Dreamy

I was having trouble catching the light, but I really wanted to learn how to shoot this type of picture. Armed with my D40 and 600 Flash I excitedly set off for my friend's house to practice shooting.


She's was ready and eager to help me capture the essence of her dreams. We wanted to focus on her face and hands with the darkness representing what wasn't seen of herself.


Of course, I couldn't get the flash to fire remotely, so we just did the best we could then Photoshop did the rest.


Shooting in RAW I desaturated, enlightened, and added the softest contrast level. Adding a 50% opaque Sepia made me feel like it was just the right temperment.


Adding the stardust was pretty easy using the Dyna Brushes from Scrapgirls.com. I had photographed a pink guitar my friend had on her desk then transformed it into a png to use in the shot with musical notes. That's the only real color we wanted established.


Now her friends could see her secret desire to learn to play the guitar and make beautiful music.





The noise is terrible but sometimes just playing is all the reward a shutterbug needs. Hope you enjoy the results.

Eye of the Storm

The day I shot this was one of those moments. I just had to get the camera and do my best. Using my Canon G5, set on auto, I clicked away.

Later, as I reviewed the pictures, I didn't notice how special this shot was at first. A couple of years down the road I revisited this file and was really thankful.

That light in the middle of the storm, casting the pink light and seeing it reflected on the water, caused me to pause and for a split-second, I thought perhaps this was a sign that God was female. Not that it matters, but the perfect pink is so soft and cozy -- like my favorite "cute chick" pj's.

I love the way the rain dances over the lake and even though the pier is caught in the reflection, you can see it's not actually raining on the lake but behind the outline of the shore across the cove.

I shutter to think how fabulous this would have been with better glass, better exposure settings, and a more experienced photographer. I do know it made me think about growing as a photographer because the subject is there, I just need to work on the skill.

The Name...

As a child, my family had a saying that always came at times of unknown. When someone failed to arrive home, my Nana would say, "I shutter to think what's wrong."

"I shutter to think what will happen to that boy!" would be the comment about a toddler that climbed onto the tractor and rode it across the road, passed the bar ditch, into the neighbors field before anyone noticed either were missing.

As I pick up the camera, I don't know what will happen...I shutter to think!

It does make me think. Where's the light; what's the composition; what's going to be revealed; is this anything new or different; why is this important to capture and share? Then, just like at Christmas, I import them from the camera into LightRoom 2 and anxiously await to see the surprise gifts.

My train of thought goes back to "shutter to think" and how it makes my knees quiver with the excitment that each shutter might actually capture an accurate moment in time. Awesome.