"Little Adults"

Sometimes, my visions are far too big for the time hacks I have to hit in class. 5.5 weeks is just not long enough for my visions to come to fruition. In fact, some of these projects could easily take years to accomplish properly. But I don't have years for my finals so I have to accept the things I cannot change, and work with what I have.

I just finished Digital Darkroom, a class that reminds me of photography's roots and pushes me to try to accomplish those techniques digitally. My favorite techniques were aging images to look like they were shot and developed decades ago. As discussed in a previous post, black and white prints are relatively new. The reason images of old look brownish orange, or purplish grey, or even blueish grey is because of the developing process back then.

In the beginning, images were not always developed perfectly to the edge. The photographer had to paint on the emulsion, and he wasn't always perfect at applying it to the edge. The edges were also faded a bit more than the inside of the image. When images started being developed on paper (as opposed to glass or metal plates), the paper wasn't perfectly free of textures. There were stains, wrinkles, and other different textures in the paper. For my final, I added these effects to the images I shot.

My models were fantastic! They were so very happy to get in front of Lux, and show me what awesome Little Adults they could be. I had to produce 15 images for this final. Had I had more than 5.5 weeks, I am sure I could have fifteen different Littles to work with, and I could have picked one best image from each Little Adult shoot rather than have several images from each shoot to fill in the requirements of the assignment.

But narrowing the images down to the best two or three was tough enough! My Little Attorney, Little Mechanic, Little Baker, Little Bike Shop Owner, Little Teacher, and Little Doctor (complete with Little Patient and Little Students) were amazing to work with!

And I can't thank the parents enough for being so flexible with me as I had to schedule several shoots in a 36 hour timeframe. As a small token of my appreciation to the parents, I would like to offer each parent a 5x7 print of the image(s) their child is in. The printed image can either have the textures or not; but they will be in the tonal finishes that they're in below. Pick your favorite, and let me know!

"Little Mechanic A" toned and textured

"Little Mechanic A" toned

"Little Mechanic B" toned and textured

"Little Mechanic B" toned

"Little Mechanic C" toned and textured

"Little Mechanic C" toned

"Little Attorney A" toned and textured

"Little Attorney A" toned

"Little Attorney B" toned and textured

"Little Attorney B" toned

"Little Attorney C" toned and textured

"Little Attorney C" toned

"Little Baker A" toned and textured

"Little Baker A" toned

"Little Baker B" toned and textured

"Little Baker B" toned

"Little Teacher A" toned and textured

"Little Teacher A" toned

"Little Teacher B" toned and textured

"Little Teacher B" toned

"Little Bike Shop Owner A" toned and textured

"Little Bike Shop Owner A" toned

"Little Bike Shop Owner B" toned and textured

"Little Bike Shop Owner B" toned

"Little Bike Shop Owner C" toned and textured

"Little Bike Shop Owner C" toned

"Little Doctor A" toned and textured

"Little Doctor A" toned

"Little Doctor B" toned and textured

"Little Doctor B" toned

I'm just getting started with my shoots now! I have tonight off, but start a new class tomorrow. Portraiture, here I come! I'm a little nervous about what's in store with this class, but rest assured... I'll be soliciting more models as I find out what my assignments will be!

Four Ducks on a Bicycle

My Digital Darkroom course is over. I have one day off and then I start my Portraiture course. For the most part, I am happy I took my DD course. I'm much more confident working in Photoshop now that I have taken the class; but I don't really see myself using too many of the effects I learned in my art. Solarizations and infrared simulations look pretty nifty when done correctly, but they're really not my style. I dunno... I suppose I'll be eating those words soon enough.

I did have fun learning how to age images to appear like they were made in the early days of photography. In fact, I decided to make that skill set be the main effect I used in my final project. But that's for another posting. This post is about ducks on a bicycle.

One of my assignments was to make a composite that had surreal qualities. I'm quite the literal person, so surrealism is something I really have to work at. One day, while visiting Big Spring Park in downtown Huntsville, my girls giggled at the thought of a duck flying to sit on a metal bicycle statue that sits near the duck pond. What's funny about this is that the metal is probably no wider than an inch, so even if a duck thought a bicycle was a comfy place to sit, these particular bicycles are not.

But this idea gave me an idea; this idea became my surreal composite homework assignment. Now, I didn't really pay attention to directions. I was supposed to use layer masks to make the composite look better. I didn't do that. So I have much more work to do on this one, but I love the idea of four ducks riding a bike. Five points to the first person who can tell me where this trail is!

Trail Portraits

While going on a trail run with my 7 year old the other day, I decided that I just had to photograph portraits on that same trail. The lighting was okay, but I knew that at a different time of day the lighting would be phenomenal. I called a friend of mine and asked her to clear her schedule for the weekend, find coordinating clothes for her and her daughters, and come over Sunday morning. And like a fantastic friend, she did just that.

Portraits are very different than triathlons. The action is slower, more intimate. Unlike race day, the choices for locations, times, wardrobes, and poses for portraits are pretty much infinite. One would think the pressure of having to get it right would be less with portraits since I have more control, but those infinite possibilities also mean that I could have picked a better time of day, or a better location. I could have communicated with the subject better with wardrobe choices. I'll be taking a portrait course next session, and I'm sure I'll look back at this photoshoot and think, "Man! How far I've come!" But for today, I'm pretty impressed with what we came up with.