Use What You Have, Create Some Magic...

"Snow Girl III"

It's been a loooong winter here in Ontario. Snow, snow, and more snow. After a while it's all you can do to keep from throwing your shovel at the next snow plow and start seeing tropical mirages everywhere you go, while chanting, "Yes, we have no bananas..." in a singsong-y voice. Or am I the only one?

"Snow Girl I" B&W portrait...

So this was bringing me down, and that's not acceptable, I needed to keep busy AND use my camera. It never pays to let your skills laze about the house while you shovel for the eightieth time. Luckily, the EPPC group I participate in on Facebook had a portrait challenge going and I realized that right outside my door I had the perfect backdrop, natural light, and built in reflector to get some practice shooting out in the evil white stuff. Turns out that "stuff" became my camera's best friend, light was reflected off the snow onto my model, colour popped, and shapes stood out enough... I've had so much fun working on these portraits, the light really was so nice to work with (overcast but bright) and I even found a nice POV from our deck in the backyard. Insert a fit of the giggles (we ARE a bit shack-wacky after all) and it was a good day for winter photography.

"Snow Girl II"

Kept things simple in post processing later... bumped the whites a tad with the curves action to keep things clean, unsharp mask kept definition where ever there was shadow or dark tones, some saturation where all the white light washed out colours... and highlighted some snow that was blowing but disappeared in all the bright white with a brush tool in a swirl selection at a low opacity... 

This was a simple session, but because I chose to utilize what I had at my disposal (read: one pretty volunteer and TONS of snow) I was able to get some portraits that reminded me how much fun I can have during this loooong winter with the camera.

But seriously, if spring could just tell me what it would take to coax it closer in a big way... I'd do it. I'm that desperate.

Thanks for the ramble! Have a good one!

Reflections ~ Exploration Thursday

"Reflections" EPPC #3

Was working on the upcoming challenge for the Epic Personal Photo Challenge group's next theme "Friends" when I realised I hadn't posted my last EPPC image for the theme "Reflections".

I had done a similar image years before but hadn't worked with lighting at that point and wanted a new take on it. And the three reflections happening in the image.... were all there before I started processing. In camera.

Now a magician usually doesn't reveal their secrets, but it was just so darn fun to set up and photograph that I'll tell you how to at least get the glass to flip that dual background I set up with white and red seamless.

Water inside anything clear eventually flips whatever is reflected behind it if you pull the glass far enough away from the object behind, in this case the overlapped seamless. In fact, the more objects you have, the better the illusion as seen in my first example done about four years ago.

Give this a try! There's a ton of ways this could be used in a photo... get your creativity on! And by all means, please join us at the EPPC on Facebook if you'd like to follow along with our themes and join in. We've already more than twenty group members and growing steadily.

Thanks for the ramble gang! See you here tomorrow!

The EPPC ~ Mono Monday

"Bow Thruster"

Epic Personal Photo Challenge #2

I didn't get a chance last week to blog my last EPPC image from the theme "Machinery". Since it's a B&W I thought I'd do so now. It's the propellers from outside the bow thruster of a tanker. I couldn't believe all the texture and cool lines and raking light I had to play with when I took a closer look.

If you were wondering, the EPPC has a facebook group now, and you can request to join up. So far we're 13 strong and the next theme we're currently getting ready to post this coming weekend is "Reflections". We'd love it if you joined us. It's a chance to push yourself, see how creative or observant you can be with your surroundings. And you'll meet some great people. How can you resist?

Busy day today, so it's just a short little post. But come check out the EPPC and join in the challenge. See you all tomorrow, and thanks for the ramble!