@clouddancer
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clouddancer
ParticipantI was in band too. My dad’s a music teacher. I’ve also been in chorus, show choir 1 year (was in a different school that year), had voice lessons and was actually a music major for 3 years in college (dropped out of college altogether after that year though). Should mention that in band (middle school and high school) I played the trumpet. Hubby plays trumpet. I self-taught myself piano (helped we had one in the house). I have a full sized keyboard but no room to put it up here so my Grandmother’s borrowing it to practice for a while. I have a guitar and also a clarinet (always wanted to play). I’m *really* glad to know I’m not the only band geek. My Dad did high school marching band for YEARS before I managed to get to high school (we won’t talk about the school politics that when I finally got to high school scrapped me from being able to be in the marching band) and he won a lot of first places and if not first place then second place. They were in the small marching band division (20-30 ish people) and I remember going down on the bus with them and sitting in the stands freezing but covered in blankets watching everyone play. I loved being around everyone and in that environment. I absolutely adored my Dad and the band (and they were good and worked at it). I have a ton of great memories from that time.
Eep, I see I’ve written a book. Whoops. I do miss being in band or choir, being around other musical people and such. I’m going to dig around this weekend when I’m not doing overtime to figure out what I really want to be using since I have so much of it, and not a single solitary scrap will be thrown away.
ParticipantThanks, justkat! The selection bit was the hardest part, being careful and using a small enough selector while zoomed in enough to get exactly what I wanted to select without too much of anything else. After that, it was deciding what filters to use. I didn’t really have an end goal in mind of what I wanted it to look like, I just futzed with the filter and their settings to see what I did and didn’t like.
I still haven’t figured out how to make a border type thing where it’s pixelated fading in and out of the picture, soft corners, etc, either fading to black or coming in from white. I did it once in one picture and haven’t duplicated it since.
I got some neat fresh tomato shots the other day that seem to be begging to be played with, but we’ll see where they end up.
ParticipantI *might* put in another one tomorrow or something. If I decide against it, I’m still okay with my 2 entries. I also have lots of music related things to decided on shooting anyway.
ParticipantI was kind of wondering something like that. One of the filter options I wanted to play with was Glowing Edges and that removed a LOT of color made it black with some outlines of things in various colors. I think it looks cool, but it would still effectively be removing things. I ended up going with something else and not using it, but now I’m wondering.
ParticipantI’ll likely link to an original as well.
Me thinks I’ll be boring with my shooping though. I have 2 that I’m probably going to enter, even though they’re similar, at least in the process I used, if not the filters, and in how I selected things to do.
Maybe I’ll take a B&W and colorize it….though that could take a LOT of time.
ParticipantAwesome! That definitely deserves a big WOO HOO!! Congrats!
ParticipantI don’t think you’re a lousy photographer. I saw your pictures just fine (and voted as well so you should have some votes).
I don’t think I have any talent with this, but I do like it, so I keep going. JustKat and U-Man say I’m improving, and coming from them that means a lot. I don’t really see a difference, but it could be that it’s subtle and it’s more in the way of how I approach photography and my choice of subjects.
For a camera, all I have is a P&S Kodak C340 EasyShare from 3 almost 4 years ago, that model isn’t even made any more, they discontinued it but have other C series cameras.
I’m not sure what to say about the provider, except most use Flickr and I use Photobucket (not sure if anyone else does), some have their own websites. I chose Photobucket way back when (only went Pro when I started Farktography to make sure it allowed the bandwidth) because one of my friends was using it. I didn’t know anyone or anything else at the time so I jumped in with that. I wish I was more familiar so I could offer suggestions, but when it comes to this kind of stuff I have teh dum.
Good luck.
ParticipantAt least someone likes my pictures. All of them have at least 1 vote. Granted, I’m happy about the 1 vote, but after last week’s 21 votes and sharing 11th place for that 1 picture, this is going to be somewhat of a let down, especially since I’m in the 100s.
That said, the sheer volume of this contest plus all the awesomeness I do see is really great.
U-Man – Love your smoking shot, too.
JP – That light bulb shot is really cool. It took me a bit to figure out what exactly it was, but I’m impressed.
Participantthat was the one I was wowing over too. I would not be surprised if it got top spot tonight. Awesome.
ParticipantContest linky: http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4683784
just kat: wow…just…wow.
Agreed.
ParticipantI chose to not go with Hubby and his moodiness. For practice I took a few pictures of my son too. I decided to post those B-sides (the good ones) on my blog (should be my www link). Hubby and Friend both commented that the camera seems to do really well with B&W shots. It could be that I’m getting better at it, but that remains to be seen.
I played with some macro photography a bit too (also on blog). I tacked up a tablecloth to the wall and let it drape down so it also covered a TV tray. I had an overhead white light on and for some extra lighting I borrowed Friend’s flashlight, which is adjustable and has decent output. We could build our own little studio thing, my only problem is lighting. I’m really not sure what I should look for in lamps or stands or output or anything. I’ll have to make do with what I have though because we’re tight on money for a while. It’s one thing to look online at said things, but it’s another to see them in person. I’ll have to head out to HD or a local photo place to see what’s available. We also don’t have much room in the house either to store said items so unless we figure out a spot to place everything it’ll still have to wait. We have a REALLY small house (it’s smaller than a trailer).
We have cloth up the wazoo so making different background colors isn’t all that difficult.
ParticipantI have noticed that about the flash, that I’ll get those hot spots you’re describing. I have been thinking about getting some lights to use with props and stuff, but I’ve no idea what I’m looking for. What I originally wanted was this: http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cameras-photography/a205/
Unfortunately, they’ve been out of stock on it for a while. I looked for similar lights at say Home Depot’s website and the like and it seemed that the best value was to get that biceps pack thing. What did not help was that he was against the wall and I was on the bed. I was using the bedroom light because it’s the most diffuse, I guess, the whitest, etc. It’s a simple overhead light but the fixture we use makes it not so direct. I’m considering instead of just jumping to the next stage and getting a DSLR that I simply get a better P&S because I’ve noticed that even some of those have some image stabilization, which will help in no flash situations.
If I use the flash, sometimes I get hot spots, but the colors are more clear and things tend to be crisp. If I don’t use the flash, the image seems subdued, usually a bit out of focus, and definitely tends to be blurry. I’ve been considering a tripod for a while, so perhaps I should get one. I have a mini one, but it’s not good for situations like this, I’ll need something bigger. If I have enough light, the no-flash can come out okay, if I don’t move the camera any. I’ve been wanting lights I can use for photography like this so I can practice with the lighting (direct, indirect, colored, etc). I seem to have the most problems in low-light situations. I’ll probably just have to look around Home Depot (no Lowe’s I believe up here) and see what I can find for portable lights. I worry about getting industrial lights because of the sheer output (might be too much). It could be that I could get a light like that but then get a lower wattage bulb so that I have something, but if the bulb itself isn’t that big, it might work out. I seem to recall my grandmother once had 75 what light bulbs in a 60 watt socket and they blew out faster than they should have.
I like best taking pictures outside because of the light – it’s ambient and during the day even with no flash, I can get rather clear pictures.
Still haven’t figured out what makes good B&W pictures besides people. My son is my favorite subject to photograph, but I don’t want to keep posting pictures of him. *Sigh.* I’ll figure out something. Thanks for the suggestions, olavf. Time to up the amount of tools I use.
ParticipantNot that I’m getting impatient or anything, but any idea when the Hopper’d ideas will be put into scheduling? Thanks.
ParticipantWell, so much for the moody hubby. It was either flash and get too much light or not flash and end up with fuzzy, out of focus images. Hubby cooperated, but not for long. I tried to do the best I could. My last ditch resort for him might be to get him outside with it, but I’m not sure how much longer he’ll indulge me. I’ll probably just wander around some outside. I’ve found it works better to just take the pictures in B&W instead of converting them after because the balance seems to come out better. Otherwise, I have to adjust the brightness/contrast/midtones and such more. Still working on it though.
U-Man: It actually made sense when you said that just about everything has already been done before. Not sure if I have my own style yet, or if I even recognize other styles that well, but I know I need to just practice, practice, practice (and yes, I hate that 8-letter word).
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