Photo Tip Tuesday - Week Four, How to Shoot Your Pumpkins

 Monday, October 31, 2011

I've never really tried shooting carved pumpkins before so I experimented a little.  At first, I tried to just hand hold my camera.  I opened the aperture up to 1.8 (as wide as that lens would go) and slowed the shutter down to 1/50 second (about the slowest I can hand hold my camera and get some half way decent focus!)

Even at that setting, the result was very dark.

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So I set up my tripod. I closed down to 3.5 and tried a shot on "aperture priority" mode to see what shutter speed the camera recommended and how it came out. The camera chose a full 6 second exposure! And it made quite a difference!

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But I decided I liked the picture a little dark so the background would disappear a little more, but I still wanted to see some of the pumpkin (unlike my first hand held shot.) So I experimented a few shots on some different settings--the beauty of manual exposure! I settled on f/3.5 and a 2 second exposure.

I just think it looks a little spookier that way!

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Then for fun I extended the canvas on the shot and use the cloning tool to make it look like that rail that the pumpkin sat on went all the way across and I cloned the background too.  I added some texture and then I brought the photo into Picnik and had some fun!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

halloween card

Link up your Photo Tips or Editing tips below--and remember, if your tip can be as simple as sharing what lens you used or what your settings were!















Ordinary InspirationsSweet Shot DayPhotobucket

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Happy Halloween!

The theme for the Good to Wow challenge is "costumes." Well there are no little kids in adorable costumes in my family, so I shot some pumpkins instead! These photos are completely SOOC.  Come back tomorrow for Photo Tip Tuesday and to see tips on shooting your pumpkins!

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Boo!

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And for fun I experimented a little with purposely shooting out of focus.

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Happy Halloween!







Sunday Snapshot

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Photo Tip Tuesday - Favorites

 Saturday, October 29, 2011

Here are some of my favorites from this weeks entries.


Favorite Photos




With Desert Camouflage

Sized Less Saturation Actioned 1 +1 DSC_7433And4more_tonemapped copy 2


Favorite Photo Tips


Kelvin White Balance by Naptime Momtog

and

Textured Roughness in Photography by Mira Crisp


Grab your winners button!



Live, Love, TRAVEL

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Shades of Autumn - Red

 Friday, October 28, 2011

Today is my 30th Birthday.

I just thought I'd share that.

Now on to this week's challenges...

The theme for the Shades of Autumn challenge this week is the color Red.  Red is not really a shade of autumn that we get out in LA.  Orange and Yellow were hard enough, but red is nearly impossible to find.

My friends and I went to an apple orchard to pick apples last weekend and I was pretty sure I'd get tons of red shots--however all the apples seemed to be green! At the very end, we did find one red apple on the ground, and my friend held it up for me to take a picture of it.

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Shades of Autumn Photo Challengethe long road
and then, she {snapped}Happily Mother After Look Whooooo’s Snapping The Daily Wyatt

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Photo Tip Tuesday - Week Three, Union Station Preview

 Monday, October 24, 2011

I was so excited last week to be able to bring two of my gorgeous friends to downtown LA's Union Station to take pictures of them.  It was a very different experience for me.  I'm used to shooting people in pretty parks, not crowded train stations!  We did get stopped by security a couple times--technically, you need a permit to shoot there, but we told them we were students and they were pretty nice about it.  Just told us to try to not block any paths or anything.

Finding light was also a whole new experience.  It wasn't about finding the usual "golden hour", we needed bright window light! I have soo many pictures to sort through still, but here's one so far that I like.


Lindsay - Union Station shoot

And for my Photo Tip:  In this tunnel shot, the light source (bright sunlight at the end of the ramp) was directly behind her.  I used this reflector to bounce some light back onto her face.  I used the silver side because there wasn't much light, and I needed to reflect as much as possible.  Because of this, I was able to get some nice catchlights in her eyes.  It also helped me get a better exposure on her skin without having to completely blow out the entire background.  Part of the light is still blown out but I didn't mind that too much.  Reflectors can really help add light when you need it!

Link up your photo tips below!

If you don't have a photo tip, remember you can simply share what lens you used for a shot, or what your settings were, or a step you took to edit it.



























NapTime MomTogLive and Love...Out Loudand then, she {snapped}Click It Up A Notch

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Shrimp and Pesto Pizza with Goat Cheese

 Sunday, October 23, 2011

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I made this for dinner the other day and just had to take a few pictures and share.

I started by sprinkling the shrimp with some garlic and herb seasoning, and just lightly sauteed it, about 30 seconds on each side. You don't want to cook it all the way through because its going to go into the oven. Then I rolled out my pizza dough--I use the pre-made garlic and herb pizza dough from Trader Joe's.

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I just used a pie tin to cook it in but I really want to get this Bialetti 3 Piece Pizza Stone Set! My friend has it and it makes awesome pizza crusts!

I spread some prepared pesto onto the dough, spread the shrimp across it, sprinkled it with mozzarella and spooned some scoops of goat cheese on top and baked it for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees, until the cheese starts to brown on the edges. And voila, cheesy, pestoy goodness.

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I made this recipe up but I highly recommend both of these pizza recipe books if you're interested!


500 Pizzas & Flatbreads: The Only Pizza & Flatbread Compendium You'll Ever Need

and

The Mozza Cookbook: Recipes from Los Angeles's Favorite Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria

Thanks for visiting!

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