We have had some crazy weather for Arizona... no outside portraits in a few days, but still doing my photo a day project (gives me a reason to take a break from the boring bookkeeping I have been doing in preparation for taxes - yuck). Anyway, here are a couple from the last two days. My dog KC and I have a standing playdate every afternoon that I do not have a session, and the rain yesterday caused us to cancel the outside playtime. Habits are hard to break, so at 4:25 she went to the door and looked for Jake... I'm sure she would have been happy to play outside and just couldn't understand why her humans were not as thrilled about it. The other photo is from this morning. We were BETWEEN storms for a brief period, with round three on it's way, and I captured these cool clouds with a bit of blue showing before the gap closed up and the rains came again. We don't get to see these clouds often, so it was fun to capture them before they "disappeared".
"Rainy Day Blues"
"Between the storms"
"The best thing to do when it rains is to let it rain"
Today's personal photo of the day is from a parking lot in Cave Creek. Old rusted out Dodge truck... cool colors and lines. I love getting up close to capture details like this. It was an overcast day today (a rare thing in Arizona) so it helped keep colors more saturated in the photograph.
I love dogs, and these two cuties came over for a playdate with my dog, so I grabbed my camera for my photo of the day project... enjoy a few of the images from the playdate! Sorry to those of you in cold climates (I grew up in Chicago so I KNOW what you are going through) but it was 70 degrees and sunshine for our playtime here.
How CUTE is that face?!
Jake the wonder dog catching his tennis ball...
Taking a break...
MY interpretation of the above image... the dog LOVES his tennis balls!
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.
Since your eye goes to the brightest area of a photo, it is important to not let anything be brighter than your subject.Here is an example to help illustrate this point.This cute little subject was in front of a pond and the reflection from the sky was very bright… so in the first image your eye goes to that bright spot in the lower left corner (as well as the blown out area of her hair) rather than to her face.To help in this situation I moved to my left thus moving that bright spot out of the background.I do know that when working with children you have to work quickly and there are times when the mood and expression is right and you grab the shot before you have a chance to fully assess the background. Yes, it is possible to fix the first photo in Photoshop, but if you can learn to look for these “hotspots” in your camera as you are composing the picture it will save a LOT of post-production time when working on the images.
Bright areas in image distracts from the subject:
Moving a bit to the left helped move the hotspot out of the picture to improve the photo:
Today's photo of the day was inspired by the wind. I was taking my lunch break and it got windy all of a sudden. I looked outside and noticed my desert willow tree whipping around, and looked kinda cool, so I set up my tri-pod and took a slow shutter speed image to capture the movement. The photo itself needed something, so I decided to add a sketch effect using photoshop for a zen-like image of the tree. So here it is (along with how to do the sketch effect on your own images):
Here is the "Before" image:
Sketch Effect:
1. Desaturate background
2. Copy background
3. On copy, invert so it looks like a negative (Image - Adjust - Invert)
4. In blend mode go to color dodge (image will disappear, but have no fear... go to next step)
Courtesy of the the cave creek library... I went to return some items to the library and took a stroll through the gardens behind the library. It was full sun when I was there, but this close up of an agave plant (with some added effects) is my photo of the day today.
Inspired by another photographer friend of mine, I decided that this is the year that I will take a photo a day just for ME... As a professional photographer you would think that this would be an easy goal to obtain, yet I find that I seldom have my camera with me when I am not photographing for a client. At first this goal of a photo a day scared me because I thought I'd have to get some award winning image every day, and that's a tough assisgnment even if I DIDN'T have a full time business to run as well. But that is NOT the goal. The idea is to just have the camera with me and be aware of all the photo ops as they come up. It could just be a snapshot of my dog sleeping, or some self assignment related to a theme or subject. I don't even HAVE to share the images I take, although my plan is to post many of the images on this blog as I go, so if you want to check up on me occasionally feel free to check back often. BETTER YET, join me in this lofty goal to see the world with a fresh eye everyday. It could be fun...
So... here is today's image (taken while on a hike with some friends) of a Cholla cactus using backlighting to add to the glow of the spines.
Hi! I'm Pam Spicer... I am the owner and Photographer for Spicer Photography located in far north Scottsdale, Arizona. My specialty is photographing children, families, high school seniors, pets, and executives. I am married to Jerry and we share our home with our golden retreiver KC. Thanks for checking out my blog! I hope you will check back often to see what's new at Spicer Photography. Oh, and it would be really cool if you tell someone else about my work and help spread the word. Thanks!
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neela commented on February 7th, 2010
LOVE,LOVE,LOVE this!!!! Gorgeous! Nice shot!