May 28, 2011

Last weekend I had my first "real" portrait session, taking photos of a beautiful little girl.  Most of the pictures were candid, but some were a wee bit posed. 
Some of my favorites were pictures of her picking flowers.  We also gave her some bubbles to blow - always a great picture! - and even strapped fairy wings to her (she's 6) which looked adorable.  We moved to the driveway so that she could jump rope and I could get some action shots.  She refused to put on a dress or to even get her splash pool, but still had so much fun and the pictures turned out great.  I think that my absolute favorite pictures I got were a series we did to mimic a scene from A Hard Day's Night where George has his picture taken while making funny faces.  You can see it here on Youtube.  We took more than 4...  I think there were 18 or 19 photos in the collage. 

I came up with an idea for a series of pictures focusing on "love" - the letters, not so much the emotion (lol).  I tried out one thing, I have ideas for more but it will be a while before I get to them.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to a trip to New Orleans and hopefully Avery Island this month for more photos (and I've been dying to go to New Orleans for a while now).  Everything just feels so much better in NOLA.  I'm also thinking of going back to the Rural Life museum for the gardens some time soon. 

Here is the picture I was talking about earlier:

Sunrise

So, I woke up at 5:00 this morning.  Yup, 5.  Not entirely my fault, it was my mom's.  Nonetheless, I couldn't get back to sleep and started thinking about all the articles I've read that praise sunrise pictures and all the neat color tones you can get from them.  I checked the sunrise time this morning (6:08) and headed out the door.

All I'm going to say is that maybe it would have been worth it if I could have gotten a clear shot of the actual sunrise.  Instead, too many buildings and trees were in the way.  I think I'd have to drive out of Baton Rouge altogether if I wanted a really clear shot.  However, I tried to salvage the situation by taking a few pics of the Catholic church downtown (can't remember if it's St. Joseph or St. James), some shots of the capitol building, and some shots of flowers and the grounds of Arsenal Park.  I'm happy with what I ended up with, but I will not be getting up that early again for a few pictures.  Not without serious research into good spots at least.

At least when I got back home I had a nice, long, hot bath and went back to sleep for three hours.

Some state office - I just liked the way the sun was reflecting off the windows.

Steeple of the Catholic church.

Two state offices reflecting in the lake.

The Old Armory.

I've been getting much better with my macro shots and really like this one.

The door to the Old Armory.  It didn't open until 9.

I walked by and noticed the wilted flower here - I didn't place it there myself, but thought it looked pretty cool.



This will probably be it for me picture-wise until Saturday evening.  Now that my day is completely screwed up and weird after being up so early, I'm going to recover and enjoy not doing a darn thing.

Self-Portraits

I did a little bit of self-portraiture today (inspired by Anna Gay), though the majority of the pictures I've ended up liking are of a barn-ish looking building and a white fence.  The self-portraits turned out pretty well though, so I'm feeling pretty confident in my abilities. 

Portrait techniques, especially in editing, are very different from landscapes.  Especially when the portrait is a snowball, like I am.  It's a wee bit difficult getting a vibrant background when my skin ends up blown out: a few pictures ended up looking like I was a positively glowing ball of white light with very pretty grass and trees in the background.  Finally figured out how to tone myself down and still manage to have pretty colors in the picture.

Kind of excited about this week: still no work, so I'm just going to enjoy this free time and use it to my advantage, which means reading, photographing, and hanging out with friends.  And I'm excited about this Saturday because I have a REAL portrait opportunity! 

If you don't know Anna Gay Photography, please check her out - she's on Flickr, has a website AND a blog, and is also on Facebook.  I found out about her through Digital Photography School's website and I really like what she does.  She's also written a few articles for DPS.

Mississippi Risin'

We went to the levee this past Wednesday (acting like a bunch of hayseeds) to see how high the water has risen.  While there we got some good pictures of the water and iconic Mississippi River Bridge, but also got very interesting pictures of an old metal pier just past the bridge - it's technically closed off (hence the huge, padlocked gate), but we squeezed through and got some awesome shots of the graffiti. 

This is a collage of some of the graffiti.

A collage of some of my pictures of the bridge.

This is the USS Kidd with the levee in the background.

Train tracks near the levee.

This is the gate to the pier, with a view down it to the river.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

Outer wall, facing towards the river.

This was the levee as of Wednesday afternoon.

The levees were shut down to pedestrians and bicyclists Friday morning for the foreseeable future.  I went downtown this morning to see how close I could get.  These were some of the shots I got:

This part of the levee was not blocked off, so I parked and cross the train tracks.  

There were fish flopping about too.

Sandbags.

These are the Tiger Dams.

Right now the river level is 44 ft (according to WAFB) and it we should reach the highest level May 22 or 23.



Took some pictures along River Road today...

I only intended to get pictures of the ruins of Cottage Plantation today - but I got to spend a couple of hours driving down River Road and stopping wherever I fancied!  This was also the first time that I got to use Lightroom on brand new photos (besides some indoor flower pictures).  I'm very very very very very very very happy with the results! 

This is (what is left of) The Cottage Plantation.

It was a beautiful day on the levee today!

This was at St. Gabriel Catholic Church.

The saddest tomb.

This one is very interesting - the seal says "Woodmen of the World Memorial."  After doing a bit of research, I found out that Woodmen of the World is a life insurance company founded in 1890.  Part of their service was to provide decent burials for their members, which were marked with either a tree stump or a stack of wood with the seal.  They still provide life insurance.  Their grave markers can be found all over the United States, though they are becoming more rare as graves fall into disrepair or new tombstones are required.  Here is the website: http://www.woodmen.org/inside.cfm?Main_menu_id=1&Sub_menu_id=3&Page_id=126.

This is Bocage Plantation.

This is St. Gabriel Catholic Church (no longer in use).

Again, I really like Lightroom so far!  It's great to be able to see something in my head and be able to create it in Lightroom.  I tried to create a good mix between color and black & white photos.  As usual, my favorites tend to be the black & whites.

Throwing Some Ideas Around

While reading some other photography sites the other day, I came across this image:

It is by photographer Larry Loucrey.  His own website doesn't say how he did it or what techniques he used, but I'm fascinated by the idea and would like to try it myself.  So I guess this will be my first project.  I'm going to give myself until the end of the summer to complete it.  Although I hate the idea of putting myself in front of the camera, I'll use myself as the subject simply because it'll be a bit easier and because I'm not sure who else would be willing.

I think the best way to go about it recreating this is to take the pictures and edit them first in Lightroom, then transfer the images to Picasa in order to make the collage.  Hopefully I will (eventually) like the end result!

Other than that, I'm looking forward to a portrait shoot later this month.  Practice, practice!

Easter Images

For Easter this year my goal was to get some excellent images of my six (!) cousins easter-egg hunting and having a good time.  As far as easter-egg hunting, I only captured a few truly good shots.  The kids were moving quickly and hunting for that golden egg, so it was difficult for me to move quickly enough to get a good composition.  All was not lost though - after the egg hunt, the kids jumped into the pool and that was where I got some excellent shots that captured all the fun they were having.  These are by far the best photos I've taken of them and just wanted to share a few.

It really helped me to try out some portrait skills, but I desperately need more practice!  Tomorrow afternoon some friends and I are supposed to practice some more portraiture, either using ourselves as models or some more kiddies - so more practice is definitely coming soon!

Some Photos I Like

Here are some more photos I like after a bit of tweaking in Lightroom. 

These two photos were taken indoors with no flash - very pleased with how they turned out!  I usually have a bit of trouble with indoor lighting.

This photo was taken last summer at the Pennington Hot Air Balloon Festival.  I used Lightroom to really make the colors pop.

This is a photo of Duncan I took a few weeks ago - I like how gritty his fur looks - lots of texture! - and I like how glassy his eye looks.

And this one is an abandoned church near St. Francisville, LA - St. Mary's Episcopal.  I made it kind of gloomy and imposing and wanted a bold sky...