some (very) amateur photo talk

I was hoping to do a blog post before the weekend got away from me, but it wasn't to be. Things were hectic, as usual! Anyways, I wanted to say a big thank you to all of you who left comments about the photo of Bobby & Lily in my last post, I was seriously flattered. :) Alot of you asked me questions about what lens I use, what conversion etc, so I will tell you what I know, which ain't much. ;) Truth be told, I'm kind of a hit and miss type photographer. I've gotten a wee bit better over the past year with lots of practice, but I'm learning as I go, and I experiment alot with different settings. Hit & miss all the way, really.

This particular photo was taken in Shutter mode, one I haven't used much, and that entire batch of photos came out quite rich looking, so I will be using that setting again, I liked it. Usually, I shoot my photos in Aperture Priority ( the 'A' setting on the camera) and once in a while, I'll venture into manual mode if the light is good enough. Not steady enough with manual yet though, soon, I hope.
One thing I can tell you about my photos is that they're all taken in RAW format, and it really makes quite a huge difference from a normal jpeg image. Once I saw what I could do with a photo taken in RAW, I never shot in jpeg again! What I love about RAW is that if you're anything like me, and tend to underexpose your photos, you can adjust the exposure to be spot on with the RAW commands in Photoshop or Lightroom. Or if you have forgotten to change the light settings on your camera, for example, you can magically change it back to what it should look like with RAW format. I use PSE, b/c I still haven't figured out Lightroom enough to be comfortable with it. PSE with RAW images is pretty straightforward, and amazing how you can take an average photo and make it look much better by just adjusting a few minor things. I also use some PSE- friendly actions I bought a while back, but most of the time I find them a little too bright and on the orange-y side for my tastes. One nice thing about the actions I have (which are by Mindy Bush, I'll try to find a link ) is that you can control the amount of light, contrast, etc, to whatever you prefer, and often I'll tone down the action I'm using by adjusting the sliders. Most of the time though, I'll just adjust my photo from the RAW format and then play with the levels and colour myself, until I get something I think looks good. Same deal for my b&w conversion.

The ones I use most of Mindy's are 'colourful kick' and 'light and airy b&w', but for the b&w, I usually bump up the contrast and deepen the shadows after I do the action because I like my b&w's to be very black and contrast-y. I think her actions cost about 20$, and if you have PSE like I do, they are definitely well worth the $$. She's even included a web resize action in that set that is a huge time saver, I love it, and use it all the time.

As for lenses, you'll laugh when you find out that I still only have the kit lens ( 18-70mm) that came with my camera, but hopefully by this time next week, I'll be the proud owner of a 50mm 1.4 AF, if my quest at the camera show I'm waiting for goes well. I've been wanting this lens forever and I hope I can find a great deal there, so keep your fingers crossed for me, please!

So here's my original photo, it's kind of blah and oh yeah, out of focus, as are a ton of my photos.. *sigh*. Still working on getting those settings right. I do love the unsharp mask button a ton. ;p


















And here's the 'after' pic again, so you don't have to scroll down...
















I really just played around with the levels here. I did up the exposure with the RAW settings just a bit b/c it was dull, brightened up the midtones, and bumped up the contrast to my liking. I didn't use actions on this photo b/c they didn't seem to work for the colours in the pic. And yes, that beautiful unsharp mask command came in VERY handy here. Notice how Bobby looks kind of blurry in the before shot, and umm, still blurry in the after , but not as bad. ;)


Anyway, now that I've bored the pants off you guys , I'll leave you with a layout I did last week for the DYL class. This is pretty much a blatant copy of CZ's beautiful page, but hey, I got the photos and story scrapped, and that's a good thing, right? I'm finding it kind of hard to be creative in her class, b/c her layouts are lovely, and the sketches she gives us just make it easy to lift her's. ;p I'm going to try to be more adventurous with them if I can find the time to get everything done. I've been scrambling to keep up , so it's been easier not to have to think too hard about them.

























I'll let you know how my lens hunting goes next weekend, unless by some miracle I can find time to post before then!