Day 59

This is a small collage a friend made for me, she belongs to a large group of women who make these and give them to other women they meet, it's meant to acknowledge other women around the world. When you receive one you are suppose to make one and give it to a new woman you meet. I gave one to a woman in Namibia, when I was there last Sept.

Day 58

Was way busy today, not a lot of time for my photo. I entered 3 photos in the Milford Fine Arts Photography Expo, and then picked up Li'l Dude to puppysit.
The subject today is an ornament I got in Guatemala. I put it in my lightbox and lit it with 2 home depot lights, one on each side and my speedflash through and umbrella right above my camera. I added 2 textures I got from "pareeerica", you can find them here...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8078381@N03/3861893046/sizes/l/in/set-72157603745560932/

Day 57

I must have tried a hundred shots today with these little flowers and lady bug. I was using my macro lens again with and without the 31mm extension tube. I spent a while getting rid of all the dust bunnies only to finally put a texture on top with lots of little spots.... who knew ! This kinda feels like it could be printed on some form of metal. Can you see the little ladybug?

Day 56

I set the flower in a 3 sided white poster board box and used one flash set to full power, camera left. I set the exposure manually to get a long shutter speed so I could zoom in to get this effect. I had the flash go off once when zoomed out and once again when I zoomed in on the flower in the same frame. I had to play around for quite awhile until I got the effect I was looking for.

Day 55

A lily on my black granite bar for the reflection.

Day 54

Another macro flower shot. I tried my hardest to get a nice macro shot of one of these lilies open, but couldn't get anything interesting. This one wasn't opened yet so I back lit and side lit it and made a simple composition.

Day 53

As promised another macro shot today, once again I used my 100mm macro lens with the 35mm extension tube attached. I lite the orchid with a flash thru umbrella at 1/2 power and used 2 daylight bulbs on each side and behind the orchid. This photo is just a small piece of the inside of the orchid. I added a little texture to it to give it more depth.

Day 52

Today I got a bouquet of mixed flowers so I imagine this week will be dedicated to macro shots. This flower is only about 1 inch in size. I used my macro lens with a 35mm extention tube.

Day 51

On my way to the supermarket to pick up some flowers to do some macro work on tonight, I came upon this wall, it's actually on the side of a local restaurant. It has always attracted my attention but never really knew what to do with it. I grabbed a few shots and put them through photomatix to create an hdr photo. It still didn't have a finished look to it so I added some texture and I feel satisfied with the results. The best part to me is there's actually a catch-light in the fish's eye :-)

Day 50

Thanks to everyone who has been following my Project 365. It's been 50 days, I really didn't think I would get past 7.

Day 49

I wanted to try lighting up the white lights and make them orange by covering the flash with a orange glass dish.

Day 48

I took this photo today at Sherwood Island. The shape of the tree is what attracted me to it, but the little bit of snow and blue clouds kinda bored me. I added a gradient then adjusted colors till I got something that looked sort of infrared, but more like a crazy painting. Something a little different, at least I got a photo of something outside for a change!

Day 47

I know this has been done before, but not by me. It was a lot harder than it looks. It took quite awhile to get the lighting, the bubbles and the focus just right. I followed Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Close-up Photography" to get this shot. I had to play around in photoshop quite a bit to get the colors brighter. Hint... if you start to lose the bubbles add a little salt to the club soda.

Day 46

These are some bottles my daughter got in Greece. I thought they were very interesting. I added a texture by either SkeletalMess or Pereeerica I've been trying to figure out which one for over an hour and can't seem to find it anywhere.

Day 45

I couldn't resist doing something with a heart today, but didn't want it to be all sugary and sweet. I photographed the heart, which is one of those things you hang and it twirls in the breeze, in my lightbox. I used lights from home depot , one on each side.
Then I added a composite I did awhile ago , of my daughter. You can see the original here
www.flickr.com/photos/bettywisse/4133877818/
Finally adding a texture I got from "Pareeerica"
[ www.flickr.com/photos/8078381@N03/4194470350/ in/set-72157...]

Day 44

I am reading Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Close-up Photography" and played around with bubbles today. This was my favorite.

Day 43

I got a bunch of these baby calla lilies yesterday to photograph. I put them in the light-box I made yesterday and played around with the lights until I got what I wanted.
Just when you think you understand lights..... it all goes wrong. I started out with a white background then decided it needed some more contrast so I changed the back sheet to black.

Day 42

I built myself a lightbox today and this is my first attempt. I got tired of fiddling around with 3 speedlights so gave up for now. Will have to work on this ligtbox setup some more.

Day 41

I started out by placing an egg in this blue fabric, then remembered I bought a cool looking pear yesterday. The pear reminded me of a woman's body. After many attempts to light this with the umbrella I realized what I really wanted was a lot of shadows so the shape of the pear and the wrinkles in the fabric would show up better. I put a napkin over the flash and pointed it low and camera left to accentuate the curves. I added a light texture to bring the pear and fabric together and here's the result.

Day 40

At my camera club meeting last night Ron Landis (website http://www.ronlandisphotography.com/gallery/index.html) gave a presentation on HDRI... High Dynamic Range Imaging. I've tried doing hdr before, and thought I'd give it a try again today for my 40th photo. This area of the house is usually very difficult to photograph due to all the windows and skylights. I bracketed 5 shots with 1 stop difference on each photo. I brought the photos into Photomatix. Then worked on it in photoshop quite a bit, I had a hard time getting the colors right.

Day 39

I tried doing the multiples technique again. This time with "Dude" who fortunately has sit and stay down pat. I was able to do it this time without instructions, and tried to do some overlapping to challenge myself a little.

Day 38

I tried back lighting some fruit again today to no avail , took some photos of Dude, nothing special, and a few other things but didn't find anything I liked. A photograph of a mask I bought in Africa a couple years ago, which is about 6 inches wide and 4 feet tall, looked boring too. So I started to play around with it in photo-shop. I cropped the mask down to about 1/2 the height , applied a crystal ball action to it, cut that in 1/2, copied it, flipped it horizontally, doubled the canvas size and pasted it on so both sides were the same. I added some ink spots for eyeball with some texture just for the eyes. I added 2 other textures to the rest of the photo. It looks a little freaky but I like it.

Day 37

I went to a meetup today in Milford CT called "Getting the most out of your umbrella" led by Bob Harrington. This photo was taken using a Westcott 28" Apollo Softbox , positioned high above and camera right.The hair light was another flash with a snoot positioned above, behind the model and camera left.
You can find this meetup here
http://www.meetup.com/Photography-Workshops-and-Off-Camera-Flash/calendar/12183397/

Day 36

I started out trying to back light a blood orange slice, the results were disastrous. I just couldn't figure out how to do it without getting lens flare and the light was way too bright even at 1/132 power. Then decided to go in a different direction and try my hand at a still life, with the fruit I had. The cloth is a piece of material I bought in Guatemala last year. I tried adding different elements to the still life but nothing worked for me as well as this did. I just love symmetry and couldn't figure out how to add odd objects to this. So there you have it, my first fruit still life.

Day 35

I started out tonight trying to get to know my Digi-Slave Deluxe 3000 better. Boy do I still have a lot to learn about lighting. I played around for over an hour trying to light the candle and cross correctly, using 2 flashes and my pocket wizards. Finally I got the exposure and lighting I wanted , only to find out the candle holder was not facing forward, I didn't even think about that when I set them up. One more thing learned, arrange your still life with the lights ON ! Finally, my main flash batteries ran out .. so I was DONE. I added some extra smoke to make it a little more mysterious. I bought these while in Ireland a few years ago, they've been sitting in a drawer so I thought it was time to put them to use.

Day 34

Thank goodness I took my camera out with me today when I was doing my errands, otherwise there would be no photo today.... I just got home and I am very tired.
Today's photo has no textures added can you believe it ! This house keeps catching my eye when I pass it. I think the morning light would be perfect on it. So if I ever get up before the sun rises, this is where I'll start out.

Day 33

I've been working on which photos I should submit to the Greenwich Arts Council for consideration to get accepted to "Art to the Avenue" all day long. It is a very difficult process to choose 6 photos that represent my work. I've decided to go with my photos from Africa since that is what I have an abundance of, you can see some on my websight here....

http://bettywisse.com/-/bettywisse/

However I am hoping that after 365 days of this project I will have a whole new portfolio or 2 or 3.
So for today's photo I just took a quick shot of some peacock feathers I had laying around and added a texture I found here

http://shadowhousecreations.blogspot.com/

The month of January 2010 mosaic

Here's the whole month in a nutshell.

Day 32

Today I decided to use my canon 500D lens on my 70-200 lens with an extension tube to shoot some close up shots.
I got the idea from Bryan Peterson, he explains it all here

http://ppsop.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html