Currently Obsessed

I cannot get enough of this song. I spent 2 hours last night practicing it acapella in my kitchen, dog barks and clickity clack dog paws on the tile in all. Maybe I'll work on it more and post my singing here.

First Model Photoshoot

I did it! I did my first "for real" photoshoot with a model (not just a practice using a photographer as my model).

I took my patient model to the Alum Creek Marina, there we had access to a forest, beach, and grassland biome for a multitude of different shots. We arrived an hour before sundown because I wanted to try my hand at golden hour light (which is complicated as F).

I took nearly 380 photos, half are probably unusable and over exposed or under exposed as I learn the triangle between ISO, aperature, and shutter speed. By the end I managed to get the golden hour lens flair I wanted!

I've tinkered with some images, trashing what I worked on since they were more so used as me getting accustomed to photoshop, but I have one mostly completed image that I'm happy with:

I think this took me nearly 6 hours to get. There was an ever increasing frustration with the photoshop layers to not do "stupid things", where an edit would go on the wrong layer, or I'd edit a lower layer but then some other higher layer being turned on would negate any of the lower edits, and trying to get my selections loaded onto a layer mask so I could composite or adjust hue/saturation of just selections- it was a mess. But! Here we go:

"Final"

Original

The composite work was frustrating in that my phone and computer are set on different color displays. I went to upload this using my phone and saw the sharp jagged edge of where my selection ended cutting into my model's left shoulder AND the colors didn't match, his body was more bluish while the add on scarf was more black. And then when trying to fix I had more of those "edits are being covered up by higher layers" thing happen and I was ready to punch things.

In all, though, the edits were [not including the composite]:
-clone stamp skin
-frequency separation skin
-dodge/burned skin
-hue/saturation adjusted the background colors [model not included]
-added a LUT to bring out a little more colors

Composite edits:
-add the scarf, remove any other bits from that selection that weren't the scarf
-add a blur to the outer bits to blend with the high aperture of the photo
-hue/saturation to have it match his body a little better
-clone stamp the background to make it look natural <-the way I put the scarf on, and the way the background was lit, there was a small layer of natural light lining the top of the scarf. While it was real it made the scarf look more photoshopped in, so I opted to make it look more natural over being natural
-healing tool (because I couldn't get the brush to work on the layer) blended the jagged edge of my selection onto his body

I think that's it... something I wish I had: a reflector to get a little more light on the left side of his face and torso; but it was so bright! He's currently standing in the shade of a tree to not blow out my exposure. Next outdoor adventure I'll try to have a reflector.

RL

Positivity Circuit

"Negativity will engulf you unless you build yourself a positivity circuit. To do that, spend one minute looking for positives, three times a day for forty five days. This trains your brain to look for positives the way it is already trained to look for negatives."

I believe you. I read the article in Forbes.

A Re-Edit

I finally had the time to go through those old images to try to retouch a little better. I spent A LOT of hours were spent trying to get the frequency separation right, which I wanted to try before dodging and burning, so the only thing that got done for these images are some jaw reshaping using the liquefy tool and the burn tool- take in the jaw, let out the jaw, shade it in; fixed up some skin texture; gave her a little more lips (because I knew she'd love it).

Straight out of camera, photo by Red Generation photography

As for what it still needs, now that i'm happy with the jawline itself, I need to go through and have more of a gradient shadow on the neck.... besides all of the dodging and burning that I'll do next while I still try to figure out frequency separation.

my burn, liquefy, skin retouch, and crop edit.

So this still needs contoured on the cheeks [also to remove the shadows], nose, and eyes; I'll shade in a little more eyebrow too. Then it needs whatever else I decide to do to the light and colors, adding a LUT or a gradient underneath etc.

side by side, before and after, of my retouches

I just need the motivation to finish it!

RL

First Portrait Photography

So I did my first dive into shooting 1. outdoors and 2. with other humans!

While I think the edit is more impressive when you view the before next to it, here are the two that I settled with, I'll go over the edits I did below each.

This was a my photo and a my edit.
Things that I'm unhappy with:
1. when I cropped the surrounding garage door border, it's creating the vertical shadows that now look like vignettes- and I HATE vignettes
2. the focal point isn't on her face, it's somewhere on her shirt. with the aperture set to where it was her hand is very blurry, and her face is blurrier than what i'd want in some sort of lifestyle image

Things that I'm happy with:
1. I like where I ended on dodging and burning her skin; she was unprepared for a photoshoot, so the makeup work wasn't the best. I cleaned up her skin, and shifted the contour a little higher up her cheekbone- the bronzer or contour she had before seeped a little too low on her cheek for my liking and came off looking more like dirt than shadow.
2. I shadowed in her beautiful jaw and neckline a little more, burned some definition in there to give her a stronger jaw.
3. Overall happy with the color palette. Not too much edited, just her skin and color adjustments.

This is a red generation photo that I took and edited. There were a lot from my camera that I thought weren't good enough to edit: my model has a very square jaw so it was hard for me to capture angles that didn't show some sort of double chin action- which oh my god she would die if I edited those and released them- so I ended up deleting a bunch of images off my camera before downloading them to my computer. Many of them had the blur issue, where what I wanted wasn't in focus... which seems to be a consistent problem and i'm not sure what's happening. Even the pros looking at it when I back button focus can't figure out what's happening some of the time.

Edits that I did:
1. dodge/burn to re-contour her cheekbones, nose, and added more eye-shadow and eyebrow; even used the liquefy tool to take some of it in, from this angle her face was very, very round.
2. Reshaped her jaw a bit with my liquefy tool, from this angle she had a double chin thing happening. I altered between taking that in, letting her jawline "out" to meet it, and then burning in a shadow
4. I ended up "burning" her pants because my smart select wasn't smart enough to select the pants sin camera. Burned them to a dark black to hide the lady part outline that was happening in her gray workout capris.
3. color edits: added a LUT and gradient

Things I would change:
1. There's apparently a place in the dodge/burn tool where you can tell it to stop protecting the hues and colors- that needs selected next time as my burns are coming out red, and my dodges kept going orange (hence why there aren't a lot of dodges)
2. Make her jaw symmetrical; she had more of the chin fat on the camera right side, so that's the one that got modified more (although I did make the camera left side more angular)
3. HAVE A GOD DAMN MOUSE TO EDIT. Using the track pad was such a nuisance, especially when liquefying- I would have made her lips larger if I had more than a track pad
4. Probably crop it to be a portrait; this had no cropping and I really don't think I like that truck in the background

In all, not too shabby. The model wasn't prepared for a photoshoot, so we threw a wig and denim shirt at her- she had a very basic makeup kit with her, and she's even wearing my purse, belt, and jacket for some added depth to the image texture. It also was so very windy, and she didn't put up her blonde hair- and I think that's where a lot of my struggle came from, getting the focus I wanted, in a pose I wanted, where her blonde hair isn't showing through underneath. We'd reset the brown hair to cover it, and the wind would blow it right out of the way again!

Can't wait for the next experiment!

RL

AFW 2018 Continued

Just a few more pictures from our Alternative Fashion Week 2018!

So excited for next year. All I can think about is what I would do differently with designs that I saw over the weekend. All I can think about is how I would style and photograph the designs I saw. I think i'm actually contemplating being a designer next year!

AFW 2018 and Baby's First Photography

This weekend was filled with such wonderfully amazing things!

I was able to walk for my 4th time as part of alternative fashion week, and for one of my best friends! MAV Creative (aka MAV Photography) took her inspiration from her childhood growing up in the late 80's, early 90's (think troll dolls, Gem, the Spice Girls, etc.)- highly colorful and holographic with big, big hair!

The best selfie I can manage (right before I gave my hair an added juj). I'd like to call this look Jackie O'Mermaid

Group photo! The designer on the far left <3

And I've already found pictures of my full outfit over on instagram! Still waiting for the official runway photos to be released.

Another item I was able to fit into the weekend was getting my hands on a camera and learning how to photograph! Red Generation Photography and I made an absolute mess on his dining room table with our never ending stacks of trinkets, baubles, flowers, and herbs; but in the end we both ended up with some great still life shots using only his dining room window for light!

Here's me struggling to learn the triangle that is shutter speed, aperture, and ISO; and also a glimpse of our mess

This is my SOOC, I'm a little unhappy with out white the natural light is, but it's not bad for straight out of camera

Tinkering a little bit with Photoshop, I cranked out this; added a gradient color filter to make the whites less white and have it originating more by the window so it comes across as more lit by a sunset... still needs more tinkering. I'm not quite happy with it yet.

This one below is his first released from our play day together:

Photo by Red Generation Photography

I love seeing how the same pile of items can yield massively different results! There's my preference with a warm sunset lit display, trying to trigger the smells of harvest and cinnamon as you maybe sit back with a hot cup of spiced tea; and then there's his, which makes you feel a little lonely, like someone was reading that book, set it down, and never returned.

We should be getting together again for round two next weekend!

RL