Sandra R in the old pool hall photo.

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

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Some nights I sleep soundly and others I sleep for a few hours then get up to go pee only to find my dog has taken my space in the bed. I try to get back to sleep but my brain is already working on other stuff.

Well tonight is one of those nights. So I decided I should work on some of my images. I have eight photo shoots to go through. All ready for me to pick my favorites but I don’t quite feel ready to give my full attention to hundreds of images.  So instead I chose one and decided to make something of it.

20150606_SandraR_S04_0120150606 Sandra R Set 04 Image 01

I like the pose here with Sandra R’s leg spanning the two chairs. It’s like she is claiming both chairs. She is purposely not inviting you to sit down. It’s a good story in the composition (at least from my perspective).

Everything looks so bright and shiny I felt that I needed to rough it up a little or a lot.

The first thing I did create couple of adjustment layers to mess with the colors. Once I got a vintage looking color scheme I then went on to simulate physical damage to the photograph. I used a Black and white picture of metal scratches. The scratches are only there to be a template for the damaged to the image. I used the color picker to select the scratch pattern. then used it on a layer mask of the original image. I cut away the pixels in the selection effectively cutting away (masking) parts of the image. I then painted back some of the lost details using the layer mask.

20150606_SandraR_S04_01a20150606 Sandra R Set 04 Image 01 – Old Pool hall

I added a crumpled paper texture under the image so that it would show through. My thoughts are that it looks like its a photograph that has lost some of the emulsion from being damp and sticking to another photograph. When you pull the damp photographs apart some times a photograph looses emulsion and some times it picks up emulsion from the other photograph.

I just realized as I’m typing this blog that I should have applied the scratch mask to the color adjustment layers. So quick Control + Click to the layer mask to select, then hop over to each adjustment layer and inverse the selection and cut.

20150606_SandraR_S04_01b20150606 Sandra R Set 04 Image 01 – Old Pool hall (adj.)

Now it looks more like the underlying paper under the emulsion.  This is why you should always work with adjustment layers and masks. Imagine if I had actually just cut and paste the original image… there would be no going back.

Girl in the mask.

28 Thursday May 2015

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“OMG i love the close up of the girl in the mask.
lemme know if i can buy a print!”

That’s an actual verbatim quote from the host who allowed me to shoot at their place for my May Shooting window.

Just this week I started putting together a Dropbox folder containing a few previews from the shoots I’ve done at various locations. Mostly to show hosts what I’ve been up to on their property and also as a way to show potential host what I’m looking to do.

20150520_WingF_S15_06a20150520 Wingless F  Set 15 Image 06 – Girl in the mask.

The images I have out on Dropbox are just previews all that has been done is auto levels and resized to 1000 pixels on the largest side. Certainly not 100% finished even my best images get a little nudge here and there.

I was looking at way to finish “Girl in the Mask” so I asked for some advice from my wife (a most excellent photographer). She offered that it needs a little more red.

I could see her point the braiding around Wingless F’s top was a red floral design (roses i think).  Unfortunately it was the only red in the composition and it looked slightly out of place.

I thought about adding red to the room but the color scheme in the room was awesome and I felt I couldn’t add red to the background without it looking garish. Then I thought, how about I do it backwards and take elements from the room and change the way Wingless F looks instead.

Using the sideboard on the back wall and the throw pillow in the chair as inspiration I changed the floral design from red and white to a more marmalade tabby cat design. I also felt I need to nudge the eye color to help with tying the colors and cat theme together.

I like it. I’ll see what size my May Shooting window host would like and I’ll get it printed and give it to them. After all flattery goes a long way in my book ;0)

Aurora R on the window sill.

27 Wednesday May 2015

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Aurora was the last appointment of the day.  Usually my last appointments can go one of two ways.

It could be my creative bucket is dry – I’ve used all my brain power to come up with poses and angles on the previous appointments.  Now I’m just repeating and repeating only the model has changed.

Or

I come up with new poses and I’m kicking my self for not thinking of it sooner.

With Aurora R it was partially both. I hadn’t had lunch and I was flagging when Aurora R arrived at the location. The first sets where warm up as usual when I started shooting in earnest I felt I was repeating and I couldn’t stop myself. Around set 13 I started getting my second wind. By the time I got to set 14 I was kicking myself wondering why I hadn’t done this earlier.

20150520_AuroraR_S14_05a20150520 Aurora R  Set 14 Image 05

This is another channel mixer adjustment. I boosted the green channel thinking I might clip the highlights again and block the view from the window. It was way over the top so I started bringing down the Red channel. I waited till I got the view outside and then I just moved it until I felt the view balanced out and everything had the same tone /’color’. I wanted the view outside to look homogenized and slightly bland so that all the interest was kept within the room.

I wanted the focus to be on the light and shadows on Aurora R.

Wingless F in Black and White

25 Monday May 2015

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Near the end of the shoot we decided to try out a posing with a hat that we found at the location. It was a nice color and matched the cardigan that Wingless F wore when she arrived at the shoot.

We managed to do a couple of sets using the hat. We got a number of great images with the hat posing in front of the windows.

20150520_WingF_S18_0920150520 Wingless F  Set 18 Image 09

I like the image and the pose but I don’t like the view through the window. I also feel Wingless F’s face is a little too much in shadow.   When I was looking at ways to improve the image I decided to try making it Black and white. I chose the channel mixer method using adjustment levels I mixed the various Red, Green and Blue channels together. While I was working on it I noticed if boosted the Blue channel I could overly brighten the view out the window. As you can see I intentionally clip the highlights to the point when I would loose the details outside the window.

20150520_WingF_S18_09a20150520 Wingless F  Set 18 Image 09 – Black & White

It also meant that I would be clipping details from other already bright areas like the curtain on the left (which I didn’t mind) and Wingless F’s left leg which I did mind. So using the brush tool I removed part of the adjustment layer over the details that where being clipped. I included a saturation layer (-100) to make sure everything stayed without color.

You probably don’t notice but the corner of the room on the left is a little grainy. It was brightened a little too much. I was thinking of fixing it but I think I like it. It gives me the impression that it’s film grain and that the image was “printed” from a negative.