I’ve been practicing studio photography for so long that I’d forgotten what it was like to shoot outdoors. I can’t let that happen again!
Here are some lovelies from last Sunday after the rain:
Self portrait in a bubble:
Water droplets:
Water droplet bokah:
My favorite with a few color plays for fun:
Ah, the fun of the outdoors!
Last year was my first year creating a photo calendar using my photos of the kidlet. While it was a great calendar, I did make it a bit overlarge (12×18) and just used a simple photo for each month.
Well this year I opted to get a little bit more fancy!
This year’s calendar was printed as a 10×10 folded calender at Miller’s and they came out amazing. Glossy covers, sturdy pages. My only quibble is that Miller’s considers holidays to be personal days, so you have to add them to the calendar individually. And, worst of all, you are limited to 24 personal days/holidays! What the heck is that? Miller’s should at least add the federal holidays to the calendar as a baseline and then allow a certain amount of personal days. That would make more sense.
But despite that, this year’s calendar was an incredible hit!
Talk about your good surprises. I won, I won! Well, to be fair, it’s more like I honorable mentioned!
So what am I blathering about? To my utter shock, the photo that I entered in the Tamron Fall Into Winter 2010 photo contest was selected as emotional favorite, giving me an honorable mention in the contest! Considering that there were over 1200 entries, one winner and twenty honorable mentions, it still counts as a win to me!
Check out my humble entry on the Tamron site: Zizi & the leaves
What? Don’t want to click away from here to take a gander? Okely-dokley. Here it is:
I wonder how the judges felt about my having taken the shot using a Lensbaby and not a Tamron lens? Hmmm….
Goodness, but it’s been a bit since I last updated the EJP blog! But today I’ve a got a fun little treat for those of you still checking in here. This will be my first demonstration of photo plays, something I hope to do more of in the upcoming year.
The subject of today’s play is not (surprise, surprise) my own kidlet. I’ll be showing you a great photo, and plays, of another adorable munchkin girl. I had the pleasure of striking up an online friendship with Munchkin Girl’s daddy through my other blog. And since he began asking me about photography, my favorite subject ever, we hit it right off. To my delight, he shared with me one of his favorite recent photos of Munchkin Girl.
I fell madly in love with this shot. I loved the composition and her expression, but most of all, I loved her eyes. Such incredible dark pools they are.
I felt that familiar pull to play with the image. It wasn’t with the goal of making it look weird or dramatic, but instead to add a few tweaks to push the oomph factor a tad. Just a teensy bit. So I asked Dad if he would let me play with the shot to see what I came up with. He was a great sport and allowed me to have at it.
Goody!
The first edit is my simple “clean up” edit. Dad had already nailed exposure and white balance, so my tweaks there were miniscule. Her color balancing just needed a touch more cyan than she had. (I need Dad to help ME with color balance as the balance on my captures are all over the place still!) I then used the patch tool to remove a few ditzels from her face and nose.
After that, I turned to my workhorse actions from MCP Actions: Magic Skin and the Eye Doctor. I decreased the Magic Skin to 50% and turned the iris and catchlight portions of the Eye Doctor down under 50% so as not to create that alien eye look. I also used an action someone on I Love Photography developed to sharpen eyes when their focus is just short of tack sharp. It give the appearance of sharpness for when you just miss the focus by a touch.
The end result was this:
Very nice, no?
In most situations I probably would have stopped there. But hey, I wanted to play and see what small dose of punch I could give this great capture. That’s when I turned to Florabella. I love me some Florabella actions! I have so many of these actions that I can’t even remember what they all look like! I just run them all and see how they turn out. Yet I do have my favorites, so I started with these.
Cosmopolitan is my utter favorite. It creates a richness and drama. In this photo, however, I had to dial it back because I didn’t want too much drama. So I decreased the intensity to about 50%.
Oh man, I’m digging it. I really am.
Even still, I decided to try my newly discovered second favorite, London. I have been using London so much, lately. It gives a kind of urban feel to the photo, but not quite. It seems to have a blue/green punch. Again, I turned it down to about 50%, but it is still magical.
Swoon!
How pretty is that? Yet even as gorgeous as that edit was, I still thought I might just bring it a little more. But instead of another action, I opted for a trial of texture.
Texture has become my new playtoy. I’ve always been a tad scared of it in portraiture, but my last client melted when she saw the textured edits of her favorite photos. So not one to back away from experimenting, I turned again to Florabella, but this time it was the textures. (And I used MCP Actions’ texture applicator to make life easier.)
Starting with the London edit above, I worked to find just the right texture. I found what appeared at first to be a crazy choice for this photo in Collection II, a texture called Mai Tai:
I expected it to give the picture a you must be nuts to think this would work appearance, but was I ever wrong! I masked back the texture at about 60% over Munchkin Girl and used the color blend mode at 40%. Et voila:
Too much gorgeousness! This was my absolute favorite play! I’m ready to put that on a gallery wrap myself!
Of course, no playing would be complete without a black and white of some ilk. Even though I had the London/Mai Tai perfection already ordered in my head, it still made sense to try the absence of color. Naturally I was back with Florabella. I tried my usual B&W fav, Vintage Chocolate, but didn’t dig it so much. To my surprise it was Platinum that really was hitting and holding for this image (again decreased to about 70%).
So there you have it, folks! A great photo taken by a doting daddy and some fun plays by yours truly!
Do you like? Any questions? I’m all ears.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Liana Clark, Liana Clark. Liana Clark said: I posted, I posted! Fun photoplays on #eclecticjphotog blog. Have a look see! http://ow.ly/3wrXg #photography #Florabella […]ReplyCancel
A little cherub. That is the most fitting description of my latest little subject.
14 months old, serious and charming. She was a dream to photograph. The intensity in her eyes came through in every image.
The only time we had to expend any energy was when it came down to getting some smiles. Those were hard won until Mom and I got our silly on!
The resultant hard-won smiles were just adorable.
What a great family!
Julie - Ohhh, I love the droplets – especially the black & white.
Kim M. - These show that you should not forget take it outside. You gave a different perspective of rain and its aftermath. I enjoyed truly enjoyed them.
Tara - I really, really love the bubble pictures. Great job! (I also really love how these pictures make me believe that spring IS coming–finally!).
Mason - You need a facebook page! More jubby pics! Yay!
Von - I agree with Mason. You need to put this on your facebook page, too! Loved it! Thanks for sharing. You have an amazing eye for detail, structure and perception. Enjoy your journey and thanks for taking us with you.
Peg - Beautiful pics! I love the rain droplets on the tree branches. But I have to say that your preschool/toddler gallery is my favorite! You really bring out each personality. Fun stuff!
bianka - these are gorgeous, love the self portrait idea (and execution!)
Sharon - Your work is wonderful! No matter what it is. I love the self portraits in the bubbles!
Jackie - Really love the water droplet pictures. You should frame them.
ananda - I am a great fan of your art. I fell in love with your stuff on Open Salon and your trip to South Africa.
Your family is beautiful:) keep up the amazing work…
Although studio work can be fun, your work is best displayed in nature.