Converting Photos to Black and White

In the past I have not been a big fan of photo editing. I have pretty strongly felt that you should get the shot right in the camera. With this assignment and some tweaking I have been doing the past few weeks, my feelings are changing a bit.

I have Photoshop Elements at home and have had for about 6 months, but I have only really used it the past few weeks...using this to convert images to black and white was fun, I really saw the most difference in the close-up pic of my dog, which previously I was unhappy with the color of his eye, now I love the shot and I am inspired to see what other images I have on my computer that I can improve.

LINK TO BLACK AND WHITE ALBUM

Macro Assignment

I really enjoyed this assignment. One thing I love about photography is that I notice more of my surroundings and see the beauty in ordinary things, with macro, that just intensifies this. Now all I need to do is learn how to capture that beauty in an interesting way and perhaps I can make money to support my habit!

Link to Macro Pics

Link to Portraits from the Past Week

Lit Portraits

The challenges to this assignment were many!! I had only one area suitable...and even that area wasn't that great. Anyhow, my 10 year old was more than happy to sit there and let me snap away, as long as I gave her a turn snapping pics. (I think she will surpass me in skills soon!!) We tried a few different shoots, each looked better than the last. I still think my people skills are lacking a bit...but my kids are used to that. There are a couple of pictures that I am truly happy with, so I guess that's something.

LINK TO PORTRAITS

Architecture

For our architecture assignment I went downtown to the Cathedral Basilica, wow, what a beautiful place. Now if we could get them to work on their lighting...it would be perfect. As previously mentioned in class, I brought my tripod......however it is a monster, and I hesitated to use it because it was such a pain.

I really was in awe of the beauty of this location, I found myself wishing I had 2 more lenses, a good telephoto, and a good wide, but alas, I had to make do with the kit lens. I played with white balance a few times, and found tungsten was the best for shooting inside this location. Outside, I found I had a really hard time capturing the green of the dome and the blue in the sky in the same shot. I didn't get a chance to go to any other locations as I had hoped, but I think I will give this a try again, I like the challenge.

Link to more photos

Link to HDR