Week 1. No, really!

Thar she blows, my picture for week #1, posted at the last possible minute. An illustrious start :)

My daughter is an avid collector of 'Littlest Pet Shop' toys, and some of them are nicely decorated with style of scrolling linework. They can actually be quite attractive, so I thought I'd put this little fishy to work in a splash picture. I figure when you need to get your creative juices flowing again, go with what you know and what you like, and I like splash shots :)

Taken with my 60mm Macro at f/6.3 with a three-light setup (left and right through the softbox walls, and background lit from above), triggered remotely. I had two other ideas that I shot today, and neither worked but I like this one. It's simple, but the colours are good and the focus is not bad.

The eye is slightly out of focus unfortunately, and it's exacerbated by the fact that the paint is a bit blotchy on the toy. Still, perfect focus when dropping a buoyant toy into water with razor-thin depth of field is going to be really hard to achieve. At least the fins and bubbles are all nice and sharp.

Kersplash! Pre-and-post...

I didn't have a lot of time to shoot today, but my daughter was splashing in her pool in the back yard when I got home and I took some pictures just for the family. This turned into a good opportunity though, a chance to practice some post-processing and evaluate my technique. Tada! Day 180 post!

First off, here is the shot I kept straight out of camera:



As you can gather, if this is the best shot that I took, the rest were not very good :) She doesn't like getting water on her face, so her expression was always equally demented in the other shots.

Anyhow, post-processing was:

- Straighten
- Crop
- Fix white balance
- Sharpen
- Curves

Here is the result:



The curves adjustment is from an action set that I liked from DeviantArt, but dialed in to my own preference, and normally toned down to about 30% opacity. It just looks right to me this way.

So, this is the process I go through, more or less, for all my shots. The curves adjustment is not always applied, but this is the natural light set that I prefer for portraits.

Thanks again for reading, your comments are always welcome!

Backyard Bubbles

I hope you aren't all sick of pics of my kids. The more practice I can manage with portraits, the better. Besides, my kids are cute!

We picked up this 'Bubble Typhoon' device on the weekend and set it up in the backyard today. Of course, Daddy was right behind with his camera.

Here are the shots from today:





Both shot with the 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM which I'm finding a very helpful kid-shooting lens. The autofocus is damn quick, the fixed aperture is just incredibly helpful for sorting out exposure, and for full body shots the zoom range really is ideal. Combined with the much better AF on the 7D and all my shots were crisply in focus. These were shot at ISO 100, f/4 in aperture priority.

I've really come to like this post processing style as well. It's almost become a go-to for me for strongly lit portraits. I'll need to branch out, but it's also important to develop a style to show your clients. I think this one works for me.

GRAR!

DINOSAURS! GRAR!



DAUGHTER LOVES DINOSAURS!

(Guess who dictated tonight's photo subject?)

So, a chance to take a pretty simple shot and play with it. In this case, I wanted to throw a shadow given the interesting shapes of the rib cage, spine and tail. Initial attempts threw were pretty weak looking, so I brought the light quite high camera right and fully zoomed, although not snooted. This threw a sharper shadow that I was able to keep in the frame, but the shadows also obliterated detail on the 'skeleton'. The solution is another speedlight just to camera left, handheld in this case for convenience.

In post processing I just had to remove one crease in the gray backdrop, and then I muddied the colour down and hiked the contrast a bit. Just a bit of fun with a simple shot.

Blogger also finally has some templates that will support a 500 pixel wide main column, so I switched to this one. I tend to like the darker background and it makes the post tags and comments a little more visible.

Nightmare

Day 141 and I wanted to do a set shot that I had in mind ever since my daughter got a set of multicoloured toy bugs.

Let me just say that I don't like spiders. This from the guy with a pet 5' python, but I really don't like spiders, and even garishly coloured plastic ones make me feel uneasy. I decided that I wanted to try and capture something that echoed that.

I borrowed my wife, set her up on the couch and tried to get a shot like I had in mind. I ended up having her right on her back, me hovering above with a flash/umbrella adaptor in my left hand since I couldn't angle it correctly on the light stand.

The shot needed some work, so this is was another chance to work on my post processing, trying out some actions and fiddling with colours.

Here is the result:



I think it captured the emotion, and what more can you ask for? The plastic spiders a bit hokey but it's what I had on hand. I like it, it looks like what I expected.

Upgrade!

I'm sorry for a short post tonight, but day 130 can be summed up with one word: Upgrade!



So the f/4 version lasted a weekend before I decided to move up to the lens I really wanted, the EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM. Now I just have to pay for it...

Slides and rides...

Another two-fer today, one shot just for fun, and one that I set out as a project for myself.

First, day 125, and a day that I just wanted to shoot something silly. Once again, my daughter's toys came to the rescue here, and along with a gelled flashlight I put together a little picture telling the story of Mickey's drug-fueled flight from the law and the tragedy of Pluto's untimely demise:



Even the mystery Mousketool couldn't save Mickey's bacon at the trial. If you don't get the joke, you don't have a 4 year old who is addicted to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse show. I consider you the lucky ones.

For a slightly more serious shot, I took some pictures at the local school playground with my daughter. I wanted a chance to work on post-processing some natural light shots, so this was a great opportunity to do that.

Here's the day 126 shot:



This shot has a few simple effects applied to it, including blurred duplicate layer, soft light blending at about 40% opacity, and then a 30% black layer over that which is selectively deleted away to provide a more natural looking vignette than my previous attempt. Compared to the shot straight out of camera, it's a simple effect but very effective.

I plan to keep working on my post processing, as it is going to be key for me actually make an effort at the portrait business. Also, I am now hunting around for a used 70-200 f/2.8L IS because clearly I need to spend more money on this, right?

Thanks for reading!

Jumping for joy...

Today is day 120 of my Project 365.

There was no day 119 picture as I spent all day at HSC Children's Hospital with my little guy for a day surgery. He's recovering pretty well, but it's going to be a rough few weeks. This little toy was bought for him as a present to have when he came home, and when you hold it down and let go, it jumps.



My boy is home, and he's doing well. Jump for joy!

Quick post...

Sorry have to make this fast, busy day and guests on the way.

I just wanted to mess around with a silly toy that my son plays with. It's a hammer. A happy hammer. A happy hammer with the dead eyes of a killer.



His name is Hank. Hank the sociopathic hammer.

The eggs should really stop inviting that guy over.