You Can't Afford to Miss

87 Great Photography Blogs and Feeds

I may have shared this already in the past but it's worth sharing again:

16 Inspirational Portrait Photography Techniques

Warning: These 9 Photoshop Techniques May Result In Great Photos

So You Think You Know What An F-Number Is

You should look into subscribing to the RSS Feeds for some of these sites if your e-mail supports RSS feeds...great way to get news right at your doorstep (or in your e-mail if you want to get literal! LOL)

Are You Tired of Seeing Me Yet? And Lightroom Presets

The following links to Lightroom Presets were shared with me so I thought I would sare them here:

http://www.lightroomkillertips.com/

http://www.prophotoshow.net/blog/2007/11/09/where-to-get-free-lightroom-presets/

http://pinkinkstudios.com/

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And back to me again! LOL! Now I just have to get some friends over to use these poses that I came up with. During the quiet time when I'm doing self-portraits is where I come up with my best pose ideas to use when I actually have models!

ORIGINAL COLOR:


HIGH FIDELITY:


HIGH FIDELITY WITH B&W:


I like this pose since I know that I was looking up at my husband on the couch during this shot... :)

ORIGINAL COLOR:


BRONZED GOD ACTION:


BITCHIN B&W ACTION:


And a whole other variation on the poses of the day...the standing pose:

ORIGINAL COLOR:


BRONZED GOD ACTION:


BITCHIN B&W ACTION:

Self Portraits and My Set-up/Burning & Dodging Tutorial

With the lack of models I have I decided to take some self portraits tonight.

I had a lot of trouble focusing and tried every trick I could think of. I finally had to have my husband sit on the stool and I focused on his eyes and then sat there.

I still feel like they're not perfectly focused but it was the best I could do for MYSELF!

This is the set-up that I had in my living room (except the stool goes in the middle of the backdrop (obviously) and the camera on the tripod (duh). The lights are hardware store bought clamp lights that I clipped to a lamp I had in the room.

Normally I'd clip my reflector to something on the left of portait area so that the clamp lights would bounce off of it.

(REMEMBER CLICK EACH IMAGE TO VIEW IT LARGER)



Now, on to the self portraits (I did a few different actions on this oneI figured I'd share them a couple):





2 versions of this one:





Yes...more of me...



Cross Processing Action:



And a black and white treament:




I like this pose....see all of these self portraits help me think of poses for when I do portrait sessions. If I like how they came out for me then I will most likely like them for others!



Another action to change the look up of the color:



I love how the Black & White came out for this one!



And lastly a funny one that I randomly did - don't ask me why I pointed at the camera but I did...LOL! Then I applied some fun actions to it to make it look like this:



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And you thought I'd never get to the tutorial I mentioned?

So, before I forget to share...here is a burning & dodging video tutorial I found courtesy of George who share an e-mail that let me to an online photo mag for the UK:

EJ's Baptism Day

My 150th post! WOW - time really flies when you're having fun!

I really love writing this blog!

Today, I attended my childhood friend's baby's baptism. I promised her that I would capture the day for her. We've been friends since 2nd grade so being able to capture a day like this for her is really special for me.

Here are the photos from the church taken with the 18-200VR and the SB800 flash.











The whole family:



At the after party:

You've seen these 2 little cuties before in prior photo shoots...







The deserts! Must capture the ice cream cake!



Grandma and EJ...isn't he the cutest??



And I got to jump into a photo! Gotta make sure the "photog" gets in at least one or two shots!