My Soldiers Photo Story

The first 13 photos are the originals (excluding the 6th one, altered version is shown first). The last 13 are the altered versions (again excluding the 6th one). The photo where I used text would not show the letter 'k' in speak no matter what I did.

I think I used allof the tools we have been practicing including, cropping, hue, saturation, layers, selections (delteting, altering), text, clone, heal, dodge and burn as well as a few filters.

Week 11

I have submited a few choices for this weeks homework. One shot is of an older woman in the park, then a slide show of a 'photo shoot' of my 3 year old daughter Hannah and lastly an out take of some of her sillier shots. Thanks for looking.

One big issue, rain drops. I have tried to remove them by cloning but that doesn't seem to work well on her face and when there are several raindrops the whole image starts to get blurry. ANy ideas?

Woman in Park

A slide show showing the good, the bad and the inbetween

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/uowGywCff8sr31J1zC8KEw?feat=directlink

A few silly pics taken during Hannah's photo shoot

The top photo is my first attempt. I later went back and
removed the other people in the background. It took me
a while to figure this out but once I did it was fun to alter
the images.

My son and his nephew have a love hate relationship. Wonder
what would happen if there were suddenly three Lil Scotts to
one Uncle Zach? Lol.

The photo on the left is unaltered. It was taken at about 8:30 p.m.
so the natural light was fading. I set my camera to night time
landscape.
In the photo on the right I used dodge/burn to lighten the trees
behind us. I then added a layer and whitend my shirt (on right).
I also tried for a little more change and added some soft pink in
another layer on a small bush to the right.

This is the original photo for this weeks assignment.

This is the altered photo. It was a night time shot of the
Hinesburg sky on the 4th of July. I first cropped the photo
to allow for the rule of thirds. I lightened the photo considerably
as I felt this was the best for the overall photo. The original had more
vibrant colors but was way too dark. I used the clone tool and the heal
tool to remove a part of a head and a light pole. I then adjusted the curve
a little bit. I have to confess having a hard time with all the tools and my
computer would lag making it harder.

The photo on the left is my daughter Sarah. I am practicing working with layers.
Each layer I added alloed me to manipulate a color or saturation. First I added white to her skin,
was the wild eyes, then her red lips and blood drops, then I changed her glass from white to blue.
I also adjusted the tint of the project in Picasa after I was done in GIMP.

The next photo is from the 4th of July fireworks. I added a floating layer that came from a photo
of my son in Afghanistan. The next layer left me blur the rough edges around my son and then the
final layer is the text. I really had a hard time with the text and am not sure how I finally
figured it out.:) I then played with the photo a bit more in Picasa, adding a blurred look to outer photo
which brough the focus more to my son than the fireworks.

I am definately going to keep playing with GIMP and Picasa.

I really like the last photo, the reflections are nice.

Landscape photos, DIgital photog

The last picture was a must . I was taking the shot of the trees near the river when the movement of these little guys caught my eye! The thrid shot is my favorite of this bunch. I have a few more I will try to post later.

frames

This photo was taken with the barn centered. It is an ok picture
but does not keep ones attention.

I like this shot much better. I love the texture on the barn and the red/green contrast.
This photo does follow the thirds rule with only 1/3 of the sky visable.

Week 5 Digital Photography

I looked in the thesaurus for composition and aesthetics and this is what I found.

composition (n)

Synonyms: constitution, makeup, structure, components, constituents, parts
Synonyms: work of art, creation, work, opus, masterpiece, piece
Synonyms: arrangement, configuration, conformation, structure, alignment


aesthetic (adj)

Synonyms: artistic, visual, appealing, beautiful


As I looked through my pictures and many other pictures on the internet it was obvious that the difference between a picture and a piece of art was the composition or the aesthetic appeal. When I began taking the photos or my assignments this week I paid more attention to what pleased my eye than I did to the actual subject.

The first pic of the calf is monochrome and the second is analogus. This is a pic that I took about a month ago in NY. Hope that is ok.

Below you will find the pictures of the bird bath take at three different times of the day.

These pictures were taken at 3 different times of the day. I didn't adjust anything because I thought that each picture was interesting in its own way. I didn't take a picture after dark because I can not figure out how to get an image to come out decently.

Week 3 Digital Photography

I hope this collage looks as cool online as it did in the Picaso program. I had fun taking these pictures in the macro setting. This was definately something I had never done before and I am extreemly pleased as well as surprised at the images that I took. I am still having trouble with white objects washing out. I made sure flash was off, waited for the camera to focus, tried blocking some of the light but still as you can see by the daisy, white washed out.

By the way these pictures were taken during a walk of my neighborhood and most of the subjects were found growing wild.

The second picture is the one I like the best. It just seemed more interesting, perhaps because it is a closer image and most of the background is cropped. I tried several settings on my camera and was interested to see the differences. It wasn't until after I took the pictures that I noticed my 3 yr old daughters tooth marks on the pear!

Two Brothers saying, "So long for now!"

One of the hardest days of my life was the day my son deployed to Afghanistan, Jan 6, 2010. How do you send your child to war? You don't have a choice. Not only is my son at war but his little son is living with us while he is gone, so life is crazy to say the least.

My 4 kids, hubby & me

I am so grateful to the network of people who took care of me when I could barely make it through the day. From the food my church and arranged for a weekly meal do be delivered for us and gave me permission to cry at work...which I did.

My kids and grandson on hike

Scot t III, my grandson Tam Trail

My daughter Hannah

<-----My son Zach

Scott III again

Mothers Day 2010 hike

On Mother's day this year we took a 3 1/2 hour hike on the Tam tral at Belden Falls. It was a great day for the hike, cool but sunny. The trail is easy enough that the 5 and 7 year old could walk it easily, the 3 year old needed a little help towards the end. What beautiful sights!

A little about me....

I married my husband in 1982, we were both 18. Five years later we had our first child, a boy, named Scott Jr, followed by Sarah 3 yrs later and then our surprise boy, Zachary in 2003. Because they didn't tire me out enough (yeah, right!) we adopted out last little girl who will be 3 in July.

My oldest son is now 23 and in the military. He is a single dad of an almost 5 yr old little guy, Scott III. Scott jr. was deployed to Afghanistan in January 2010 so his little guy is living with us while daddy is away. This is the toughest year of my life!

I am a full time residential instructor in a group home for women with developmental disabilities and a part time college student. I am half way through to getting my associates degree in Human Services.

For fun I love to work on my genealogy, knit, crochet, hike and scrapbook.