Essay #69:

Today was the Downtown Festival of the Arts, a street fair for local artisans to sell their crafts.

I was hoping to find a painting to liven the barren walls of my living room, but didn't find any that both appealed to me and matched my furniture. Ah well, the quest continues!

I love seeing the sheer variety of creative talent represented in any art fair. To see others' passion, skill and unique vision expressed in all sorts of media is both humbling and inspiring. Art can be a communication between the artist and the viewer, although a piece rarely says the same thing to both parties. That's part of why I enjoy comments on my own photos, as well. It's always a bit surprising to look at my own work through someone else's eyes.

Essay #68: Make way for ducklings!

The end of July is a bit late for hatchlings, but it seems nobody told the ducks. 

These were actually taken last summer. I was going through some files looking for a concert I shot, and found these. Another case of the forgotten files. It makes me wonder how many of my current photos I dismiss now but will discover later with new appreciation? Sometimes fresh perspective isn't only found through the viewfinder.

Essay #67: Summer sunflowers

Sunflowers are such happy flowers. Not that the flowers themselves feel emotion, of course, but that they symbolize happiness and bright, sunny summer days.

I'm not much of a "flowery" or "frilly" girl, but I do appreciate fresh flowers. I'm considering decorating my dining room with sunflower photos to give the space a kiss of summer sun even in the midst of winter. I'm expecting better results with photos than my attempts at keeping houseplants that unfailingly meet tragic ends after a short time in my care. I could make a centerpiece from artificial flowers, but silk just can't replicate the life, character, and perfect imperfection of real flowers.

Essay #66: Fun with Photoshop

After over a year of being without editing software, I now have a new computer and a fresh install of CS4! Woohoo! Being without software did teach me a lot of valuable lessons and made me realize how easy it is to be lazy and take bad pictures with the intent to "fix" them in post-processing. That said, Photoshop does have some fun toys.

For example, I can take this portrait

And turn it into a lovely black and white (which I like better)

Or do some "special effects" 

Although, with this kind of effect, less is more, in my opinion. It works better with small splashes of color than large swaths. 

 Like so. 

Do you have a favorite Photoshop effect?

Essay #65: Fireworks on a windy night

I don't dabble much in the abstract. But fireworks + high winds =

Essay #64: Fun with backlight

Who says portrait lighting has to be traditional?

Yes, those are the bridesmaids waiting patiently in the chairs while I got the bride in position. I wanted to achieve a kind of light silhouette on the bride, so I had her stand on the edge of the stage and I turned around to face the lights. Result?

There's a little bit of glare on the floor in the background, but overall I think it's a cool picture.

Essay #63: Lost in the shuffle

I took some pictures a couple of weeks ago on a trip back up to Wisconsin and dumped them on my hard drive sight unseen. I never do this. I often do stumble across photos I'd forgotten about (in fact, I recently found photos from not one, but two downhere concerts that I never uploaded anywhere), but I've at least looked at them before. Tonight, while putting files into folders, I realized that I need to pay better attention to what I've got and not just dump them and move on. Because otherwise I'm prone to miss things like this, and the learning opportunities that they present.