Outdoor Photography

I wanted to share some of my photos from my outdoor photography class from last weekend’s Women in the Outdoors event. As always, please feel free to leave your critiques.  I’m still learning, and though I love playing around with Photoshop, I know it can be over used. And of course, there’s always setting up the picture in my camera that could be a problem.  So, feel free to leave your feedback – even if you’re not a photographer.  Anyone can tell if they like a photo or not.  (you can click on the image to make it bigger)

This next one I thought I would try a tilt shift effect on.  Tilt shift is when you make a real picture look like a miniature or model.  This picture is not the best set up for doing a really great tilt shift, but something about the grass and gravel under the chairs made me see it as a model.  What do you think?

I’m not sure I love the texture on the next one, but I love the picture of the muddy boot.  This was when I started feeling like the class nerd.  I went up to a perfect stranger and said “may I take a picture of  your boot?”  After the strange look, she said yes.  From then on, I was the dork with the camera, taking pictures between shooting bowling pins and riding ATVs.  Luckily, I didn’t know anyone and will probably never see them again.

Who doesn’t love a good cowboy picture?

I’m still learning to take good pictures, and I’m always going to be learning how to edit well, but I’m definitely loving my new hobby.  Who knew that I would love taking pictures so much?

All This Green

All this rain has been driving me a little batty. 

We are lucky that we haven’t had any tornadoes or devastation in my area.  My heart goes out to those who have to start from scratch with nothing left after a horrible storm.

The crops haven’t been able to go in as planned around here, and the water level is pretty high in all our local ponds and creeks.  But the one thing that I have noticed this year is all the GREEN that comes with so much rain.  Sure there’s brown too – all the mud left over from receding water, but the green has been so vivid it sometimes takes my breath away.

Though we don’t love where we live, and we really don’t love our neighborhood, we’re fortunate enough to have a very lovely, tree-filled backyard.  When I look up from my chair I see GREEN, and it makes me happy.

Having these POPS of green in my pictures makes me happy too.  Even a bad picture looks better with the bright pop of green in the background, I think.

I call this next one: Boy Meets Snake.

I’m an eternal optimist, so I’m always looking for the good in things.  This is my “good” in the horrible rainy season we’ve been having – I’m thankful for all the green. 

“Therefore I will give thanks to You, O LORD, among the nations, And I will sing praises to Your name.” 2 Samuel 22: 50

*On a side note: all these photos are Straight Out Of the Camera (SOOC).  Can you imagine if I ran them through Photoshop to enhance the green?  Breathtaking, I’m sure. (at least for me)

I Heart Faces

 

I’m pretty sure this is only the second time I’ve ever entered the I Heart Faces photo challenge, but it just happened to line up with some pictures I took this weekend, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Their theme this week is YELLOW.  Though I have a lot of cute pictures of Jack in a great yellow shirt (I can’t post pictures or I’d be out of the competition for having more than one photo), I  just visited my friend and her new little baby this weekend (Maggie May) who happened to be all wrapped up in a yellow blanket. 

She was such a sweetie at just 5 days old.  Her big sister loves to dote on her and her big brother probably likes to squish her (he’s 2).  She’ll be very loved!! 

(Jack liked to pet her. He was so gentle with just his little pointer finger touching her forehead)

I’ve Been Playing With Photoshop

I’ve been playing around with using Photoshop recently. I sneak in time to play before Jack wakes up and after he goes to sleep. 

Anything I know how to do on Photoshop I learned from a Youtube tutorial.  there are a ton out there.  I just searched “photoshop tutorial” (I’m a search engine expert)

I wish I had bookmarked any of the tutorials I found, but I didn’t.  I just watched it, paused, worked on my photo, played some more, paused it, worked on my photo…you get the idea.

I do have The Pioneer Woman’s free actions.  I really love them.  They have me on the hunt for other free actions – Rick would never let me pay for anything like that.  I’m also always watching out for ‘win free actions’ on various blogs.  I haven’t won anything yet.  But then again, I haven’t won PW’s camera giveaways either.  Or her pans.  Or her Kitchen Aid Mixers.  Why do I even bother?

On with this post….

I thought I’d share some of my pictures that I’ve edited and see what you think.  Feel free to be honest.  I won’t ever learn if I only hear “oh, that’s so nice” and “I like it!”  While those are nice to hear, they don’t help me to grow as an amateur photographer. 

So, be honest.  If you hate something, let me know (but be nice, I’m still human a woman) If you think I should try something else with a certain photo, let me know.  It’s all about helping me out. And, if I get comments that help me, I’m sure they’ll help other readers who take the time to read through my comments.

Thanks! (Get ready for a TON of pictures with as many explanations as I can remember)

This was just PW’s “Vintage” action

 

This is my first attempt at trying out textures.  I probably used PWs “Warmer” action on both of these.

   

This one with the marble was just a matter of brightening it up.  I used curves and “Define and Sharpen” from PW to tweek this one.  

 

This darling baby came to visit us last week (she brought her whole family) and I couldn’t resist taking pictures of her.  Look at those eyes!! I used PWs “Warmer” (my favorite) “B&W Beauty”, “Quick Edge Burn,” and “Seventies” on these. 

 

This was a bad time and angle to shoot bird photos, but I tried to brighten it up with some auto adjustments and curves. I did the same thing with the plants. (Anyone know what those are?) 

  This was just the other night and I didn’t realize that Jack had food on his face when I took his picture.  So, I took that off, removed a stray eyelash on his cheek, and brightened his eyes.  This is why Rick says that Photoshop is unethical.  “It doesn’t truly represent what he looked like at that moment!”

This was the first dandelion that my son ever gave me.  It was just last week.  I used “Warmer”, “Seventies”, “Quick Edge Burn,” and some curve adjustments to try to bring out the dandelion that is half washed out by the sun.

This is the baby again with her big sister.  They match!!  I love their eyes.  I didn’t know how to fix this one, and I’m not sure I love the final results. 

 

So, do you notice anything I’m constantly doing that you think is not nice?  Do you see one of these pictures and think “Oh, I totally would have done this instead!” Do you have any corrections or thoughts you’d like to share?  I’m all ears!

Thanks for taking the time to look through my photos. It’s fun to use Photoshop, but not very easy. 

Jack's Family Photos

I don't remember where I got this idea.  Maybe I came up with it all by myself.  Sometimes I have waves of creative genius.  Not often though.  Most of the time, I steal borrow ideas from others. I'm sure this one came from a friend who did this a long time ago with her kids.

Jack has a lot of family members that live 3+ hours away.  This makes it hard for Jack to learn these family members by face and name. We don't get to see these relatives very often, but I want him to learn who they are and that they are part of his family.  I decided to collect pictures of everyone, and make a photo album for him.  But instead of putting it in an album that may get forgotten, I decided to put the pictures on the refrigerator.  

(PLEASE ignore the dirty fridge. You'd think I'd wash up the streaks before taking a picture I knew would go online, but I guess I'm not that thoughtful )This isn't everyone that I need to put up, but I ran out of magnetic frames.  They are at the bottom of the fridge, so they are at eye level for him.  I have visions of him looking at the pictures and studying his family while I'm working in the kitchen.   I decided to put their names on them so that when he's older, maybe he'll learn to recognize their names.  I like the way they look.