Gift Books

I now have months worth of reading and experimenting in Photoshop thanks to the following three books from my daughter and my wife:

Skin - by Lee Varis;
7-Point System - by Scott Kelby;
Adobe Photoshop CS3 for Photographers - by Martin Evening.

All look great, all slightly different, all designed to keep me at my computer in Photoshop.

But, I definitely need to practice my lighting portrait skills after looking at some of the pictures I attempted yesterday. I used off camera flash, bounced, but too far away thus creating some hard shadows behind the victims subjects.

Plus, I need to get out and just shoot some more non-portrait shots.

But, I'm still having lots of fun learning Photoshop.

Merry Christmas!

Courtenay Christmas Parade

On November 24 I drove my wife, Rena, to Courtenay so she and a few others from Port Alberni could participate in the parade as a little band that was thrown together. I'm not much for Salvation Army banding any more but my wife enjoys it greatly and I took some pictures.

They are basically just snapshots, nothing overwhelming (except, of course, the ones of my lovely wife - she's the one playing the Euphonium and wearing no hat) but I've put them up in a Phanfare album for anyone who is interested. It is also linked in the sidebar.

Let's Go Hollywood

One way to learn a new program or technique is to actually do tutorials that you read about. These pictures were made by following a technique in December's Photoshop User Magazine presented by "the Lad", Corey Barker. It is titled "Let's Go Hollywood" and is based on a movie poster effect that he saw for the movie Aeon Flux. So, I gave it a shot on a couple of pictures I had of my grandsons, Nathan and Ben.

Who knew Photoshop could be so much fun. Well worth the investment.

Making the Most of Mistakes

I like lone trees. I see them and I want to photograph them. Too often I don't stop to shoot them, but I will make it a project someday.

I took this picture outside of Drumheller in October on our way to Saskatchewan. When I looked at the pictures most of them were blurry. I think it was due to the wind and an unstable tripod. Partly because of this I purchased a new tripod, but I still basically like the shot. So tonight, I started playing with it a bit. I purposely over-sharpened it, extremely so, then applied a few Nik filters including this Polaroid Transfer and finally giving it an overlay layer blend dialed back a bit.

I kind of like how it turned out even though it really is a discard and should have been thrown out. It doesn't matter, I had fun doing it.