Amour wants to wander the world instead of being stuck in boring college courses. I wasn’t planning on using this for anything, but I love her eyes and pose because she looks innocent and curious.

There’s some guy standing in the background with a backpack, facing away. We were at a busy (sidewalk) intersection. If I asked him to move, three people would have immediately replaced him. Oh well. I think he filled in a hole because there was bright sky or a building behind him.

I brightened Amour’s eyes and darkened her pupils, cleaned her up a bit, and shifted the white balance to cloudy, which is warmer and more yellowish.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/800, F4.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T10:05:40-05, 20091102-150540rxt

Amour with her friend Jerica O’Neal, acting all serious. I have a photo of both ladies smiling but it doesn’t work… there was no balance.

Amour is the noun for love in French, which is very serious.

Jerica had to stand on her toes while Amour crouched down or they’d be blocking each other. I couldn’t have them stand side to side either.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/500, F4, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-11-02T10:12:27-05, 20091102-151227rxt

Amour is watching you. Or she is being watched. Either way, she’s not afraid . . . my caption-writing abilities are going down fast.

This is outside of the photography school at Daytona State College. They have these cool blue-tinted windows… you can see my reflection vaguely in the window on the left.

I just told Amour to do something interesting and I got this. Good job girl.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/1000, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-11-02T10:10:38-05, 20091102-151038rxt

Amour pretending to play a video game.

I gave her an old PlayStation 1 controller and told her to start mashing the buttons. She’s looking at an imaginary television set to the left of the frame. The cable for the controller just trails off to the ground.

If you play video games make sure to do it with friends because it’s no fun alone. I’ve been in a couple impromptu Mario Kart DS tournaments at the college cafeteria. Fun fun fun. Of course I can out-snake everyone.

She smiled with teeth and all in another shot, but I think she looks cuter in this one.

Editing was easy on this one, but it hinged on me getting a good background. There was an ugly railing just to the left in the background, which would’ve made the picture ugly if I included it. Composition is everything! So is lighting and your model or subject’s pose.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/800, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-11-02T09:38:25-05, 20091102-143825rxt

Kathleen Edsom, a culinary student at Daytona State College, posing with Amour Bloomfield in the grass.

I took a few photos with both ladies looking at the camera, but I preferred having Kathleen look up at Amour so it isn’t an ordinary portrait. I got grass stains on my jeans… but I had to kneel in the grass to get the camera down low enough. This was near bldg. 300 at the campus, so there were a lot of students watching, asking questions, trying to join in. There’s a big photography school just a few paces away so this is nothing out of the ordinary.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/1000, F4.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T10:02:50-05, 20091102-150250rxt

The 3rd of 9 portraits of Amour. She’s stopping to smell the roses… or petunias, or whatever these blue flowers are.

The flowers and mulch was planted there, the flower in her hair is fake, and she’s wearing a dress and makeup, but I still say she’s with nature.

For editing I removed some freckles from Amour’s arm (spot healing brush), darkened the corners, added contrast, brightened her face, and toned down the greens a bit.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/1600, F2.8, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T09:58:38-05, 20091102-145838rxt

Amour is looking for you! This is at the clock tower at Daytona State College. You can see her books and coffee in the background at the bottom left. It was overcast, which is the best lighting for portraits.

From the camera this was too dark, but I brightened it with the exposure tool and highlight recover to 45 in Adobe Camera Raw 5.0. There wasn’t much to do otherwise because she knew how to pose.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/2000, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-11-02T09:55:30-05, 20091102-145530rxt

Amour Bloomfield playing the violin. Amour is a Daytona State College student and she assures me she has modeled for many of the photography students.

She didn’t know how to play my violin, but she picked it up pretty quickly so hopefully no one will notice. The book is Suzuki Vol. 2, which I enjoy playing. I’ve never advanced beyond a second-year level in violin (unlike piano), but at least I have good intonation.

At first Amour was looking at the music, but I told her to look at the camera instead. It doesn’t make sense because she should be looking at the score if she’s playing a song, but photography often makes no sense.

The next eight days will all be portraits of Amour. I took a lot of different pictures of her. Check back soon.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/1000, F3.5, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-11-02T09:44:42-05, 20091102-144442rxt

I was thinking of adding a big picture of Hugh Laurie in the background… but it’s not that House. Just blue flowers with a house in the background. I think the house is for sale.

This is a weird angle. I’m not sure if it works well, but it seems different. The sky was dark as though it was going to rain. I made the colors warmer on the computer. If they’re too blue the scene feels cold. The focus is on the flowers at the back, so the ones at the bottom are blurry.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F4.5, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T17:07:31-04, 20091016-210731rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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These yellow orchids represent friendship only. I found these in someone’s front yard while going for a walk. I tried taking a picture from a high angle to just show grass in the background, but it wasn’t nearly as pretty as a flower-level shot.

There is a house behind the flowers, but it’s blurred out because I used a large aperture (F2.8). I changed the white balance to be less warm, added brightness, and sharpened on the computer, along with the standard darkening of the corners (vignetting).

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/250, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:57:41-04, 20091016-205741rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

Light-blue flowers by a rustic wooden fence. Composed using the rule of thirds!

I was having some problems with wind… the petals of the flower at the back would get blown up during a breeze which looked ugly. I pushed the petals down and snapped this quickly, while also considering composition and contrast. I had to be careful to keep the flowers from being over-exposed. Faster shutter speed or smaller aperture (higher F number) = less light.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:55:37-04, 20091016-205537rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

Street signs near my house. Not far from Flag Lane and Par Avenue is Golf Avenue. The nearest golf course is a couple miles away, so these names are weird.

Nevertheless these signs are worthy of a picture. I used my umbrella to deflect my camera’s flash, as it would have been too bright otherwise.

Flag Ln. or Par Av. Which one will you choose?

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/100, F9, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:50:13-04, 20091016-205013rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Small blue flowers, sharply focused through a fence. The Canon EF 50mm F1.4 lens has good focus… you just have to close the aperture up a bit. I used F3.2. It’s hard to see if the image is sharp in the viewfinder. I zoom in afterward on the LCD screen and see if the subject looks sharp. The flowers weren’t extremely sharp because digital SLRs don’t sharpen much, but I sharpened this on the computer.

These flowers are behind a chain-link fence by someone’s sidewalk. If you just walk around with a camera you’ll find photo opportunities like this. There is no reason to spend thousands of dollars traveling if you’re just going to photograph nature and still life. You have plenty of still life around you.

I could have got down on the ground instead of shooting the flowers from above, but the house was painted bright white. I did not want it in the frame… just other flowers, bushes, and grass.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/125, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:42:25-04, 20091016-204225rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

Someone did some off-road driving recently. I saw this truck while walking… Almost looks like the owner sprayed mud on it.

It was about to rain anyway, so all the mud is surely gone.

Happy Halloween everyone! Don’t worship death. Sorry I don’t have a pumpkin photo for you… Well, here are pumpkins I photographed 4 years ago.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/60, F2.8, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-16T16:39:15-04, 20091016-203915rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

One of my neighbors takes his dogs for a walk every day. This is the black and brown chihuahua. I’m not sure if he was looking at me or my camera but he stayed a good distance back so I could snap his picture.

Coming out of the camera this was too dark, so I brightened the exposure in my RAW editor before importing the file into Photoshop.

Be sure to import your RAW photos into Photoshop in 16-bit color Adobe or ProPhoto RGB is you’re going to do substantial color or contrast edits. With 16 bits per channel, Photoshop has 65,536 discrete color values (2^16) to work with in each channel (red/green/blue). The standard 8 bits per channel only gives 256 discrete values (2^8), which makes color banding more likely after large edits. In Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 you can click the blue text at the bottom to change bit-depth and colorspaces.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/800, F2.8, 50mm, ISO200, 2009-10-16T16:35:58-04, 20091016-203558rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

I shot this sunset from the backseat while my friend was driving. This is on West International Speedway Boulevard right near Daytona State College in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.

On the left is the rear-view mirror and at the bottom you see the windshield wipers. That’s why I’m titling this Driving Sunset.

I cloned out a big electronic sign at the bottom-right. It was the college’s sign, but it was bright blue and annoying. You can still see the clone marks if you brighten the photo considerably, but no one will notice normally.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-50mm-114], 1/500, F3.2, 50mm, ISO100, 2009-10-15T18:53:32-04, 20091015-225332rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

A beautiful golden sunset right before sundown.

I shot this right down my street. There were power lines blocking the way, so I walked in someone’s yard to cut them out of the shot. Some woman yelled “get off my property” at me as I was shooting this, so I tripped the shutter quickly and then walked off.

I put contrast at +100% in Adobe Camera Raw 5.0 and then used the curves tool to push it even further. Even though I pushed the exposure bias down to -1.33, I think I was in the wrong metering mode so the clouds in the middle are over-exposed: they are at (255,255,255) (8-bit) and there is no detail there. Nothing I can do about that… It’s not a big problem in this photo because you expect the sun to be bright.

I pushed a lot of stuff to black with the curves tool, such as the trees and houses below. They aren’t important… no reason for you to see them.

There is a lot of black and empty space in this image. You can do that. The subject does not have to be big and in the center. In fact, it’s often more interesting to make the subject small. In this case, the subject is the sunset and the periphery is the dark clouds at the top.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet efs-18-55-mm], 1/640, F7.1, 55mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T18:33:25-04, 20091010-223325rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

I shot this on an evening walk in my neighborhood. The sunset and white car paired well in my eyes.

I brightened the car and darkened the sunset in Photoshop for balance. The car was much darker than the sunset, but I was able to bring the colors out since I always shoot RAW. The files are 10MB each, which is a lot bigger than JPEGs, but it’s worth it for creative flexibility.

This was my first outing with the XTi kit lens in a long time. Because it’s EF-S and goes down to 18mm, it has a much wider field of view than my EF 28-135mm lens, which I enjoyed.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet efs-18-55-mm], 1/60, F3.5, 18mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T18:31:03-04, 20091010-223103rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

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Puffy clouds over a road around noon-time. I just took this through the windshield while my Dad was driving, which reduces contrast. In Photoshop I punched up the contrast while making sure not to white out the clouds.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/640, F6.3, 38mm, ISO100, 2009-10-10T16:04:22-04, 20091010-200422rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]

Minnie Pearl, my uncle’s dog. She’s about 10 years old and has gone through a lot, but she is fiercely loyal. She barks at me every time I go near her. Minnie is watching her master attentively in this shot.

I took this from a distance. Since I have a Canon Rebel XTi with an APC-size sensor (1.6 crop factor), this photo has a 195mm field of view when compared to full-frame or 35mm film photography. My lens was at 122mm, according to the metadata.

[sniplet canon-xti], [sniplet ef-28-135mm], 1/320, F5.6, 122mm, ISO800, 2009-10-10T12:55:17-04, 20091010-165517rxt

[sniplet stock-dl-text] or [sniplet ss-dl-text-lc] ([sniplet ss-dl-xti-description]).

[sniplet stock-rights]