Here are some of my no frills flower photos:

Ahh, I feel so much better already and I was already in a good mood!  Have a happy Monday, everyone!

I plan on sharing the photos in pieces because there were many I was very happy with.  I want time to play around with the editing on them, so today I’ll just share the peonies I took photos of.  There were only two that had bloomed fully.

All I did with these was tweak the levels and the color in a few clicks.  I really would like to buy the student edition of the most recent Photoshop because my Photoshop 7.0 does not support the hundreds of free actions that are out there.  I’m too new to know what I’m doing besides the really basic fixes and would like the actions to help me figure out all the different things I can do to make a photo better.

Now, look at the buds.  I guess ants love peonies.  I thought the ants made them more interesting and almost more beautiful in a way.  I hope you aren’t scared of insects!

I messed with the color balance on these to make the reds and magentas pop a bit more.  I like how they turned out.   I’m learning I really can do a lot with the kit lens that came with my camera, but I still would like a prime lens with a low f-stop so I can take portraits and achieve an even creamier and more beautiful bokeh.

Do you like taking photos or looking at photos of flowers?

Around my school flowers have been planted and color is starting to abound from all the brown and white desolation left over from the winter.  I was hoping my parent’s yard would look the same, but without the luxury of professional gardeners and small grassy areas, the yard at my parent’s is turning green but that’s about it.  It’s beautfiful, and for this time of the year when we many times still have snow, I cannot complain, but as a person who was looking to photograph some color, I was a little dissapointed.

There is a lesson to be found, however, even when photographing dead plants in the middle of a stark winter or at the beginning of spring’s renewal, one can still take nature photographs that they are satisfied with.  I’m sure this is always the case for an experienced photographer, but for one just starting out, I found it very hard to be inspired by all the brown plants and gray skies.

Here are a couple photos I took of dead plants that I am very happy with!

This first one was shot last week and has little editing but a little bit of lightening.

I like it better with a texture over it.  I used this texture and played with different settings and creating a few layers in Photoshop until I got the subtle grungy, vintage feel I was after.

This second one was shot of a plant I really hate, but I like how it turned out.  I also edited the photo to brighten it a bit and added  this texture.  I was really happy to learn through shooting outdoors that beauty can come from something dead and ugly.  A photographer’s job is to tell a story or capture a mood in a single photo, which I am proud to have been able to do with these two photos (by my own very low standards, of course).

I’m really hoping to get out and shoot some portraits and colorful nature shots once the weather is nicer.  I will be sure to update you all when that happens.

What is your favorite type of photography to shoot?  And whether you take photos or not, what is your favorite type of photography to look at?

When I bought my camera, I added on an inexpensive kit that included this camera bag:

Rokinon Leather-Style Holster SLR Carrying Case

It does pretty much all I need it to do right now, seeing as I usually don’t go anywhere, so I don’t need to take my camera with me, and I only have the kit lens that came with the camera, so I don’t need any extra storage.  This little carrying case will always be useful when I am on the go and only need one lens, but I plan on purchasing a new lens in the near future and will want more storage, as well as for papers, filters, my point and shoot camera, as well as room to grow.

Here are some options that meet my camera bag requirements that it must be cute and have organized space for me to grow into.

Vituri Digital SLR Camera Bag in Brown

The Bowler Camera Bag

This Bowler Camera Bag does not give me much more storage, but boy is it cute!

Lola

The bags from this website are incredibly cute, but out of my price range.

Large Purple Synthetic Leather Bag

I wouldn’t say this is the cutest bag, but it has a fair amount of room.

5 Million Dollar Home

Jill-e Nylon Camera Bag – Yellow

Classic Messenger 2010

For some extra cash, you can also design a custom bag on this website.

SNUGGLENS DSLR Padded Camera and Lens Carrier Bag

Digital SLR Camera Bag and Lens Case

XcessRize Designs GRAB AND GO CAMERA LENS PHOTOGRAPHER BAG

Custom DEEP MOXY Camera Bag

The nice thing about the Etsy camera bag sellers is that a lot of them custom make the camera bags to your specifications.  That, and they tend to be less expensive.

However, as a college student who already spent a lot of money on the camera itself, I found one awesome alternative.  See this camera bag?

It is also a custom bag, but it comes with a tutorial!  I figure I have some time to wait before I need a camera bag and by that time I will probably be done with the semester and will have time for a project this demanding.  It’s the perfect way to practice my sewing skills, save money, and come out with a completely custom camera bag all for myself!  What do you think?

If you have a camera, any type of camera, what kind of case do you keep it in?  Have you ever tackled a project like this before?

Being at home for long period of time since I still don’t go back to school for another week leaves me lots of time to lounge around.  I have gone out a few times to my parents’ yard to take pictures, but with all the snow and dim lighting on these shivery winter days, it is hard for me to put my puny amount of photography skills to use.  I love portraits and have not had much practice with them since most people I could recruit are miles away, but the other day I set some food out for my cat, Pickle, and away we went.

I liked some of the shots and brightened them up in Photoshop  using The Pioneer Woman’s actions, but something was missing.  Note: I have Photoshop 7.0 but it has not been working lately, so I downloaded a trial of Photoshop which is compatible with PW’s actions while under trial.  The trial is up, but I plan on purchasing the student edition of Photoshop once I save up the money.  I’m sure you could do something similar with free software.

You see, Pickle has his name for a reason: his eyes are usually a piercing green color which looks gorgeous next to his plain gray fur.  With the lack of sun this winter, however, his eyes didn’t pop like normal and looked like this after some editing:

It’s not bad, but his eyes don’t stand out like I am used to.  With the lack of contrast with the bright snow and his pale fur, I decided to bring out his eyes to the color they are when the sun is shining right at them.  I used the lasso tool and traced around both eyes, created a new layer, filled the traced eyes with a light green color, and then set the new layers options to “color” under the drop down menu.  This makes the color look more natural and not overly saturated like some of the other options like “overlay” sometimes make things look.

I’d say the following photos show a major improvement.

  What a handsome boy, although he sure is mischievous most of the time and likes to claw at the door and damage wooden furniture.

Very seductive, right?  He definitely has “model” written all over his face, wouldn’t you say? Because cats usually have very bright eyes, I find photographers can get away with almost overdoing the bright color of their eyes without it looking completely unnatural.  This works on human eyes as well, but be sure to tone it down a little if you want it to look realistic.  However, some people really have that bright of eyes and working with lighting can be key as well.  I can’t wait to try photographing Pickle again when the sun brightens his eyes so I don’t have to.

What’s your go-to trick for brightening eyes?

Note: The internet is still barely holding a connection, so I will work as hard as I can to post up until I get to school next Friday, but if there are no posts, you’ll know why.  Sorry about the potential lack of updates!