A little something from Samantha I call...

Inspired by the many bloggers who weekly share a little something to brighten your  day, I am going to give you a little happy on Wednesdays featuring the work of my talented little pup...Samantha Smith.  She recently did an engagement shoot for a friend as part of her portfolio building and she did an amazing job.  I was her styist, grunt labourer and scarf waver.

soooooooo excited for this new texture set!

You will be too and you MUST get them and use them...but not yet.  I have posted my love for textures in still lifes and composite images.  But they are also wonderful to add dimension to portraits as well as to brighten the colors, darken the edges and create a mood.

I just downloaded the lastest offering from one of my favorite blogs http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com  It is an amazing FREE set of textures that Rita is generously sharing with her blog readers.  It is the set I have been meaning to make and haven't (lots of time and work there!).  I also love that they are called these wonderful, yummy "Baking with Mom" names like "favorite apron", "pie pan", "old whisk" and my favorite (at least right now and it's not just the name)..."foamy chocolate milk".  It makes me happy to play with these just like baking with mom would have if she could cook.

Here is a photograph I took of my grandson who just passed his 1 year old milestone SOOC (straight out of the camera)...

Here is the "foamy chocolate milk texture"

Now here is the image with the texture pasted on an overlay layer in Photoshop...that's all.

If you just desaturate the color in the original image somewhat, you get this...

This one I cropped and turned into black and white using grayscale...I was going to do my usual tritone processing but the texture overlay brightened up the areas I would have in tritone perfectly.

I also like my images to tell a story (less scrapbooking that way).  I took a snapshot of our "Meet the Family" dinner to introduce my sister's new boyfriend (she became a widow last year so this is a big deal).  I just did the "spray and pray" method of taking pictures while everyone is eating because no one would look at me, you would think that they hadn't eaten in years (well, the food was amazing...I'll have to blog the recipes)...  When people are eating they make all kinds of goofy faces and it makes for interesting photographs.  I chose this one because it really shows the family dynamics.  The guy is nervous and looking around not knowing what to do, my sister is looking at him twitterpated and the rest of us don't really care, he's a nice guy and we'll see how it goes.  The point of the texture in this image is help tell the story by brightening up the key players and emphasize the family laissez faire attitude by darkening around the edges.  I think it does that quite well.  I think I used another texture but I have forgotten already (what with my rambling on)...  I also had to play with the color a little because I forgot to set the white balance in the camera and the color was a little too yellow.

By the way, who really knows what anyone is thinking...but doesn't the texture help with what's imagined?  So now it's time to get yourself over to this page on The Coffeeshop Blog to get your own FREE set of "Baking with Mom" Ethereal Textures.

12.27.2010

I have added links to my free copyrighted textures for you to use!  Please use them as you please, just don't redistribute them...it would be a bonus if you shared your creations under the texture images and gave vintagedesignsmith credit.  :)

...so the self portrait is required for "le artiste"

...and how can I be take seriously as a fine portrait photographer of I won't even take a photo of myself right?  I've been meaning to do this and then I read in a blog about how photographers don't often take self portraits...  http://blog.heygirlniceshot.com/2010/11/the photographer has no shoes  In her blog she mentions a contest you can enter WITH PRIZES on another site, go4pro!  Then lo and behold, my favorite site for photography challenges had the theme of self portraits for this week.  http://www.iheartfaces.com  Well, I figured I better get to work.  I needed inspiration for just the right shot (you know, one that would minimize my over the hill, er, um...faded beauty and wisdom of advancing years). 

I did a search for "older woman self portrait".  That was scary!  First of all mostly self portraits of pretty young things came up, did NOT do much for the ego.  Then there were the smattering of older people self portraits...NAKED!  ugh, I thought I was going to lose my lunch.  I don't know what kind of statement these people are making but seriously, try it with clothes on!  Thankfully, images of paintings, artist self portraits came up in the search and I found those the most inspiring.  I like the idea of the feel of a classic painter's self portrait, usually kind of dark and shadowy with light coming in through a window and the usual tools of an artist at hand.  I like the feeling of musty age that textures add to a photography so I added one to my portrait (click on the photo for the credits).  What do you think?

Don't forget to check out Iheartfaces.com to see more self portraits...click on the button below!

...so I am learning how to use my camera manually and life got in the way.

I decided to take an online workshop called Rock Your Camera 101 through clickinmoms.com to learn the basics of using my camera manually.  The first week went great and then I overconfidently thought I could take my next lesson with me to my sister's as I helped her empty the home she is losing to foreclosure after her husbands death in February.  BIG MISTAKE!  Not only because I didn't pay attention that the lesson would be in 3 parts (and I only had the first part) but because I also was not prepared for the emotional and physical task helping my sister would be.  

By the time I arrived back home the day my homework was due, I was overwhelmed and exhausted.  I didn't realize what I had gotten myself into all the way around and my brain was on overload trying to catch up on my photography lesson.  I just couldn't process any of it, I spent the next few days just trying to organize and sort my sister's old married life onto tables and counters for an estate sale.  I read my lessons over and over including the new third weeks lesson hoping that something would sink in, trying to practice when I could.  This is the most important thing I have ever wanted to learn and I was mad at myself for spending the money without thinking about my ridiculously difficult schedule this year.  But somehow I am getting through it.  

I took some time one morning to practice my lesson on grey cards while having coffee with my husband.  I really didn't understand what I was doing, I still don't have the lesson clearly defined in my head as to what it all meant but it seems to have laid some groundwork for later lessons.  Here is that practice.

   

Not only am I trying to catch up with my husband but cats are trying to drink water from the vase and dogs are trying to get in the picture as well. I like this shot I got with one of the dogs, I was playing with focus which was hard with the very bright window and the big light drop off on the left.

The next morning, I didn't even have time for coffee...my homework is already massively late and I take a moment to play with my white balance buttons.  This is important because whenever I take my camera inside someone's house, I notice the colors are always to yellow and I don't know how to fix that.  This is one of the reasons I am taking this workshop.  This is my attempt at the assignment and I still am not sure of what the heck I am doing.

Now I have to get the actual homework done and the only people around me are my sister and her daughter who are overwhelmed with their life spread out all around them at the end of a very hard week.  My niece encourages me and offers to model for me.  She holds up the appropriate gray card I am learning to work with in a very poorly lit room about 10 feet from a window and the sun is going down fast.  My sister steps in and I caught a very intense moment but it isn't until I drive down the mountain road on my way home that I realize I forgot to set the custom white balance properly so this won't qualify for my homework.

Now my homework is late, I have a whole new lesson to learn and my life is feeling a little out of control.  I am an old mama dog who is not only past late homework excuses, my kids are too.  But because I am an old mama dog, I put one foot in front of the other and just take care of what's important knowing that somehow everything will just fall into place. 

At the end of the estate sale, a wild crowd of gypsy hippies come along and one of them (Sunny) shares her emotions, her dreams and her children with me to photograph as they shop what's left of my sister's old life.  They have no guile, I can shoot away while changing my settings, playing with my focus, clumsily trying to figure out what I am doing.  

  

As I practice, I start to understand the lessons and I am so excited to finally get it, have that AHA moment.  The photos aren't great, these people don't stand still but I understand how to get the light right.

I guess my excitement was contagious because Sunny broke into song and nursed the baby at the same time) while Dylan continued to play his pretty green guitar.  So as the kids wandered around, I practiced changing my settings including the custom white balance settings I had given the camera in the house.  

     

My crazy 2 weeks ended in a crazy, colorful way.  I came of age in the late 60's, early 70's when hippies were everywhere.  It was never a lifestyle I was attracted to, I liked baths and security as well as fashion way too much.  But I love art, creativity and openness in people.  I realized as I listened to Sunny's romantic vision of the world, that my sister and I have already lived a lot of Sunny's dreams.  Romantic vision means hard work and time, sometimes money.  Things don't end up as romantic or appreciated as we hope and sometimes they are better.  But our dreams once fulfilled or ended means that there needs to be new dreams, new adventures.  That is why I am finally learning photography, it is an old dream I had given up on for lack of money when my kids were young.  I guess inside I have a young hippy child with creative hopes and dreams although I still love baths and fashion!  I have learned that security is something I can give myself and share with my family and that it is still important to me even with an itinerant life.  I had so little emotional and physical security as a child, that insecurity has sometimes kept me from enjoying my dreams.  I hope that little Willow and the other children in this group never have that in their lives.  

Many thanks Sunny, Dylan, Willow and the rest for helping me get my homework done!

   

So it's another challenge on Iheartfaces...pink and props!

I love this photo of Isabella, she was so hungry and it was the first day her mommy had been gone for a little bit so when she got back she was in no mood for picture taking!  But we were all excited to try the birds nest I had made of a smaller grapevine wreath supporting a larger wreath with some natural mosses, grasses and wildflowers woven in.  There is a soft comfy round pillow in the middle under the blanket.  The bird's nest prop makes this photo so perfect, her mood was like a baby bird that needed feeding NOW!  She was quiet and fine as we were settling her in and trying to figure out how to pose her.  Then she let loose and here she is, the delicate fragile beginnings of female life.
  

The challenge for this week includes pink to remind women to think about their breast health and breast cancer prevention.  With all the public education and awareness month, marathons, mammograms, fundraisers,...the statistics for breast cancer has not improved.  It is important that women educate themselves on their health and that we as women educate our daughters on how to live the best life possible to prevent cancer of all kinds...by our lifestyle, by our diet, by our choices.

I am now watching women my age who took birth control long term face breast cancer and other hormone driven cancers.  Do you know the difference between a synthetic hormone and a natural one?  Do you realize the profit in pharmacueticals for women and that drives a lot of our health care today?  This is my photography blog, but it is Breast Cancer awareness month.  Make choices so that you and the women in your life can live long enough to have many photographs taken.

My sister is an herbalist who works with holistic doctors in treating cancer patients to build their immune systems even while undergoing traditional cancer therapies.  You might enjoy this article on preventing cancer... http://www.botanicawest.com/understanding-cancer-prevention-and-treatment-part-1/