Merry Christmas

Have a wonderful Christmas with your families.

I am dealing with a family emergency, and will update my blog when I can.

Dodge and Burn Tools

Post-processing is important and is not "cheating". Film photographers/developers (i.e. Ansel Adams) adjusted light and dark on their photos, and it is much easier for us to do this in digital photography. Many of the photo programs allow adjustments to be made. Part of photographing is learning to do the post processing too.

I am learning how to use levels, and then the dodge and burn tools and am noticing a difference, especially in my landscape photos. When you use the Dodge tool, you can lighten parts of your photo. You have the choice of lightening the highlights, midtones, or shadows. When you use the Burn tool, you can darken parts of your photo. You have the same choice - you can darken the highlights, midtones, or shadows.

Before - SOOC (straight out of camera)

After

I still have much to learn in this area, but it is interesting to see the difference it can make. The "After" picture is closer to the way that I remember seeing Perce Rock when we were there.

I went back through some of my former pictures to see if using some of the techniques I've learned lately would make a difference in the photo. The next picture is from 2007 when we were in Newfoundland, and we were able to see an iceberg up close. At the time I was shooting in jpeg, and had an 8 mp camera. 

In the post-processing this time, I tried using  the Curves tool too. Wow - every time I learn something new, I realize there is so much more to learn.

Before - SOOC

After

Both of these pictures are of amazing sights to see. God has made a beautiful earth for us to enjoy. I feel really blessed to have been in places where I could see these things. We have a great, big, wonderful God!

You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, 

for You created all things, and by Your Will they were created and have their being. 

Revelation 4:11

Learning to use a Snoot

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to try using a Snoot with a couple of children. A snoot fits over your portable flash, which is what I was using. It also fits over a studio light and lets you control the direction and the radius of the light beam. We had a lot of fun with it, but I find I have a lot to learn about it and my camera too. My camera had a difficult time focusing at times, so even though I took quite a few pictures, they did not all turn out. I eventually went to manual focusing, which helped.

You need to have the person sitting with their face towards the light, but not necessarily looking at it. This is easier to do with adults than with children, but they were enjoying themselves so it was a fun session. 

This first picture has Christmas lights in the background. He was having a good laugh over how I wanted him to sit.

And, of course, he decided to have fun with the photographer. 

His sister enjoyed posing for the pictures too. In this one she is looking just to the side of the light, but it looks like she is looking right at the light.

I enjoyed this last one. She had been wearing a blanket around her head, and I said she looked like Mary, so she is posing as Mary. She didn't want to smile, so I said she could pose, but not smile. She certainly took me up on that.

I'll have to try doing some more of this ... will need some volunteers to sit and pose for me. I've tried doing this with a teddy bear, but I can't get the bear to pose for me. He just sits there. 

I will give thanks to You, O Lord, among the peoples; 

I will sing praises to You among the nations ... 

Psalm 57:9