Jellyfish Days

Jellyfish Days

Once Leanne's professional shots were done, we decided to have a photo play day at the beach. However, we were thwarted out of the best light due to a white-out thunderstorm that forced us to sit in the car for half an hour. I had brought along my green "seaweed" dress and had planned for Leanne to romp around in the water with it on. However, not hundreds, but thousands of jellyfish put the kibosh on that plan. They were everywhere. Tiny pebble sized ones that tricked you into thinking they were just beads of water and giant sized ones bigger than my hand. They were on the beach and in the water. We were screaming and running and tiptoeing our way through the sand. At one point I was taking a picture of this large jellyfish when a wave came and washed it towards us. We screamed and ran but Leanne lost her flip flop in the water and I had to go rescue it from going out to sea. That was the scariest moment because you can't see where you are stepping or what is floating under the white foam of the waves!

Evil Jellyfish

With the loss of good light (thanks in part to a constant grey cloud cover) and constant movement by both model and photographer (thanks to the jellyfish), the day was not the best in terms of photography. But, that doesn't mean the shots are wasted. Leanne has a classic look which can fit into any decade. So, I decided to process most of the shots with a vintage look. There are a few ways to make your images look aged by using just the basic photo controls found in all photo software programs.

 

Before Vintage Processing

After Vintage Processing

One of the best ways to make an image seem older is by adjusting the color balance. Adjust the blues and greens to be less and increase the yellows & reds. Remember all those images from the 1970's when color photography was fairly new? Most of those have red & yellow tints. To make the image appear faded, simply lower the contrast until you get the desired look.

Here are three vintage looks that are done with just basic adjustment controls:

 Overlay a texture to "age". Convert to black & white.

Up the contrast and lower the brightness. 

Up the contrast and the brightness. Slightly desaturated. 

Of course, sometimes you just want the shot left as it is, or known by photographers a SOOC (straight out of the camera).

 Sea Beauty

Lovely Leanne

Leanne heads back later this week to begin her third year at NYU. We are planning on trying the "seaweed" dress again in December along with a 1920's flapper themed shoot. Til then, we'll look back onto our Jellyfish days with fondness and laughter!

World Photography Day

Photography has come a long way. Thanks to the digital age, images that were considered poor by the photography elite are now considered art. Sure, there are still purists out there who want a perfectly focused and balanced image but with a digital camera you can experiment with all kinds of techniques, settings and software. You don't have to worry about the cost of film and developing. You can take hundreds of shots and view them instantly. You can think outside the box. You can create art with your camera. In honor of World Photography Day, I spent yesterday afternoon composing abstract images...in mid-day harsh light...with a slow shutter speed...in wind...and while moving my camera in a circle. Voila...photography as art! Here are a few of my favorites:

Garden of Light & Motion 

Pastel Journeys

Flow

Bromeliad Complex

There are no rules anymore (well, except you still need to have a good composition!) and you can take a chance and try something new and different! I hope these images inspire all of my readers to take camera in hand and experiment! Be bold and have fun!

Exploration #18: Structure

That most sordid of all havens, the corner, deserves to be examined.

~Gaston Bachelard

Exploration #18
Structure
Document part of a building that most people ignore (examples include the ceilings, bathrooms, corners, closets and the inside of drawers.) Pay attention to the hidden places. Alternate: Document the corners of your home.

I decided to go with the alternate and document some of the corners in and around my home. And, to make it a bit more fun and creative, I used the Hipstamatic iPhone app. All these were taken with the Salvador 84 lens and using the Dream Canvas film. What did I learn from this exploration task? That I need to dust. :)

In a corner of my bedroom sits a beautiful Orchid which is currently full of blooms.

A corner in my cabana bath. It's decorated with a large old window painted with a beach scene.

Closet Corner

 Art room corner. Filled with books, brushes and inspirations!

 Faerie Corner. A little area of my dining room hutch.

 The doll room

 This corner in the family room has a tall light.

Another corner in the family room has a window with a view of the pool and lake.

Foyer Corner

 This is a corner in the front room. My Georgian Doll house resides here.

 A dirty, cob-webby corner in the garage.

A corner in the Butterfly Garden.

 Guest bathroom corner. Many a previous self portrait has been taken here due to the natural light.

My favorite corner. Located in my English/French inspired guest room.

25 feet up the in a corner of the kitchen are window slices. These have clear, permanent hurricane shutters on them so we don't have to climb on the roof anymore and put them on.

A corner across the lake.

Laundry corner. When I see this it reminds me of how badly I want one of those new colored washer/dryer sets. This old, plain white set ain't cutting it anymore!

 Another favorite corner is this one in the master bath where ivy hangs over my bathtub. It's like soaking in the forest. I have paper butterflies and origami cranes tied to the vine.

 Patio corner. This is where the new kitten likes to be. She hides amongst the plants and bird watches. 

A Handful of Moments

It happens every year when summer begins to wind down. My calendar becomes jam packed until January. Looking back, I understand now why I always have a really creative and productive January & February. It's because the last few months of the year are tough to find even a handful of moments to be with my creative self.  It started this past week. Most of the goals I set went by the wayside with the exception of my Exploration task as I just could not find the time to fit everything in. And I don't even have kids to get ready for school! I don't know how you creative mom's fit everything in! It boggles the mind, yes it does! The digital painting of the pinup was not even touched. Poor girl! I did manage to put some color on the oil paintings, but finish them? Nope. Not this week.

 Before

 After

I didn't get much done with the watercolor lessons. I'm still on the lesson for painting skies and clouds. One of my goals this week is to finish that lesson. I think I can manage that. :)

Starting a watercolor lesson on painting skies.

Although I did have a creative day shooting Leanne's head shots, I did not get them all processed over the weekend as I had hoped. I have a beach shoot scheduled with her this week so my goal is to finish all of the images and get them on disc before she heads back to NYU.  Here are some playful shots I processed this morning, done with a vintage filter. 

 Hair Flippin' 

 Summer Breeze

Well Worn

Since I've been having luck finding the time to continue with my Exploration tasks, I will do #18 this week. I've been inspired by my friend Nichole to hit a library book sale. She found some great books to alter and we have one coming up this week. I'm also attending a production of Pinocchio with Daniel in the lead! Although I'm not doing anything creative, I'm sure I'll be inspired by the show and his performance. My final goal is to add color to this sketch in my Doll Dream Journal:

I would love to hear how all of you find ways to fit in your creative goals, especially around this time of the year with school starting and the holidays fast approaching! We need to keep each other motivated and inspired as our calenders get squeezed like juicy lemons! :)

Exploration #17: Instant Sculpture

Exploration #17
Instant Sculpture
Consider that everything around you is a source for sculpture.
Try making quick pieces using whatever you have around you in the moment.


Okay...so, when I read this I was sitting in my art room. I opened a drawer filled with wood pieces, thinking I would see if anything in there inspired me to make a sculpture. I saw packs of chopsticks that I get whenever I order sushi. I thought those would be perfect for a tepee. Not just any tepee...a faerie tepee!

Chopsticks in the wood drawer. These were the inspiration for the Faerie Dream Tepee 

*~Faerie Dream Tepee ~*

 Detail of the top. I used only what I had on hand. Besides the chopsticks, I used canvas fabric that I painted with acrylic and watercolor to make the covering of the tepee. The base was a piece of styrofoam covered with moss and trimmed in small river rocks. The top included dried wildflower heads, quail feathers and paper butterflies. The final touch was a wood sign and a sticker with the word Dream.

Shhh...do not disturb the sleeping faerie! She lays on a bed of Spanish Moss. The faerie is one from my collection. Somehow, she found her way to this magical tent right after I finished making it!

Back detail. A large sun and yellow butterfly add to the happiness of the tepee.

*If anyone is interested in purchasing this cute little faerie tepee (minus the faerie, of course!), it will be available in my Etsy shop.

A Day with Leanne

Today I picked up Daniel & Leanne and after dropping Daniel off at acting camp (Next week he is the lead in Pinocchio!) Leanne & I headed to Fern Forest Nature Preserve to shoot some natural light head shots for her 3rd year at NYU's Tisch School of Drama. She told me how this past year she got to attend a lecture with Alan Rickman (aka SNAPE! or if you're my husband HANS GRUBER!) and how there were only 20 people in the lecture and she sat in the front row, just a foot from the brilliant actor. Lucky duck! Of course, she works hard at her craft and loves every second of school. She was also excited to find out one of the plays in this upcoming year will be Three Sisters by Chekhov, one of her favorite playwrights. Here are a few of the shots from today. These are a lower resolution to prevent theft. Full resolution pics are available to view on my flickr stream.

 This shot cracks me up because there were HUGE banana spiders hanging everywhere. I'm not afraid of spiders but Leanne was doing her best not to freak out and run. She had a bit of nervous laughter while keeping an eye on the spiders above her head. It was a perfect moment to snap a shot. :)

Of course I had to do something creative in Photoshop.

 Here I blew a shot up, desaturated the color

 and upped the yellow to give it a vintage tint before cropping it tight.

 

the soul is in the eyes

Double L

We have one more shoot planned before she heads back to New York and we'll probably spend it at the beach. Stay tuned for part two...