Like a Kid in a Candy Store...

I had the honour a couple of weeks ago to be a part of my sister's wedding back home in Canada, and of course, you know I just had to bring along my camera. My sister and her husband graciously gave permission to post a few of the pictures that I took.

Comments and constructive criticism , whether good or bad, are welcomed and encouraged.

Before the wedding began, my sister and I dressed at a friends' home. The photographer kindly allowed me to be his shadow for the shoot at that beautiful location. That was so nice of him to allow me to do that. Here are a few I took at the home our friends' living room. I had so much fun. For the most part, the lighting was great, my camera cooperated, and the soft yellow pallette of the room gave the ivory shade of my sister's gown a certain softness that I really liked in the final result.

This first one, I actually got the doorknob in there by mistake, but I actually really liked the way it appeared as if I were taking a peek in the doorway, so I opted not to crop it out.

A shot with our daughter, the flower girl...

In this one, I was practicing my macro setting, and focusing on the bouquets. Not bad, but I wish the background would have been a little more unfocused.

after fooling around with photoshop...

While the photographer was setting up another shot, I caught our daughter looking out the window and captured this...

and this...

I loved the look of it so much, I shyly suggested it to the photographer and showed him how it looked on my camera. He liked the setting as well, and took my suggestion. That was neat! His composition was a little different, but just as lovely. Here were my two takes on it.

after fooling around with photoshop...

This was my sister's huband's tribute to his late mother. It was too beautiful. I just had to capture it for him to remember that moment of his touching speech.


I just love the candid moments, don't you? Here is my sister and her very own beloved! My sister has such a joyful laugh...

Just a candid of the bride and her little flower girl (our daughter)...

Even the outlaws(just kidding!) felt the love (my beloved and my sister)...


Peek a boo! For being the only child present at the reception, our daughter behaved relatively well. I actually got compliments from management. Made me proud! Towards the end though, she discovered the tablecloths made a great fort!


Thanks for looking!
Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,
Denise

My first storyboard practices! Fun!!

I belong to a great group where templates and tutorials are shared.

Here's what I came up with for my very first one.


Isn't it a hoot? I love the different expressions from his first experiences with the different baby foods. I chose to do black and white because I knew that the colors would all be assorted in the backgrounds and clothing. So I did that for uniformity and so that it would not be too busy on the eyes.

And here is the second one.

This was just some of my favorite of our son's baby parts that I didn't want to forget. From his little nose, hands, feet, to the little natural swirl in the center of his forhead. So yummy! Again, I chose to do the black and white so that I wouldn't have to worry about matching colors.

If you think you might be interested in joining this group of ladies, let me know and I will be glad to send you an invite(the group is a mixture of beginners, professional "wannabees" like me, and professionals already established in their photography careers).

Well, thanks again for stopping by!

Leaning on His everlasting arms,

Denise

More Practice On Layer Masks...

The other night, I caught this interaction between my husband and our son. It was a sweet moment where he was discovering Daddy's hands were just like his, only bigger. The more I looked at the picture afterwards, the more I wanted to capture the moment without the background details and just focus on the affection between them. It was a long shot, but I wanted to pretend that it was a formal photo shot on black velvet rather than on our quilt.

First, before doing anything special to it, I just cropped it in pretty close so that I could also include the look of wonder in our son's eyes as he held his Daddy's fingers. Then, I added a new blank layer and simply used the paintbucket to make it black. Then, in order to reveal the black "velvet" underneath, I clicked on the top layer, and because I have PSE 5.0, I used the eraser tool to erase away the quilt. To soften the edges on the hands and our son's face, I just used the burn tool selectively where the "velvet" would have cast a shadow or touched the skin to soften the edges. Then, to save the new picture, I flattened the layers.

It's a little rough looking on the bottom of my husband's thumb, but practice makes perfect.

Here it is in black and white. This is what I would like to mat and frame maybe include a caption of some sort...



My second practice photo was taken outside in a truck. Cute, but the sunlight was kind of bright on his face...


...So, first, I fixed that as best I could. Then I repeated the above steps and finished with the burn tool this time concentrating on the folds and shadowing. While I was doing that, I discovered that by using the larger diameter coverage, I could enrich the colors of his shirt and jeans. Looked much better that way. Again, before saving it as, I flattened the layers. I really like the way this one turned out even better than the hands portrait.

The black and white version actually looks like it was originally taken on a velvet backdrop. Neat!! I am pleased with how it turned out.

Well, thanks for taking a peek at my experiments. I really have fun with it. It gets my adrenaline going!!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

They were just a-passin' through!

Look who was passing through the neighborhood on Wednesday morning. Yup, my feathered friends, "Mr. and Mrs. Sandhill Crane". Remember them? I love it when they visit. With not a care in the world, they let me get up pretty close, as long as I approached them very slowly. Love it when that happens!

Here are some shots I got of them.

Enjoy!!

In the words of Jed Clampett, "Y'all come back now y'hear?"

Thanks for visiting!

Leaning On His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

This is so much fun!

I'm still not real steady with the magnetic lasso tool, so I thought this would be an appropriate picture to practice with.

Here is the original...

Here's the after...

And in Black and White...

Not too bad but there's still room for improvement. I need to find a way to make her not so hazy. It's most likely because it is a point and shoot camera, but maybe not. If anyone has suggestions on remedying the haziness, I'd love to learn the technique.

Thanks for stopping by!

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

This Creeped Out My Poor Husband...

I've seen the finished product of replacing an object or switching heads but never knew how to do it. Well, now I know. I found a tutorial here and went for it. Unfortunately my husband was less than enthusiastic of my results than I was. He told me that I had "decapitated our poor young'n"! Oh well, can't win em' all. I think it's pretty close to being in proportion. I'd appreciate any feedback on whether it really is or not from another set of eyes.

The original picture was a great shot but unfortunately it had my daughter's arm in the way.

Here is the picture I chose to integrate the face onto

Here is the result...

Finally, after a few tweeks on skin tone, covering up drool and scratches, and cleaning the carpet of crayon bits, it didn't turn out too badly for a first try...

So what do you think? Does it creep you out? To anyone that's done this before, do you have any pointers for me? Does the head look in proportion to his body? I'd love to hear from you.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise

Ooh! Look What I learned today...

Isn't this neat? I learned it off of today's entry of Pioneer Woman Photography. I learn so much from her. She talks in plain sentences. Not all tutorials are created equal. Some can be pretty vague at times. The only difference was for my Photoshop Elements 5.0, I had to use the eraser tool instead of the brush tool. All in all, it's pretty neat, eh?!

I'm not sure if you can tell but I also did her eyes too. Here is a close up.

Leaning on His Everlasting Arms,

Denise