43/365-2 Red

"Love Is...On the Ground"

Today has been a long day.  I am exhausted and my brain is not functioning well enough to write coherently so this is it.  At least I've made it past humpday for this week!

42/365-2 Retail Therapy

This is a present for the newest baby boy in our world.  Shhh...don't tell him!  He has to wait until this weekend when we see him next.

Most of my retail therapy these days is done via the web.  I much prefer to shop in the chaos that is my own desk rather than the chaos of the stores.  Thank goodness for amazon!

41/365-2 It's Still Winter

"Gray Icy Day"

I know that much of the country has been blanketed with snow for days, weeks and months and that they are all quite ready for it to melt.  I wish that we would have a little of it here.  Snow is so much more tolerable than the nasty freezing rain and "ice pellets" that are predicted for the Dallas area.  We'll see what happens overnight.  It either needs to be enough to cancel school or not happen at all.  I could do without sliding to school in the morning!

40/365-2 Tiny Heart

"Break Out"

The worst prison would be a closed heart.

39/365-2 Hand Tinted

"A Rose By Any Color..."

I am much more adept with composition in my photographs than I am with the technical aspects related to post-processing.  This goes back to my post a few days ago; I don't like a whole lot of it.   After having that rant on Thursday, God must have been laughing at me, ready to shake me up and get me off of my high horse.  Today's prompt was focused on hand-tinting, a post processing technique that allows for the tweaking of colors in a photo.  

Generally speaking, the above photo has been lightened up, giving a much softer feeling than the original.  Some of the dark tones were removed from the background allowing the bokeh to be more pronounced.  The flowers and their leaves were also desaturated.  I have to admit that I like the outcome although I have to admit that it is probably more alteration than I have ever done on a photo.

I can see where hand tinting can be beneficial in adding "make-up" to a photo.  It's like anything - in moderation it is fine, but there comes a point where too much is too much.

I have so much to learn and right now I am feeling like I don't have time to practice what I already know let alone time to learn anything new.  I hate that feeling.  Oh well...some day.

38/365-2 Old School

"Will and A Quill"

37/365-2 Shadow

"Thoughts and Feelings"

We were surprised this morning by a light dusting of snow.  Though it was bitter cold, I ventured outside determined to get a good macro shot of snowflakes.  I spent about 15-20 minutes outside; that was all the 18 degree temperatures that my hands could take.  When I came inside, I immediately uploaded the pictures to the computer; dismal failure!  Though I had some OK shots of the snow in general, the snowflakes themselves eluded me.  Noticing a few shots that had some potential, I ventured outside again, confident that I could do it this time.  Again, no success.  Now having two strikes, I went to Google hoping I could find some technical advice.  And, I did.

I discovered that most of the snowflake shots that I have seen have had an incredible amount of post processing.  Many of them use "stacking", something I had not heard of until today.  One of the photographers said that his snowflake images were using a composite of 30-40 different shots.  No wonder I can't do it!

This got me thinking...

I'm not sure how I feel about that kind of post-processing.  The images are gorgeous and it gives us the opportunity to see a beautiful natural creation in amazing detail.  I'm OK with that.  What I have decided that I am not OK with is photos that are super processed and we are supposed to believe that they are exactly the image that was shot.  I had to come up with an analogy to figure this all out in my head.  

It is the difference between wearing a little bit of make-up to enhance your natural beauty and having plastic surgery to become something fake.  Photographically speaking, make-up, to me, is minor tweaks like contrast, saturation, sharpening, even a little exposure alteration .  Plastic surgery is what I read about today with stacking, cutting and pasting bits and pieces of various photos so that everyone looks perfect.  Life isn't perfect.  We don't all look perfect.  There is always going to be someone in a group shot that is looking the wrong direction.  That's the photo we remember.  We need to get away from the idea of having to "fix" everything.  When we create images that have all been "corrected" we are documenting the moments and the life that we wish we had, not the one that we are living.

The same is true for performing musicians.  When we hear a recording, we are hearing the best of multiple takes all spliced together.  We are not listening to a performance.  We are listening to a collage of the the best moments of many performances, a greatest moment, if you will.   I remember as a freshman in college hearing Jean Pierre Rampal in concert.  I was super excited to have such an opportunity.  The performance was excellent, but it was not perfect.  There were imperfections and there were outright mistakes.  I wasn't sure what to think.  As I reflected on that experience over time, I realized that Jean Pierre Rampal was a human being just like me.  We, human beings, aren't perfect creatures.  We aren't perfect musicians. And we aren't perfect photographers.  

All that said, I do like to play with the possibilities in post processing.  To me though, these extreme makeovers to a photo ought to be like dressing up for a masquerade party.  There is no question that you are dressing up as someone or something that you are not.  When it is made obvious that you are altering a photo in an over-the-top way, go for it.  Have fun!  Make it creative! make it artistic!  Make it your own!

I don't mean to be on a rant here, but so many people feel inadequate about so many different things in their lives because what they believe to be a real is actually fabricated.  This is the whole ethical dilemma surrounding the excessive amount of Photoshopping done on models.  Let's just get real, accept ourselves and each as we are.  I think we'd all be a whole lot happier.

Back to the day's photo...

We had snow, but no sun.  A lack of sun made photographing a shadow with natural light impossible. I used a flashlight as the light source in the above photo.  I'm not sure what I was hoping for with this image, but this is what I got.  Therefore, it is my photo of the day.

There you have my thoughts and feelings.