Silhouettes and Shadow Puppets

The very last photo, and post, of this class. I feel deeply sad. :'( I need a better word than sad. To the Thesaurus! hmm... let's try poignant. That sounds good. "Poignant". I feel 'poignant'. Anyways, here it is, my silhouette photo. I decided to make shadow puppets for this  assignment, the silhouettes of my hands via light. This particular picture was taken using my timer with the camera on a dresser. I chose this picture because I like the bird I made with my hands, and it turned out better than some. I like how you can see my hands making the shadow, and the angle of the hands and the shadow to one another. I ran the sharpen function of my action, flattened it, and made a new layer, where I did some brushing. I fixed a problem on my sweater sleeves, and then I tried to darken m shadow so it would show up clearer, using a dark brush. This is where some problems arose. I had a lot of trouble making my brushing smooth and even in the hands, and I got it pretty good, but it looks as though it's been drawn in. Which it has been drawn on, but it was there before. Also, it smudged into the background some, so I tried to clean that up with a light brush, but it made the background too light and left lines there. It looks sort of like pencil and eraser marks that have smudged. That is definitely something I would have liked to improve. Also, the shadow looks a little disjointed at my right thumb due to my brushing. I like the way my non-silhouette hands look so smooth, though, and I like the flying feeling of the photo. This may be the end of digital camera, but not of my blog. I will try to still post things, though they will not be as regular or often. It's been great blogging a' vous, tout le monde! Au revoir, pour maintenant! The people of the violet mist will return, but for now, we must take flight on the wings of a shadow and vanish into the violet mists' depths.  

(I commented on brian's)

WaterScapes

This week, as Christmas and the end of the semester, and unfortunately this class, draw ever nearer, we took pictures of 'waterscapes'. When I first heard the theme, grand visions of waterfalls and lakes danced in my head. But in the end, I took pictures of puddles in the driveway on a gray, rainy day. My picture did turn out pretty well, though. I chose this picture originally because I liked the reflection of the pole in the water, the way it looked into the distance, and the neighbor's blurry porchlight in the distance. Then, when it came time to edit, I had a lot of trouble deciding how I should go about it. I tried about seventy different ways, and the best are displayed here. Of course, the first one (above) is the one I'm officially submitting to be graded and voted upon. I chose it because I felt it was the most unique and creatively edited, and I thought it looked really cool. I started, of course, by cropping it. Then I ran Ashley's clean and did something to one of the layers, rather by accident, where I turned it to "satin", which I liked the effect of. Then I brightened it up a bit. At this point, I saved it as the image below. But to get to the image above, I dramatically increased the saturation, which blurred it a little, but I think it gives it the feel of an oil painting. I love the brightness of the blues, the smudged light, and the general painting feel of it. I would like to have made it brighter a little, and perhaps a tad more colorful, but I think this is good.

This is the above picture pre-saturation

This comes from the same picture and the same crop, but I ran my action on it (minus the dodge and burn). I adjusted the color curves to brighten the colors, lightened it up a bit, ran sharpen, then flattened it. Then I decided to make it black & white.

Once again, same picture, same crop, as these all are, but I ran 'Aurea' from 50 photoshop post-work actions. I like how it makes it sort of foggy, and very vague and mysterious. 

This is the picture with the 'Retro Wet' action from 50 photoshop post-work actions. I like the wonky colors. They make it funky.

And those are just some of the ways we edited this picture this week beyond the violet mist!

(I commented on 'Kobliska's' picture. )

Lightway to Light

The name of this picture is taken from a quote in the movie Anne of Green Gables, when Anne is first riding to Green Gables and they go through the pretty little forest of trees, which are covered in delicate white spring flowers blooming. It is officially named 'the avenue' but Anne does not think this is fitting for such a beautiful place, and suggests wonderingly it should be called, "Lightway to Light". Being as we took pictures of light this week in digital camera, I thought of this scene and decided to title my picture thus. To take pictures of light, we turned the shutter speed on a camera very slow, went in a dark closet, and used flashlights. To color my flashlight, I put various sheets of tissue paper over it. Here, I tried to draw a V, let's say for vivi, inside a flower. It didn't come out so clear cut, and I like that. It became an abstract, swirling shape. I think it looks really cool, and that is why I chose it. When it came time for actions, I cropped it to the edge and ran the color correct from my action, and I increased the red and some blue, and I think I turned up the saturation. I think that is all I did, but I cannot remember for certain. One thing I like that the action did is it made the lit area sort of puffy. It gives it a soft, fuzzy, flowing feel. One thing I might improve is that the left side of the V is more white because I lingered too long, and if I'd moved faster it would be more purpley-pink. Also, around that spot, the black is lighter, and it sort of disturbs the contrast of the picture and weakens the vividness slightly of the light. Light fairies danced behind the lens this week beyond the violet mist.

(I commented on someone named klimensh's)

Store Window?

This week, I went crazy with our store window pic. You (Mrs. Riehle) told us we could go crazy with these, so I did. And I have to say, I think it looks pretty awesome. I took pictures of my hat through a glass bowl, which was blue, being as I didn't get to town to take a picture, so I made my own little hat shop. Originally, I chose this picture because I liked the angle I took it at and the blue color of the bowl, which showed the faintest purple on the hat. I cropped it, putting the hat in the upper right corner. I proceeded to run my action, tampering with the color curves to the extreme, turning up the red and blue and down the green. Also on my action, I turned the sharpen layer up to the highest pixel degree thing, which gave my image a neat pressed-grainy look. I did not mess with the dodge and burn. Then, I ran ashley's clean, but I turned off everything except the hue/saturation adjuster. I continued and put the saturation at its highest, then flattened my image. Then I felt the urge to add a texture. I got a neat fabric one, and put it on. I turned it to soft light, but, unsatisfied, I turned my background into a smart layer so I could take down its opacity to show the fabric better. And finally, it came to look like this. I love the final look of my picture, the fabric's soft flowing over it, the amazing bright colors, the motion of the angle, and the general magical feel of my picture. I probably should've taken an actual picture of an actual store window, but this, I feel, is a pretty awesome picture. Also, it doesn't look as good against my blog's purple background--it shows much more vividly and uniquely on a white background, but one picture is not reason enough to change my blog's awesome background. I recommend to viewers that they copy-paste my picture into word or something to see it better. This is what our hatters' shoppes look like beyond the veil of the violet mist.

(I commented on Heather's)

Oil on the Water

Cette semaine, dans la classe 'le camera digital', nous avons prende' les photos du "oil on water". Actually, we put oil, water, and watercolor paint in a glass bowl, which we sat atop fabric. I chose this picture because I loved the colors, and the particular wisp I caught floating off the top. Also, I liked the warmth and the angle. I ran the coffeeshop actions, and under color pop I did the triple shot. In the end, I love the rich, vivid color, and the bright, popping warmth. I also like how it is cropped to be in the bottom corner, and the flowing feeling of the pigments in the bowl. It makes me feel like I'm in some sort of foreign spice market across the world, what with the bold orange fabric and glowing magenta waters in a fine glass bowl. . Something I could've improved on is oil presence; it was hard to see the oil before I ran the action, and my magnification of the colors only made it more vague. There is one good spot in the glare, (which I also dislike in itself,) but it is tiny. Bold colors from a foreign land have spilled into our lands, here beyond the violet mist.

(I commented on Tayler's)

Architecture and its Environment

This week, our theme was Architecture and its Environment. I meant to make it to town and take some pictures of buildings there, but I ran out of time so took some pictures around the house. This picture does not have the most architecture involved, but I thought it turned out really cool. It shows some of the wood framing our picture window, both architectural details. It also features our Christmas tree we just got out, a branch up close and its reflection in the window. I love the colors of this picture and chose it because it just generally appeals to me. I cropped it in respect to the rule of thirds--originally the tree's reflection was smack dab center, but I cropped it so it would be in the upper right-hand corner. I ran Forf's HDR normal. (technically, I ran all of them, but this is the one I liked best--it made the colors nice and rich but not too rich and oversaturated.) I love the colors and the depth of my photo--the branch in front and the reflection in back make it really neat. I like that I followed the rule of thirds, and it does work well in this picture. I would improve my 'architecture content'--I quite simply ought to include more architecture. Beyond the violet mist, the Christmas tree has come out and the decorating is begun.

(I commented on Martina's)