Day 31

Well one month down 11 more to go !!!!! I didn't have a clue what to do today, so I walked around the house looking for things to photograph. I decided on a silk rose and some pearls set up on a chair. I used a flash through an umbrella at 1/16th power. Added some textures and turned it into sepia.

Day 30

There was a "wolf moon" last night, I went out at 1 a.m. to photograph it. The wolf was taken at Triple D Ranch a few years back. Of course I wanted them to be included in the same photograph. There really needs to be a lot more work done on the selection of the wolf, but I am just toooo tired to do it tonight. Maybe another day I'll try to do this perfectly. Since the wolf was taken late afternoon and the moon at 1 a.m., I added some textures to make them blend a little better.

Day 29

I spent most of the day at the gallery setting up for the reception and then selling the art work that was so generously donated by local artist to support "Save the Children". The event is called heART TO HAITI. More info is on Day 26. I took some photos of the gallery and some of the artwork that was donated.
I followed a tutorial I found here

http://designtutorials4u.com/top-40-background-and-texture-tutorials-and-resources/
to create a desktop, then added the photos I took today and a pen and book and teacup that I got here
http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=download&id=1173014
I had a hard time trying to figure out the scale of the book and teacup compared to the photos. It's after midnight and I am exhausted. Today is the day I thought I might not get my photo of the day done.

Day 28

What a crazy day this was. I had to drive Kathryn to Jury Duty this morning and there was unexpected heavy snow. Driving home I ran into many accidents and cars sliding off the road. I got through it safely. It started up again later in the afternoon
as I was driving home from helping to hang all the art work that was donated to heARTS TO HAITI. I got my camera and shot a few frames of this garage a few blocks away from my house. I am always attracted to the winding driveway and today it stood out more than usual. I added some additional textures that I found here Click here for free textures by Visualogist! 
and here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/34053291@N05/4036214820/
In addition I added a sepia, a vignette, and a floating mat.

Day 27

I took this around 1 a.m, after picking up my daughter Kathryn from celebrating her friends 21st birthday. She was cuddling with "Dude" so I shot off a couple shots. Both their eyes looked so big and full of expression, I couldn't resist. It was a good thing I took these after midnight, because I was so busy collecting art work today for heART FOR HAITI I just didn't have time to take any photos.

See http://heartforhaitict.tumblr.com/#

"This important fund-raising effort will take place on January 29 + 30 in five Connecticut galleries across Fairfield County who will open their doors to sell hundreds of donated works of art, with all proceeds benefiting Save the Children.

Visit the galleries, tell your friends, purchase art and support the artists whose generous donations will help make a difference in the lives of the people and families in Haiti."

Day26

I spent a good part of the day distributing these posters in Fairfield, Ct.
It's an event called heARTS FOR HAITI. See http://heartforhaitict.tumblr.com/#

"This important fund-raising effort will take place on January 29 + 30 in five Connecticut galleries across Fairfield County who will open their doors to sell hundreds of donated works of art, with all proceeds benefiting Save the Children.

Visit the galleries, tell your friends, purchase art and support the artists whose generous donations will help make a difference in the lives of the people and families in Haiti."

My challenge today was to use a laser to light paint hearts on the poster. I didn't realize how difficult it is to make a nice looking heart with a laser. I had to resort to taking a straight photo of the poster then add a heart brush, which I got here http://www.easyelements.com/free-photoshop-brushes.html#heart, then added 2 textures and finally a light vignette.
The funny part was trying to draw the heart with the laser as my puppy kept jumping up on the wall to try to get it.

Day 25

With 60 mile an hour winds and rain today, I thought this would be appropriate. This is my favorite Mexican restaurant Rio Borders in Norwalk CT. The colors just pop. I shot this through my car window with my point and shoot, then took another shot through my sky-roof in the car to get more drops and added that as a texture. The saturation of each individual color was raised for more impact.

Day 24

My daughter bought some heart shaped cookies tonight, so that became my subject for today. After several failed attempts of just photographing the cookies I enlisted Kathryn to be my model. I really wanted to play around with adding gels to my flash to light up the background to be reddish to match Kathryn's blouse and cookie. After many attempts I finally got it. The problem is I really needed a flash for her too, but only had the one working. The pic came out kind of boring so I had to add some textures to make it a little more interesting.

Day 23

This was soooo easy I couldn't believe it. Kathryn got her hair done today so I knew I could get a couple photos out of her. I've seen these "multiples" all over Flickr so thought I'd give it a try. The main thing you need to do is set up your exposure, then set it to manual and set up your focus then set that to manual too. I had her sit
in different places in my living room doing her favorite things.... reading, playing video games, talking on the phone and playing on her computer.
When I brought it into photoshop I was a little confused as to how to put it together, so I found this tutorial and followed along....
http://connorsmithphoto.com/photo/layermask/index.html
Wow I am hooked on this, I will definitely do this again! I hope I have inspired someone to try this for themselves. If you do I would love you to show me in the comments section. Have fun .... and TRY IT !!!!!

Day 22

I got this idea driving home from my Dr's appointment. I got some new pills that are suppose to make my brain produce more serotonin. So I thought about all those commercials about depression and had my daughter lay down on the couch. My biggest problem was getting her not to smile.
I added 2 textures one from this guy (who btw is amazing and very talented and generous with sharing his textures.)
shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/
Then turned it to sepia, and added a stroke around it using layer styles in case it's shown on a black background.

Day 21

I blurred the edges and added a vignette. I used a brush to make the red heart. I would have like to have blended it better but couldn't figure that out.
I did follow a tutorial to get the border ,but had to play around with it for a very long time till I got it right. It's a very easy tutorial but it didn't say you need to be working on a web size photo, I was trying to do it on large PSD file and the effect didn't show up. I did learn quite a bit though playing around with all the different filters and came up with something I was satisfied with.

Here's a link to the tutorial for the border

http://www.photoshopcafe.com/tutorials/edges/edges.htm

Day 20

Maybe this one is a little out there, but that's where my mind brought me. I originally was just going to put up the straight shot of the angel and devil mask, but thought I'd play around with it first, after all that's why I'm doing this project, to learn.
I added 3 different textures, one for the blue and white on top one for the fire on the bottom and a 3rd was an overall landscape colors with texture.
The fire one I got from Deviant art
fire lilystox.deviantart.com/art/FIRE-Pack-67791089
The other 2 I got from flickr texture groups.

Day 19

Motion is the theme for today's photo. I set up my flash and umbrella behind and to the right of my daughter Kathryn, set the flash to 1/32 power. I was afraid the flash would stop the motion of the hands, but it didn't.
Lens 70-200mm , camera 1DMarkIII, f/2.8 , s 1/13 sec.
I started out with f11, but must have moved the dials around by mistake. I would have liked more
depth of field.... I'll have to try this another day....

Day 18

Day 17

This was a fun one. I had this idea but no one else was home to photograph so I had to do both jobs myself. I used the steam shower in my gym which is in a very small space. I set up the tripod and camera on 10 sec., turned on the steam and jumped in. It took 6 tries to get it right.
I added 2 different textures and worked on levels, curves, selective color and finally turned it to a black and white.
1DMarkIII , 24-105mm lens, iso 250 f/4.0 ss 1/50 sec no flash.

Day 16

I really like the way this one came out of my daughter Kathryn. I followed a tutorial, got confused a little along the way, but did finally finish it to my satisfaction. I learned a lot about
layers and layer styles with this one, but still have a long way to go.
1DMarkIII, 24-105mm lens, iso 250 , f/4.5 ,s1/125sec

Day 15

I wanted to work with the pears again so I stuck it on this Sergio Bustamante statue of the Umbrella Man I bought while in Mexico a few years ago. It had an umbrella where the pear is but while on vacation the kids had a party or two and the umbrella was smashed to smithereens.
The flash behind and umbrella was used off to the statue's right side and in front.
1DMarkIII, 24-105mm lens, iso 125, f/14, s2.0 sec.










Info to follow.

Day 14

Day 13

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Day 12

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Day 11

Day 10

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Day 9

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Info to follow.

Day 8

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Day 7

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Day 6

Info to follow.

Day 5

It was dark out and while driving home from my daughter Kristi's house, I realized I need a photo for today. I was driving past a garden store in Greenfield Hills CT. and saw this in the window. All I had with me was my Leica D-LUX 4 so I gave it a shot. I positioned myself so
the angel's reflection showed up in the frame and shot this at 800 iso, f2.7 1/30 sec.
Hmmm I just realized my f stops have been really wide open for the past 4 days.
Anyway once I brought it into photoshop once again I added a texture for the scratches
and another one for the open book like frame.

Day 4

The sun was lighting this orchid nicely through my bedroom window, so this is the subject of today's shoot. I added a texture to it and masked out most of the orchid , to make it look like
it was actually against a wall like the background. I am finding textures really fun to work with.
I really wish I could find a class where they teach composites and layering but haven't been able to yet.
I used my Canon EOS 40D for this so I could only go up to 400 iso, ss 1/100 sec f/4.0 , natural light from the window.

Day 3

We went to Morton's Restaurant in Stamford, CT. tonight for my daughter Kathryn's 21st birthday dinner. As usual she had the Godiva Hot Chocolate Cake for dessert. It was so pretty (and absolutely delicious, she shared) I just had to take a photo of it. Especially since it was now
evening and I haven't taken any photos today. I had to act quickly, as everyone wanted to dig in.
I brought my big ole 1DMarkIII with it's L-bracket into the restaurant so I couldn't be very
discreet. Using 3200 iso since I had no flash this is what I got.
The poster card idea came about because I was trying to follow a tutorial on making part of the
photo jump out of the frame but got lost , so I decided to make it a birthday card. I found some
fancy brushed online then played around with text and layer styles. This is all new to me.
Happy Birthday Kathryn.

Day 2

With the Christmas tree up, I thought I should play around with that. I set up a vase filled with ornaments on the black granite bar in front of the tree to catch some of the lights reflecting on the granite. I used available light, but had to lighten up the vase once I brought it into CS3 using a screen layer and mask.
I shot this with the 24-105mm lens set at 100 iso f/4.0 and .6sec shutter speed.

Day 1, 2010

I started out with a $1.00 plastic snowflake and placed it on black granite (my bar actually),
then used a slow shutter speed of 1/8 sec. My iso was way up there at 3200. I used my 24-105mm lens and zoomed in and out until I got something I thought would work.
In CS3 I layered a semi-sharp photo of the snowflake on top of the zoomed one and made a mask to erase some of the sharp photo. Once that was in place I added a texture that I got here http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/. It now had a yellow tone to it. I played around with hue/saturation until I got this pretty blue, thinking it needed to be a cool color with it being a snowflake .