Contests...

If you're looking for something to do now that the school year has ended (for most of us) here are two photography contests that are open until early next week. Thanks to a little push from a certain former student I'm going to try and enter more contests this summer... hopefully starting with one of these:

Popular Photography's "May Photo Challenge: 5-Second Exposure"

Sounds like a lot of fun if you've got an SLR and can control your shutter speed. The deadline is May 31st and there is a $100 prize. Looks like when you submit online they're posting your pics (yes, you can enter more than one) on their site and people can log in to vote. Even better, in my opinion, than the $100 prize is the fact that your picture and your story may appear in the next issue of the magazine. Get your tripods ready!

DPChallenge's "Lighter than Air" Challenge

I liked how they described this challenge as ---- s u s p e n d e d __ a n i m a t i o n ----- so I'm going to try and enter a photo. Show objects in the air using a fast shutter speed. Wow, I just realized the juxtaposition of these two challenges. The deadline on this one is Tuesday also. So far there are only 8 entries.

Comment back if you enter one of these contests. :) Happy shooting!

Camera Accessories (that aren't for your camera)

I was just putzing around on DIY and saw an advertisement that caught my eye. Although I LOVE LOVE LOVE bracelets, I'm not personally a big fan of the rubber ones that everybody is wearing. However, these lens bracelets are pretty cute. See what you think:

Adam Elmakias Lens Bracelet

Photographic.ly Aperture Bracelet

By the way, I cannot take credit for these photos.

Inspiration ~then~ Procrastination

INSPIRATION: Two of my students (Salem V. and Sarah B.) constructed this room out of a cardboard box for a project in my class. They even made little mini pillows for the bed! I thought it was so creative and different, and asked their permission to use it in a photo of my own. This is the result.

I feel so lucky to get to spend my days with young artists who inspire me!

PROCRASTINATION: When I should have been finalizing grades or cleaning up my classroom I decided to do a little Photoshop remodeling in the room. I "painted," "wallpapered an accent wall," and "added wood floors." Oh, and I "hung a different photo on the wall" too!

Thanks to Salem and Sarah for letting me use the room, and also to Kyle D. for modeling :)

Katie - Senior Portraits

It was so much fun to shoot Katie's senior portraits today. She's graduating from San Diego State in less than two weeks, so it was a bit of a rush, but I'm really happy with the results. Katie is so incredibly photogenic which made it a breeze to get good smiles. She's also a photographer herself, so we were able to toss ideas around and critique as we shot.

These were all shot within a two block radius near the Mission Inn in Riverside. I highly recommend this location, because there are so many choices--cool doorways, green vines, old bricks, rusted bars, stairs, and my new favorite spot--the architectural detail on the front of the library. I've shot in downtown Riverside plenty of times and never noticed the cool white cement pattern there.


I saved this one for last, because it's my favorite. I applied Pioneer Woman's Seventies action and then dialed it down to 50%.

Paint Dance

I really want to re-shoot with more colors, but I'm too excited about this picture to wait to post it. This is a setup that I'd read about a while ago but thought for sure it'd be too difficult with the equipment we've got in my classroom. A sound trigger would be really helpful, but we don't have one.

THE SETUP: A black balloon stretched over a subwoofer so that it would vibrate when a sound was played. We used the sound of a bomb exploding from soundbible.com. The paint is colored with food coloring and thinned a little with water. Then it's poured onto the balloon and the whole thing is shot in the dark with a long exposure of 8 seconds. An f/29 aperture gives a large enough depth of field so that all the paint is in focus. For this picture I used a Nikon D40 with just the 18-55mm lens. It required quite a bit of cropping, so for the re-shoot I think I'll try my D80 with the Macro lens.

THE SEQUENCE: 1. Press shutter release button 2.)Play the sound file and at exactly the same time fire an SB600 Flash. (If we had a sound trigger the flash would be triggered by the sound.)

CREDITS: I really must give credit to my students Cody M. and Cody F., because if it wasn't for them wanting to try this I'd have never tried it myself. Another thank you goes to Lacey T. for assisting on the actual shoot. : ) Search "Canon Pixma: Bringing Colours to Life" on YouTube and you'll see a really cool video that was the inspiration.

Emerson High Key

Birthday planning and art show prep have me very, very, very behind. We did 2 year old portraits the other day. Editing studio portraits is so much more work! Plus my 85mm and my tiny house did not work well together. I'm burnt out on trying to make the backdrop look consistently white, so I decided to try this one high key. Hope you like it.

Exploratorium & China Town

These were taken on my solo photography adventure to China Town in the rain. It was a fun challenge. I ended up losing track of time and having to rush to find a bus back to the hotel.

Church Editing: Librodo sharpening technique.

Wall Editing: Pioneer Woman's Seventies Action

These bottom two pictures were taken at the Exploratorium--a science exploration museum. Outside the actual museum there is some amazing architecture called the Palace of Fine Arts. It was a fun place to play around with the wide angle lens. Emerson hopped up onto this pillar all by himself.

Emerson Editing: sharpen and vignette

This sculpture was hanging from the ceiling inside the Exploratorium.

Silver Sculpture Editing: Coffeshop Color Pop Triple-Shot Action (free!) and then sharpened