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

Tonights Editing Session

I've been working on the fall foliage trip that my sister and I took for a couple days. I still have so much more to go on this series.

I also (finally) added some photos to my flickr account. I've had it for quite a while and I just never have enough time.

Their new uploader makes it really easy to add photos now so I went for it. I figure when I have time I'll upload photos to it from time to time...maybe my favorite recent pieces.

This is the direct link to my Flickr page:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jenweaverphotography/