Goodbye All!

I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed working with all of you! It has been a wonderful experience and I expect that in the future when in a book store or an art gallery I will see familiar names and say hey I had a class with them! Truly a very talented bunch of people! Here is to keeping the 'creative inner child' growing and may your holidays be blessed with many wonderful moments! It has been an honor to share this road on our creative journey.

Rachelle :)

Action Shot - Chickadee & Finch (?) in flight

In the beginning of the week I spoke to my daughter's dance instructor and swim instructor to get permission to take pictures during class for my action shots. I was going to take shots of when the dancers jump into the air and swimmers cutting through the water & jumping in (Friday night)... however with the storm that is headed our way there will more than likely be no school, no dance class, no swim class, and us without power as usual (happens all the time where I live). So with that said during my lunch break (which I am hurrying to do this) filled the feeders up, since the chickadees were already checking them out, grabbed my camera and took as many pictures as I could in 5 minutes... here is one where I finally was able to capture one in flight/landing...

Happy Holidays! Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! NOT!

Original Photos used in Photostory before being manipulated

The brave little elf...

the feathers used to make the fairy wings...

the fairy practicing take-off (wingless)...

and the grand finale.. the infamous dragon... in reality a letter opener holder (held in it's hand) and is a grand height of about 7 inches. During the day it is a famous movie star (maybe you have seen him in Dragonheart) and in the evening hours he works part time on my husband's desk helping opening all the bills.

Week 14 Final Project

(Hawk image courtesy of Tinyfish, dragon courtesy of my husband's desk (letter opener holder), elf played by - Lauren, fairy played by - Sierra, cat creature played by Lucky, scenery courtesy of my backyard)
Two friends (an elf and a fairy) start their day with one of them snatched from their bed. It is up to the other to save them. Throughout the course of the day the favor is later returned during their celebration of safety. Later, while resting, all seems well or is it? Moohaha or should that be 'meow'haha!

Week 13 Portraits

I dodged the background instead of having the bright grey of the outside as the background, the photo was also cropped and then coverted over to a dry brush painting. Poppy & granddaughter - I love how this picture came out... warm fuzzies. :0)

My sister-in-law worked with me on this shot as long as she could wear a hat (she was having a bad hair day - we just returned from an all-out black friday day out- rain - wind, etc. need I say more ;0) ) The above and below shot were both cropped, lighting corrected, below the color taken out and done as newspaper black and white enhance, then painted in the portion of the face that is showing. I used the idea of not having the subject straight on, only a portion showing and something in the background that could be related to the subject. (We pretended that she was a piano player).

Week 11...

Week 10 Clone Stamp, Text & Paint

The photo on the left is the original. The house was clone stamped out in the photo on the right. The color corrected and a snowflake shape entered, color selected on opacity set at a lower level (done within another layer). Another layer added for the text using the horizontal and the vertical slightly varying it to meet the snowflake form.

The above photo has power lines & a power pole. The photo below was cropped, the clone stamped used to hide the lines and the pole. Also added was text and parts of the tree painted in. The magic wand was used to highlight areas, then the paint bucket was used to fill the chosen areas in.

This is the third example of the clone stamp tool. The photo was cropped. The dodge and burn tool to correct lighting within the photo due to the brightness of the snow. The clone stamp was then used to wipe out the leash and the collar.

Example of the watermark with copyright sign. Instructions posted on discussion board for elements.

Statue painted in using magic wand, paint bucket and the paint brush. Set on 58% opacity. Colors chosen through color swatch found under windows bar.

Just for fun..

Week 9 Dodge & Burn

Leslie inspired me on this picture. This is my cat Lucky, I cropped the pic to her face since I had a little difficulty getting the outline using the wand & other tools to line up with her body correctly (she is so funny, if you are sitting at the island or standing in the kitchen and she wants to talk to you, she will jump on one of the stools and either sit next to you or look at you and start talking (meowing)). I did the same as below. Although, I did have to add black to her eyes since I don't have a 'green eye correction' only red eye correction. I think the latest elements has the green eye correction for animals retinas.

On this one I used the magic wand to cut out the dancer, the original was over exposed and washed out due to the proximity of the flash. Once that I darkened the highlights, lightened the shadows to give a more even appearance (so I actually used both dodge and burn on the dancer). I selected the background next and darkened the highlights, the shadows and the midtones. I also adjusted the color saturation, fixed the hue slightly and the amount of light within the color hue/saturation adjustment.

Well - I was trying to get the flashlight effect, the one where you sit around the campfire and stick the flashlight to your face to tell a spooky story... that one. :) In photoshop elements the dodge and burn tool is located under the sponge tool on the left side. It shows up if you right click on the sponge tool. I set it at 50% opacity. In elements they do not have grey - it appears that it is either black or white depending on if you are using the dodge and burn in regard to creating a layer. For some reason when I tried doing it through the layer technique, I was not able to get it to work. Although,I am still researching and playing around with it. I thought the picture came out okay for a first try, my husband thinks he looks like a monkey though - he said I look like I from planet of the apes - I guess it kind of does, but it was fun to play around with it to try to get it to look like a flashlight shining up. The only thing I didn't like and took it off was a slight red overlay in some areas to give it further flashlight effect, but it didn't work out very well.

Just Because - Halloween & the coming election ;0)

Okay - I just wanted to share my thoughts (which may be frightening for most people to hear coming from me). ;) When we were in Salem, I was Medusa. I tweaked a photo (art filters)that my husband took and made it my icon. I changed the tag line to match the time of year to "Medusa for 08 - adversaries make lovely statues" - well I have to share this and really wish I had a way to film it or to do pictures of it before 11/04 - but I don't so - I thought I would share my thought- imagine Medusa being part of the debate as a third party during the McCain/Obama debates, what would happen... lol... I had to share. That would be such a great short! Maybe I should send it to SNL to do. ;0)

Week 8 Part 2 - Photomosaic

The color isn't as bright as the original, however it's not too bad since you can still see some detail. I made the tile smaller so the objects would be more distinct and recognizable. The photo is made up of photos of flowers from around my house, our kitties and dog, along with some lily pads/ cattails, Buddha and one of the candle pictures. :) I had to play around with quite a few images - pulling from here and there in order to get one that looked okay without having to mix photos that were completely unrelated as the foundation - which didn't make sense to me - although maybe that could be considered abstract... photomosiac program provided by andreamosiac.

Week 8 Color & Lighting

The first picture is the original, as you can see it is very dark. I cropped the pictures to show the characters more (this is a reenactment of the Bridget Bishop trial - the first person to be found guilty as a witch in Salem). In the first picture I went under the enhance key, adjustments black and white, newspaper black and white. I then used the wand on the character on the right (the accused) and on the accuser on the left. I then went into the window section and clicked on color swatches and then clicked on pencil then changed it to a brush with opacity of 48% , within the color swatch I chose red for the accused (foreboding the violent end of her life) and then blue for the accuser (cold and calculating). On the other photo I lightened the shadows, darkened the highlights, and increased the midtone. Also used a slight cool blue tone to correct the color.

I did the same thing on this photo as the one below (again same camera used) - however this photo was not as clear looking - by tweaking the lighting (shadows and highlights) along with a slight cool tone & saturation of color. (These are under the enhance link upper bar and the other slide adjustments on the quick edit under lighting and color if using elements). I also did as Karen taught last week in regard to creating a duplicate background layer in order to be able to work within the layer and added an adjusment layer with photos filters working under the normal one.

Since I have photoshop element - the lighting and color is under the enhance link, there is also a quick link that has the adjustments for the various tones (light shadows, medium, dark) and color adjustments in regard to hues, saturation, etc. In this photo, I replaced the face with the color black since the focus is the reflection in the sunglasses. I then lightened the shadows, darkened highlights and increased the midtones. In the color I slightly saturated it a little more and then did a slight cool tone (blue) to it. This photo was from one that I took last year in NYC while visiting relatives (this is actually one of them with the sunglasses on and she looked like a fly since they were so big). The camera I used is not the camera I have now. I used a basic point and shoot digital HP camera max 5.1 megapixels.

Week 7 - Part two having way too much fun

Halloween last year & Al Capone's prison barber chair =

Having way too much fun cropping and putting photos together! Is there a helpline for this??? ;0)

Week 7 Compositing (2 projects completed) & a just for fun

Just for fun to see if i am understanding the directions I found for element in substituting other avenues that are in CS2,3,4 but not in element (above). On the right hand corner of the gingerbread house is my dog Ein (short for Einstein) laying down. She is such a good dog that she only licked the gingberbread house without eating it. (Actually she did that while we were making them last Valentine's Day - needless to say that one was for show only!) :0)

This is one of the framing pictures and one of the lighting pictures (it was not posted since the other moon examples did not come out very well - they looked like ufos). I cropped both of the pictures, combined them, used the clone stamp (which is obvious - sorry still learning) and used one of the photo filters to tie the colors together. Once in a blue moon... although a blue moon isn't actually a color, but it would be cool if it was!

This is a combination of the lighthouse photo and the urban landscape one with building that has the paintings on it. I am new at adobe photoshop (I have elements 6) and on top of trying to figure out what photos I wanted to put together, I had to figure out how to navigate through the layers, etc. PHEW! I got one done! Yippee! Hopefully the second one will go faster. It has a blend tool somewhere, I found it by accident once, then I forgot where I found it. If anyone has an idea where it is, I would be very grateful if you would let me know! After really looking at the composition, I almost get a feeling of Van Gogh's Starry Night... maybe subconsciously I was inspired by it?

Week 6 Landscape

I noticed that there is already a posting of the lighthouse at Burlington's waterfront. I also took some of the lighthouse, but will post them to flickr instead. Although landscape seems to be deemed more natural, I did find through further reading other types such as 'urban landscape' where there are manmade elements. This assignment was a bit daunting as my time was restricted and the shots that I did take, I did not particularly like. Strangely, I did not feel inspired this week when taking them. I found that what I wanted/tried to capture didn't transfer over to the photos. Photographers block? I did have a common thread in all of the pictures, that of lines. In most of them you will notice a diagonal line. I think lines can give an impression of movement. The other aspects is lighting, the shadowing of light gives a sense of time passing also. I would like to point out in particular the photo below - the reflection of the landscape across the street in the glass.. I liked how it carried over to show what was across from that area.

Week 5 Assignment #3 Frame Slideshow

Week 5 Assignment #1 other types of composition

After reading quite a few interviews and looking at a variety of sites along with some of my books at home, I decided that this site has information that is helpful in regard to composition, but does not 'talk over your head' so to speak. http://digital-photography-school.com/blog/ One section is about the use of lines, horizontal, vertical and diagonal. I chose to paste the diagonal since I thought it was the most interesting and to me has an artistic flare to it in relation to the type of photo one is doing. The second article is about children. I noticed that a few of us have pictures of children and one of my favorite photographers is Anne Geddes. Hence the composition tips on children (which I found some information I did not think about). The final tip has to do with landscape. Again a common theme that I have noticed in our postings is that of landscape and thought that the tips would be helpful in stepping our work up a notch. Within it you will notice mentioned framing and rule of three. The links should work to go to the site. Click on the heading and it should bring you to the page, where you can see examples of photos regarding the types of composition! (The articles below are from that site, they are not written by me).

(Due to the size of the articles and proportion of assignments on the blog, I took the copied articles off and instead left the links to bring you to the article and the photo examples - thus saving some room under the Week 5 blog).

Using Diagonal Lines in Photography

Diagonal lines generally work well to draw the eye of an image’s viewer through the photograph. They create points of interest as they intersect with other lines and often give images depth by suggesting perspective....(see rest of article at link provided above).

Photographing Children - Composition

...probably the most important tip I’ve learned in photographing them is to get on their level. So many of my friends show me photos of their kids which are taken from 4 or so feet above the child which does nothing but dwarf them and make them look almost toy-like.
Getting on your hands and knees or crouching down before you take a shot of a child takes you into their world and helps you to engage with them through the images you take.... (click on lick above for rest of article).


4 Rules of Composition for Landscape Photography
Photography Monthly Magazine (UK) had a useful feature on landscape photography in their April 2007 edition. As part of it they had a page outlining four basic compositional rules that can be used when framing landscape images.

1. Diagonal Lines
2. Geometric Shapes
3. The Rule of Thirds
4. Framing Images

Rules are Made to Be Broken?

Of course while knowing the rules can be important - knowing when to use them and when to break them is a talent that great photographers generally have.

Let me finish with a quote about Rules of Photography from Photographer Edward Weston to help give us a little balance on the topic:
“To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk. Such rules and laws are deduced from the accomplished fact; they are the products of reflection.”

Week 5 Assignment #2 Rule of Three

Due to the weather and tight schedule this week, my photos were limited to indoor still life shots, with that said - here goes: In regard to the Teapot and the Chef shot I found that when centering an object that the eye immediately focuses on the object at certain point and does not go outside of that area to take notice of anything outside of that object, what is within the background is within the background and of particular note I thought 'hey that is wasted space' not only on an artistic level, but on a basic level that made the photo not have much impact - in other words BORING. When the object was moved from the center point (using the rule of three/third) the teapot and chef were still the 'highlight' of the photo, however a visual path was created toward it which gave significance to the background and objects in it - it gave it POP. The photos became visually stimulating since the brain has to work a little more in seeing where the focal point is located - as opposed to the instant gratification of the object being center point and not having to work (following visual path) for the gratifying moment of realization which makes it bland and not memorable. Make sense? Kind of like the first few bites of food taste the best, but then after the flavor is no longer interesting - as a chef would say it's all about the presentation ~ :0) (and hey look at that there's that visual punch again)!