Still keeping up with the October Photography Challenge! Last week I posted my first nine photos, here are this week’s.
October 10: Childhood Memory
Dance was a big part of my life for a long time. This is my first pair of pointé shoes. You can tell by the lack of wear that I spent a lot more time at the barre than on the floor! For this photo, I ran a black and white action and boosted the contrast to get the really dark darks and light lights.
October 11: Something Blue
This is the lifeguard stand near our house on the beach. I was fascinated by these when I first moved out here – the east coast beaches I’m used to just have chairs on stilts. I didn’t do much editing on this shot, just a little bit of sharpening.
October 12: Sunset
I have to admit, the sunset was nowhere near this pretty in real life. It was a very hazy night and you couldn’t even see the sun as it set. So I boosted the color a bit and bumped the contrast to make the foreground and pier darker. I like how I caught that surfer on the bottom right – so California!
October 13: Yourself with 13 Things
If my house was on fire, these are the thirteen things I would take with me.
October 14: Eyes
I figured people might be getting sick of cat photos so I decided to try to take one of my own eyes for this prompt. After many, many self-timer shots, I just couldn’t get the sharp focus I wanted. So Marcus took this one for me. There are a couple weird bokeh that formed in front of my nose, maybe from dust floating by (we had a fan on in the room). I tried to crop them out but didn’t like the composition that resulted, so whatever, they stayed.
Marcus’ dad gave me a quick lesson on layer masks last weekend so I tried it out today. I used Pioneer Woman’s “Bring Out the Eyes” action applied to only the eyes, and “Sharpen This” applied to the eyes, eyebrows and freckles. Definitely a cool technique that I look forward to learning more about and using in the future!
October 15: Silhouette
I feel pretty meh about this photo. I wasn’t crazy about the composition of any of the photos I took so I cropped the crap out of one and came up with this. I should’ve waited til sunset to get a more interesting background, but whatever.
October 16: Long Exposure
Marcus and I had fun playing with his laser pointer on the beach! We tried writing words but it was really difficult to get the lines to look smooth. I love that the bright lights turned into stars! I didn’t do any editing to this photo. I would definitely like to try taking more photos with a long exposure in the future.
Which day’s photo is your favorite?
{ 10 comments… read them below or add one }
love love love your eye photo and the ballet slipper perspective! Great shots.
Love the eyes and freckles! And laser beach is really fun and interesting.
I love the first and last ones the best (childhood memory and the long exposure). I was playing with exposure times this weekend too. How do you hold your camera still enough to get clarity in everything that’s not moving? Do you have a tripod or are you just incredibly graceful in your stillness?
I don’t have a tripod! If the shutter speed isn’t super long, I can usually stabilize my elbows on a table or something, for this shot I just set the camera down on the handrail of the lifeguard stand. It also helps to use a 2-3 sec self timer so you can get your hand away from the camera after you press the shutter-release.
Awesome. This advice is perfect. I’ll have to try it next time.
the the sunset and the eyes are my faves! keep those pics comin’! love ‘em!
Lurv the ballet slippers!!
I love them all! The sunset is gorgeous, I love the pointe shoes, and the long exposure is NUTS!
The sunset is my favorite; true to life or not. All of your photos are wonderful!! You have learned SO much…
I like the 13 things photo the best then the childhood memory. Great job. They are all very nice.
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