Reflections

For the Chrysta Rae Scavenger Hunt I had the challenge to do reflection.

Sadly I tipped my hand and posted a picture of me messing around. I should have kept it to myself because my fooling around turned out to be my best photo. But oh well, live and learn!

I enlisted my model Meg to help me with reflection as well.

This is what I submitted for REFLECTION

This is a Selfy picture I did with REFLECTION in mind

Another option for REFLECTION. Maybe I should have put the broken glass on the one I submitted

Trying to play around with the world outside the mirror being cracked instead of the mirror, but it didn't turn out right

I tipped my hand... this is the best of them all and I shouldn't have let my excitement get the better of me

Fire Spinning 7/19/12 - Part 2

 Fire spinning is a lot of fun to watch! And according to my friends who do it, it is a lot of fun to do as well! I do so love fire, it's a genetic trait I think.  Here are some more pictures of fire spinning with the Medford Spinjam! 

Fire Spinning 7/19/12 Pt1

Way back on July 19 I went to the Medford Spinjam for a second time. This time I was brave enough to talk to people I didn't know! Go me!
I got a bit caught up in other things and didn't have a chance to process these photos until now.

Part 1 of these photos are my friends Deana and Kitch. Deana is working up to spinning fire and Kitch is spinning staff.

Without further ado, MORE FIRE!

First Model, first portrait session!

The Chrysta Rae Photography Scavenger Hunt for July featured the prompt model. I figured this would be a great opportunity to try out photographing someone. Usually I photograph nature, so this was a challenge.

Since I was already going to be out of my comfort zone taking portrait photos I decided to ask one of my good friends to help me out. That way if I totally screwed it up, whatever I got to hang out with a friend!

While I was there my friend, Meg, wanted me to take some pictures of her puppy Tucker.

This is the photograph I submitted for model in the Chrysta Rae Photography Scavenger Hunt.

I think that this photography session turned out great! I had fun and got some great pictures. I did end up with a dead spider in my hair, which freaked me out, but it was worth it for some great pictures! If the spider had been alive... that is another story entirely!

Thanks Meg and Tucker!

Feeling Vampy

So I decided that I wanted to try some more photo manipulation. This time I used a tutorial to help me look a bit Vampire-ish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWCLI6ivbwM&feature=relmfu

The tutorial is in 3 parts. I sort of followed it and sort of didn't. I was using Pixelmator (cheap-y Mac imitation of Photoshop that works fine for most purposes) to do this.

I started off with a picture from a few years back (before I started caring much about the quality of my selfy photos, I was more concerned with documenting my awesome costume!)

It's my Ravenclaw-Gone-Punk costume. ;) 

I started off following the tutorial. I skipped the whole make the skin paler thing cuz... I'm REALLY pale by myself. I didn't need to make myself any paler. I jumped right to the eyes. 

I didn't want to be a lame "good" vampire with the golden eyes, I wanted to be bloodthirsty red. Other than the color change I followed the general eye color tutorial. 

Next came time to darken up the shadows under my eyes. When I did that I noticed that it also did awesome things to my eyeshadow so I made a separate layer for the eyeshadow. I darkened those two layers independently. I also darkened up my lipstick.

Finally I cut out my background and set it to black. I want to do something more elaborate for the background but at this point I'd been fooling around on this for a few hours with trial and error and it was dinner time! So I left off here. Maybe I will revisit this photo and add a better background next time.

Yes... I really am THAT pale...

*EDIT*

Ok, so upon reflection I am just *too* pale in this! I had to darken it up a bit.

I think that is a bit better.

Before... and after...

The BEFORE

 The AFTER

I processed this photo in Lightroom 4. I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks before using a preset to change it to high contrast black and white. 

The BEFORE

 The AFTER

In Lightroom 4 I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks. Then I brightened the blues and greens. I also darkened the photo a bit.

The BEFORE 

The AFTER

In Lightroom 4 I adjusted the shadows, highlights, whites, and blacks. I brightened the blues and greens. I also removed the green wood and warmed it up to a more wood-like color. My favorite part of this photo is the moon which is visible near the mast on the far right. 

Mark eats a baby octopus...

When my husband and I went on a vacation up in Maine we stopped in to visit our friends Mark and April. We went out for Chinese food one afternoon and Mark discovered a baby octopus.

After much discussion it was decided that Mark must eat the baby octopus, and I must take pictures.

His wife was vaguely horrified and refused to join him in trying the baby octo, but we are all used to Mark doing such things so we went with it.

Just to be especially sketchy Mark starts off by licking the baby octo's tentacles. Ick.

It was decided that this did not need to be repeated.


Thanks Mark!