Posts Tagged ‘photoshop’

session #2…….. flowers & frustration = creativity

January 15, 2014

ever since i can remember i’ve been trying to find out how things work. i can’t count the toy cap guns and other toys that i couldn’t figure out how to put back together again so they worked. but after reaching my quota of toys to learning ratio i figured out where the original springs, screws and various parts went, BANG i was back in business.

and so it is with the rest of my life. i never became an expert at one thing but more of a ‘Jack Of All Trades’ or in other words an artist. i don’t claim to be a photographer because there are so many other ones out there that know a hell of a lot more than i do.  heck i’ve got to remind myself to take off the lens cap.

i am in awe of real photographers who ply their trade making wonderful pictures, right exposure, timing and location along with a clear vision which i seem to lack.

i am lucky enough to be part of photo salon, a group of heavy duty togs including Howard Schatz,  Jack Reznicki  and Jay Maisel, well i am not really part of, more like an observor of their work. they’ve never asked to see my work so i guess saying i am part of isn’t correct. I sometimes go over to SVA to see the monthly presentations. oh well i learn from them anyways. one of Jay Maisel’s pictures of the Venice canals changed how i looked at things in the world of photography and i told him so. he liked hearing that.

i’ve a portfolio on model mayhem website which is mix of all levels of photographers, models, makeup people, etc. we all need to start somewhere. I don’t do fashion, beauty or comp cards, so why am i there, i’ve asked myself that many times. but as i say i am an artist who takes pictures and why not be there?

there are occasions when i meet someone there who just clicks with me, so that’s enough reason. i am working with an artistic  person, a fellow traveler as it were who clicks. of course she is a designer along with a beginning model so we both have a chance to learn from each other. This weeks assignment we trying to glue flowers on her body, starting with her breasts, something left over from my flower power days which she’s totally ignorant of. ah youth…..

beginning experiment

beginning experiment

What we tried to use to adhere the flowers was eyelash glue to be gentle on her areolar. one yellow one whitish.

cutting the flowers from the stems the leaves fell off the centers and had to be glued each leaf at a time which took her hours.

flower experiment

close up

close up

so now what do we do now that this isn’t working?

retouched image

retouched image

China doll, as i’ve called her here suggested we do some plastic drop cloths shots which we had discussed a while ago. sure why not? but we didn’t have much set up time. i pulled a lowel dp and stand out with a full blue placed it behind a sheet of plastic and around a corner of a hallway  as a back light/key. her tungsten key light consisted of  a mini mri 75w  clear spot coming from the left between sheets with a frost gel. i white balanced camera to tungsten to match her key light. not the idea lighting locations but far enough away from the plastic to not melt it.

dropcloth test

dropcloth test

test

test

pretty boring right? So this is where my painting skills come into play. i guess all that money and hours of being a student and teaching assistant at ICP photoshop classes paid off somewhere. i always do something to my images, darken the corners do this or that. heck i did the same in the darkroom though i wasn’t as good at it then.

gold tint

gold tint

white bouquet

white bouquet

and these two we both like, i guess because she is relating to something we all see. i understand it’s so hard modeling and figuring out where to place my hands, eyes or feet. working together as a unit creating on the fly and we are not professional or experienced takes a bit of learning to trust in the process. maybe that’s the creativity part, just relax listen to the inner voices, whatever feels right.

who will buy my lovely flowers?

who will buy my lovely flowers?

 usually the image below would wind up in the trash but thanks to jay maisel it’s a keeper for me

abstract

keeper

http://www.jeneyoutt.com

Tell Adobe to go FU*K themselves with their Cloud

May 15, 2013

DIGLLOYD Takes On The Adobe Creative Cloud…

by Damn Ugly Photography

diglloyd

The past 24 hours at Damn Ugly have been pretty damned busy. We’ve gotten more hits from that Adobe post than just about anything I’ve written about in years! And as I continued scanning the interwebs to see what far smarter folks than me are saying about the entire mess, a came across a treasure trove of information posted by Lloyd Chambers, the Capo di tutti capi of making your Mac computer Ferarri-fast. Lloyd is also known as DIGLLOYD…the driving force behind MacPerformanceGuide.com…and he devoted a few days going over the fine print of the new Creative Cloud scheme, and he’s none too happy about any of it. He breaks down…with a whole lotta very funny & sarcastic asides…a whole mess of stuff I hadn’t even thought of, not the least of which is the particularly heinous contract Adobe expects you to sign prior to joining their Big, Happy Cloud Community. I loved the part where he said that since he actually took the time to READ the contract, when it came to the point at the end where he had to click the ‘ACCEPT’ button, the page had timed out!!! Apparently Adobe never intended ANYONE to actually read what they were gonna give away before signing the thing!

Now a warning…as with my post yesterday, reading through this requires a certain investment in time, but trust me, it’s well worth it! As a public service to all my Damn Ugly groupies, I’m linking to all of what Lloyd dropped over at MacPerformanceGuide.com regarding the cloud. Enjoy!

Adobe Clouds Software Choice (Adobe Creative Cloud Only Going Forward)

Adobe Creative Cloud: Date of Birth Mandatory, Lopsided Legal Agreement

Adobe Creative Cloud: Lopsided Legal Agreement

Adobe Creative Cloud: A Time-Wasting Chat

Adobe Creative Cloud: No Fair Warning Given for Upgrades

Adobe Creative Cloud: Why no ‘Buyout’ or Read-Only Option?

Adobe Creative Cloud: Reader Comments

Adobe Creative Cloud: The Main Point

Adobe Creative Cloud: Summary View

Adobe Creative Cloud: The “Toaster”

Adobe Creative Cloud: Activate/Deactivate and “Phone Home” License Check

And please…if you haven’t done so already, head on over to www.change.org and sign the petition to get Adobe to offer us users a choice!!!

Things highly productive people do, well not me i am special, i am an artist

January 27, 2012

Here are some tips for staying productive:
1.    Work backwards from goals to milestones to tasks. Writing “launch company website” at the top of your to-do list is a sure way to make sure you never get it done. Break down the work into smaller and smaller chunks until you have specific tasks that can be accomplished in a few hours or less: Sketch a wireframe, outline an introduction for the homepage video, etc. That’s how you set goals and actually succeed in crossing them off your list.
2.    Stop multi-tasking. No, seriously—stop. Switching from task to task quickly does not work. In fact, changing tasks more than 10 times in a day makes you dumber than being stoned. When you’re stoned, your IQ drops by five points. When you multitask, it drops by an average of 10 points, 15 for men, five for women (yes, men are three times as bad at multitasking than women).
3.    Be militant about eliminating distractions. Lock your door, put a sign up, turn off your phone, texts, email, and instant messaging. In fact, if you know you may sneak a peek at your email, set it to offline mode, or even turn off your Internet connection. Go to a quiet area and focus on completing one task.
4.    Schedule your email. Pick two or three times during the day when you’re going to use your email. Checking your email constantly throughout the day creates a ton of noise and kills your productivity.
5.    Use the phone. Email isn’t meant for conversations. Don’t reply more than twice to an email. Pick up the phone instead.
6.    Work on your own agenda. Don’t let something else set your day. Most people go right to their emails and start freaking out. You will end up at inbox-zero, but accomplish nothing. After you wake up, drink water so you rehydrate, eat a good breakfast to replenish your glucose, then set prioritized goals for the rest of your day.
7.    Work in 60 to 90 minute intervals. Your brain uses up more glucose than any other bodily activity. Typically you will have spent most of it after 60-90 minutes. (That’s why you feel so burned out after super long meetings.) So take a break: Get up, go for a walk, have a snack, do something completely different to recharge. And yes, that means you need an extra hour for breaks, not including lunch, so if you’re required to get eight hours of work done each day, plan to be there for 9.5-10 hours.

From Tony Wong, a project management blackbelt.

all worth while ways of keeping on track and getting things done. i must admit i am pretty good a getting things done maybe not as organized as this list. no i don’t text people, why do they text me when i say call? i might be living in the wrong world or time frame. oh well

i do keep on track with to do list the only way that  keeps me focused and deadlines have worked pretty good for me.  am preparing to go off to Hawaii for a couple of weeks with my honey. the house is a mess clothes thrown in piles almost read to get rolled into suitcase but first i had to make fast the apartment  from the ‘Hell’s Kitchen burglar.’

that took most of the day although is seemed a simple task but……. you know how it is.  clearing calendar so i can come back clear nothing on my mind except pleasure, woohoo

yesterday i finished up giving a model whom i posted here before some selects, he gets to chose the ones he wants. i’ll never figure out what they are looking for, yes he’s seen my quick picks but they always go for ones i never though of, as is this image he picked. ugh

UGH

this was my stupid photographic choice of the day, this background, oh that’s mary’s hand down in the corner. ‘Why this one,’ i said. ‘i like the way my body is’ he replied.

i couldn’t let this pic leave the house, not looking like this and having my name on it. so through the magic of photoshop i added a few things the camera hadn’t caught. i know everyone says capture it in camera but sometimes i am too dumb.

added levels

warm photo filter

color corrected left shoulder

burned in edges

is it perfect, not really but better than the one he wanted. i turned towards him a said ‘what about this one?’ his reaction was  ‘ i can’t believe the difference.’ so there’s no truth in what i do, but as i say on my model mayhem page, ‘ I use a camera as I would a pencil or brush, photography is just a tool.’

i didn’t spend all those hours at ICP daydreaming in Photoshop II class. so here you have some of my secrets, how i am special and make others special to. it may not be productive but i’ve learned early in life to just keep at it. perseverance is one of the keys to life that makes up the song.

jene