Day 147 (August 5) - Self Portrait

Self portraits are tough. And I've been avoiding doing one for ages now, so I decided that today I was going to bite the bullet. But my vanity didn't really want a face shot.

So I decided to photograph my feet again. But this just reminded me that I should really cut my toenails. And then . . . I decided that I wanted a picture of my hair. Just the way it was, sort of disheveled, falling out of its braid at the end of the workday. After all, today one of my smartest students in the highest level class I teach, told me 'teacher, beautiful hair. color . . . beautiful.'

I know she can make a sentence in English. She just . . . doesn't, unless I make her.

Anyway, back to the picture.

Simple, right?

Well, actually, no. I held the camera behind my head. Too close! said the autofocus. I tried holding it further away. Not enough contrast! said my lens, and searched wildly for something to focus on. After about five minutes of fruitlessly holding the camera up and behind my head, my arms were complaining loudly, and I still had no pictures. Not even any bad pictures, just no pictures.

So I went into the bathroom to use the mirror to get my shot (word to the wise, if you want to take a self portrait, don't choose the back of your head). It still was ridiculously hard, but I did get a few I liked by resting the camera on top of my head and angling it down to the mirror. A bit of a crapshoot, but I guess I learned something:

If you want a picture of your hair, ask someone else. And, self portraits may be for other photographers. I think I may have reached my self portrait peak in 8th grade.

As a thank you for reading all of my mumblings, here are some kitten pictures.


Don't you wish you could fall asleep like that?

Day 146 (August 4) - Mothers

Mothers everywhere are the same: concerned for the safety of their children.

This is a shot of the mother cat glaring balefully at us after we (once again! the nerve) snuck a peek at her kittens.

The bottom image is straight out of camera (well, raw converted to jpeg, don't think I can upload raw files to blogger). The top image I did my basic edits: color, contrast, sharpness, then I wasn't really happy with the position of the cat, so I took the image into Photoshop and stretched the background a little. I also darkened the background to put the focus on the cat. Too much? What do you think? Is that red in the background distracting? I kind of like it, but it does pull the eye away.

Day 145 (August 3) - Through the Window

So, day 1 of 30 days of Blank. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired today, and because today was a non teaching day I neglected to get a shot at school. I'm running out of things to shoot around the house; there are just only so many times that I can post a picture of the cat.

So today I decided to shoot the windows, again, but this time from the inside out, and let the wall inside (which is white in real life, by the way, but not lighted here so it looks black) become a frame for them. And as I have promised to do for the month of August, here is a before and after for you of the original raw file, and then my edited version. Pretty standard edits today, the toughest part was getting the contrast curve in Lightroom right.

Thirty Days of Blank

I've got a problem, and it's called Google Reader. The problem is, I'm addicted. And every blog post brings a link to another amazing blog (most about photography, I won't lie) and I think, oh, cool, I'll just add that blog to my reader too, and then suddenly, there are over 300 new blog posts in my reader and I am drowning.

But that's a story for another day.

So, I was in my Google Reader, and one thing led to another, and suddenly I was at a blog that I had never seen before, one that belonged to a person I had never met in the real world, and one that I was unlikely ever to meet. And here's the link for you.

This person suggested doing 30 days of Blank. Of something. Anything. Whatever you choose. Starting August first.

I'm a little late, but I thought I'd do 30 days of before and afters, showing a little more of the processing I'm doing on my photos. Maybe even including some Photoshop. Starting tomorrow. Let me know what you think, and if this inspires you to do 30 days of Blank!

Blogger Image Sharpness: Can Someone Explain it to Me?

Do a little experiment for me, if you will. See that picture down below?

Click on it. I promise, it won't bite. Just one little click.

See how much sharper it is after you click on it? Why is that?

It's the same size. Same number of pixels, everything. Can someone help me fix this sharpness issue? I hate having my images look softer than they really are. And I don't want to ask you to click on every single picture.

Day 144 (August 2) - Vision vs Reality

When I saw this little hanging ornament, we were at a restaurant. I had the idea for this image: out of focus background on the left, your eye comes to rest on the (rather pretty) ornament on the right. But I wasn't sure I would get the image I saw in my head. There were distractions to the right, above and below, and I couldn't move much to get the framing I wanted.

I took the shot anyway, and I'm okay with the framing, I managed to avoid most of the distractions although I still got a bit of the tree on the right in the frame. Still, the background is so busy, and lighter than the ornament, that I almost deleted this in camera. But something stopped me. I knew I could always delete it later.

Then I got home, and I still kind of liked it. So I processed it to see if I could save it.

I still don't love it. I wouldn't print it. But I'm glad it's seen the light of day here on the blog.