Who Do You Think is In There?

My good friend and colleague, Amber, and her husband, Justin, have recently had their first baby, Alivia. I just met her for the first time today (the baby, obviously), and she is a genuinely adorable little girl. I'm not saying that in the "aw, it's a baby, of course it's adorable" way, because sometimes babies are ugly, but she is really, really cute.

About a month ago I did this photo shoot. It was my idea, and today I delivered these final products as my official gift to them.

It should be noted that during the shoot, Amber was wearing a bra, as we both sort of decided that, you know, it'd be weird otherwise. Anyway, the goal was to make it look as though she wasn't wearing a bra, and if I do say so myself, the results were awesome.

Very little work had to be done on this shot. It's adorable.

Yes, she was wearing a bra for this.

No seriously, there used to be a bra there. Isn't Amber the cutest pregnant woman ever?

This was done a couple of weeks later. We did a shot that looks like this originally, but I was a little nervous the whole time and didn't realize that her ring was crooked. So I came back later and did this with an on-camera flash. The results are good, but I'm going to be investing in some better flash equipment soon.

If you're an ECA person and happen to visit Amber, Justin and Alivia, be sure to ask to see the framed pics!

That Squirrel Would Be COVERED in Makeup

David and I were out on the back porch the other day when a very nosey squirrel decided to come up and investigate. I ran back inside to grab my camera, but squirrels don't pose, and when they do, they don't pose in visually interesting places (these are the rules that I've just made up). However, I managed to get a couple of visually interesting shots.

Bonus points for finding both Eddie Izzard references.

I liked this one because of the lattice being in sharper focus than the squirrel. It's just a bit different than usual. I've also gotten into the habit of cropping things down to emphasize the most visually interesting elements in the shot, so this one is a standard 8x10 crop.

I tried cropping this one in all sorts of ways, but the most interesting version was the original. Unfortunately I don't have a better zoom lens . . . something I'm going to try to correct some time this summer.

Back Yard and Beyond

On Friday, we had a bit of a power outage for some reason. So what better to do than go out into the back yard area of your apartment complex and start taking some photos? It's especially nice when there's a creek winding around back there as well. Remember to click on pictures to bring up the bigger, higher quality versions.

This is the shot I had in my head when I decided to go shoot, and it's the first one I got. I like all of the lines in it. I thought of doing this one in black and white, but I decided to let the color of the grass contrast with the natural blue shadows to get that early Spring look.

Here we have a hole dug by some small animal, surrounded by new Spring grasses and the like. Something about this shot seems hopeful to me.

I did decide to play with some black and white shots, though (pretty easy to do with Photoshop). It took me a while to realize that when you want an interesting looking black and shot, you've just got to contrast it all to hell. There was a different version of this shot with only minor tweeks, and there just wasn't anything to look it. It all blended in. I'm happy with this result.

This was the shot I was most excited about when taking it. Originally I had just intended to shoot the little puddle by the side of the creek, by suddenly my camera decided (thank you, autofocus!) to get a crisp shot of the reflection of the trees above this tiny puddle instead. Again, I thought this one looked nicer in black and white (dull brown mud, dull brown water). I hope you enjoy it.

Before and After

I've done a couple of new shoots recently, but one was my first attempt at a self portrait shoot (which was kind of boring, but one became my new profile pick) and the other was a shoot for my super pregnant friend and colleague, Amber. Eventually I'll post one or two from that shoot, but I've only just begun to start selecting the best shots and start the touch up process (they're meant to be keepsakes, so the touchup process will be a little more meticulous and detail oriented).

In the meantime, I'll post up this quick before and after series that I had talked about before. I know, I know, enough of Cammila, right? Hah, yeah right, even if it's the same series over and over, she's still gorgeous, so enjoy this while it lasts!

So this was the original, unedited shot. Notice the credit card stickers and the like in the window on the right, and also take note of the car in the reflection in the window on the left. I wanted all that stuff gone to give it more of an old timey look. Most of the work was done with teh clone stamp tool, but I have a nice pen tablet, so really it felt more like painting.

This is the punched up version. Obviously the color is much more vibrant, the skin tone has been smoothed to give it that hint of pinup quality, and the window stuff has been eliminated. Take special note of the hanging lamp below Cammila's elbow in the window on the right. That part was a bit tricky.

Thanks for reading. I'll try to have entirely new stuff up next week at some point.

You're Getting Warmer

This is from the same shoot as my previous post, but Cammila (as made famous by her style blog, Dressed Up Like a Lady) decided to post up two different entries on this shoot, with coat and sans coat. Now I'm treating to you to the "with coat" portion.

Many of the same effects are in employ in these shoots, but I left my blur filter on a little bit higher because I love how it made the coat look.

I love the post and the facial expression in this one, though I wish I had positioned her in the fram a little better. I suppose I could crop this a little bit for a "best of" reel someday.

So innocent.

And for some reason, this reminds me of The Joker. Love it.

I've had a few friends tell me I should do a couple of before and after shots to display how much I took out of the background and what the particular blur effect I used really does. I'll get around to that one of these days, but I just want you to enjoy these shots for now. Remember to click on each one for a larger, more detailed version.

To Be a (very modest) Pinup Star

In my first crossover post with my good friend Cammila, I decided to put a lot more effort into Photoshop than usual. I want to make it clear that my time there was largely spent on eliminating background elements, upping saturation and applying a certain satin-like quality to the whole image to give it an old pinup look. Cammila herself requires no work at all. If anyone I know was made to be a pinup girl, it's her. However, it was far too cold out for anything truly risque, so the photos are more "inspired by" than "representation of" the genre.

Cammila is a very close friend of mine, and we go way, way back. Once upon a time, she was the singer in my band, but more recently we've each been exploring our artistic side in new ways (see: The Bakist). One of Cammila's most striking creative outlets these days is her style blog, Dressed Up Like a Lady. You should check it out immediately. And I mean, come on, she runs a style blog, I run a photo blog . . . I'm personally amazed that it's taken this long to use each other's particular skill sets!

The lighting during this shoot was perfect. We literally caught the last few usable minutes of light, and Cammila knew how to get herself into that spotlight and work it.

The majority of the radiant quality of these photos comes entirely from that light. This one required very little work (except for the reflection, I wanted to get a car out of it).

This is easily my favorite photo from the shoot. Again, Cammila didn't need any work, but the credit card labels on the door needed to go to give it more of an old timey quality. I came very close to replacing the Coca-Cola add to something more period.

If you want to know more about the clothes, check out Cammila's blog.

Tones of Home

During my last few years in high school, and overlapping into every trip back to Kalamazoo I made during my first two years at EMU, I tended to frequent a particular coffee shop called "Boogies." Now, Kalamazoo is famous for a couple of things, such as: poverty, PCB (look it up) and 24 hour coffee shops. Boogies, at that time, was my favorite of those shops.

Well, years went by, and Boogies went out of business. This saddened me at first, but then I latched onto The 4th Coast as my main go-to coffee house (pictures of that will have to be taken the next trip I take). The space, however, was always destined to have something to do with roasted beans, and it changed owners several times (my favorite interim occupier was Ali Babba's Hookah Lounge, though a place like that was never going to survive in a city like Kzoo). Now it is "The Strutt," and I must say, they've done a lot of good to the place. They expanded the space a bit, added a small stage, have live music every day, got their liquor licence, and turned it into an all purpose venue/hangout. It's really quite nice. Here are a few shots (sorry, I was too lazy to walk around and get things from multiple angles, so these are all taken from the same spot on a couch.

First off, the fireplace. It was always there, but I never remembed it being in use in the olden days. It's a nice, warm, homey touch.

There is no space left undadorned. Everywhere you look ther is something to catch your attention just enough to not make it boring, but not so "cathy" as to perpetually distract you. I quite like it.

Overall, I recommend you look it up and give it a try if ever you're in Kzoo for some inexplicable reason.