I like this....

Yes, I meant to do this!

I know they are headless..but I just like it... and I especially like it with texture!

Reflections of Boredom

You guessed it...when I'm bored and have nothing else to do I take self portraits (well, who I am kidding...I have too much to do...but I needed a break for a bit!)

So, out came the new Nikon 50mm 1.4 lens for some test shots indoors with no flash at 400 ISO.

No clones needed for this shoot! LOL I just took them in my room with the full length mirror..and the only light in the room was my ceiling fan lights.

I'm not happy with the amount of hot pixles I'm getting at ISO 400 but I'm not about to start worrying about that right now.

Here are my favorite "in the mirror" shots of the night. The first one is my top favorite:






Peter from my forum had an idea to merge the 1st & the 4th photos together to see what it would look like if my reflection was looking at the me that is looking at the camera. I think it puts an interesting twist on it:



Then I did some against a painted wall in my room. As usual the hardest part was focusing the camera on nothing. The 50mm made it even tougher than the 18-200.

Tonight was the greenest I've seen my eyes yet in a self portrait. Usually they're a lot more blue but I guess it was the brown shirt and the wall color that changed them. I'm not sure why I mentioned all these details LOL!

Anyway...these are the colored versions:




Then I converted them to Black & White using Itty Bitty Actions and applied a texture and I LOVE how they came out!




So that's me for tonight. I hope this inspires you to do something...anything at all with your photography when you're bored. When all else fails I say take a self portrait! :)

A Few New Edits

I played with a few textures on these photos from the "B. Family" shoot. I love the first one most compared to the 2nd one. I'm not so sure about the 3rd one but I always think it's worth trying things out to see if you like them in the end.

To see all of the B. Family photos posted so far HERE.







Isn't this the sweetest photo?? I just love it!

Reference Mosaic: Creative Commons Textures

I couldn't resist posting this tonight as well. I like to share on my blog but I also use it as a way to catalog things I want to remember and use for future. Please enjoy these textures for yourself!

Also, take moment to thank the original artist that posted them and show them what you've made with their texture - I know they would enjoy seeing it!

Reference Mosaic: Creative Commons Textures, originally uploaded by Jasen Robillard.

I HEART Texture

Texture opens up a whole world for my work. I won't always be able to incorporate it into all of my work but I think it will open some great new opportunities for me (especially with my portrait photography).

Playing with Textures In Photoshop

Tonight I was inspired by another photographer from my forum to play with textures. The Psychiatics Sundays series is the perfect candidate for some textures.

This the first try at adding texture layers to photos in this series:














Since I'm on a roll with this....I added texture to a few shots of myself I took last night. I'm really LOVING them! What do you think?