Superhero Photo Challenge: out the window

One of the greatest pleasures in life is the window seat on an airplane. Are you with me sisters? My husband and I have to do some serious rock, paper, scissors every time we get situated.

I always have my camera at the ready and feel a childlike giddiness when I see the world from this perspective. I am suddenly an astronaut seeing the planet for the first time: it's rich topography amazing me with its color, clouds and organic forms. It takes my breath away every time.

This week's theme is to shoot out the window. It could be an airplane, a car or even your bathroom window. As usual, leave your link in the comments and add the tag "superhero photo challenge" to your flickr page.

Hot tip: If you don't already know this, treat your airplane photos with levels or curves in photoshop (auto levels usually does the trick) and watch the landscape pop!

Superhero Photo Challenge: Eyes closed

I love this photo of my friend Jonatha. I think a lot of the sweetness is in her smile but the fact that her eyes are closed adds an extra special intimacy. It feels like you're in on a little secret, a private moment or inside joke...I am surprised by how intimate photos with eyes closed can be.

As you've already guessed, this week I challenge you to take a portrait with your subject's eyes closed. Because I just recently saw the Annie Leibowitz show: A Photographer's Life and I am now convinced that she is the best portrait photographer on earth, I will share a oouple of her photos for inspiration with this theme. I also found some beautiful shots with eyes closed on Jesh De Rox's blog.

As usual, please leave a link to your photo and if you are using flickr, please tag your photo with superhero photo challenge.

Superhero Photo Challenge: Play with Textures

Textures. Actions. Everyone seems to be using them these days, right? Like most things technological, I am at first wary of any fancy pants tools. And when I say wary I mean totally intimidated. Then I warm up when I see that it's fun and relatively easy. The next step is to enter utter and total texture/action geekdom. Be warned people, you can spend hours on one photo!

At first it will feel like how photoshop did when you first encountered it. Overwhelming, boundless, how can you possibly try everything out? And after you get over the kicks of liquefying your friends' faces and turning your husband into a colorful mosaic, you get bored. And for me anyway, with the lack of expert knowledge, the images always turned out kinda corny. It became so much more about the effect than the image.

The same goes for textures. I'm learning that you have to start out with a good image or you don't have much to work with. That said, I have also transformed mediocre shots into something really special, and saved my sorry ass when the lighting wasn't quite right. Phew! The next trick is to not overwhelm the image with effects, but use the your tools and not let them use you.

I am not good at being subtle yet... I don't have command of my tools but I hope to. And I've gotten lucky a few times just the same. This week's challenge is to take a photo and use a texture on it! There are some free textures here and here, or the vintage background I used on this shot is here. I'm excited to see what you get! Here are some shots that will give you some inspiration.

Click here for simple instructions on how to use textures. You can also purchase some really affordable textures from the same person, Ash. If you've got the bug and you're ready for a little splurge, there are also gorgeous fine art textures available from Jesh de Rox. His work blows me away...

What are you doing with textures? Have you been playing with them? What kind of results are you getting? What about actions? What are your favorites? Looking forward to seeing what you create.

the gift

 

Paddling through the Broken Islands we saw mussels as big as footballs and starfish with uncountable legs and bodies as wide as our kayaks. A second sun shone up from the ocean floor, illuminating underwater forests of giant kelp that swayed and entangled, a slick, glowing green.

After a day of chasing whales and surfing bottleneck currents we’d choose a beach on one island or another, pull our boats onshore. Then we’d tuck into cold beer and sit by a fire until rosy, cleansing woodsmoke permeated every pore. Watched by thousand year-old cedars and hemlocks that dwarfed their tiny outposts, with roots like fingertips wrapped around the edge of the sand.

It was in this sand that the skull of the sea otter shone bleached white, part-sculpture and part-ghost. Proud, unapologetic, not a whiff of self-pity. I felt like I’d been singled out to receive this gift.

He lives in the kitchen, a different spot every day for how much I pick him up to feel his prickly smoothness in my hands. He reminds me of that place I escape to in my head—the sound of my bow slicing through swell, of the heat in my arms taking me deeper into the peace of where there are no people.

Show us something precious to you—something unexpected, discovered and clung to as an artifact of some fabulous epic or episode. Let’s get through the February doldrums by sharing a few tall tales, eh?

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Addendum: I should clarify—as great as they are, tall tales are not limited to beach finds. Show us any inanimate object in your home that tells a story—a first edition of a favourite book someone gave you, your mother's handwritten recipe cards, a vase bought in your adventuring days from a street vendor in some exotic locale. Or maybe just the first macaroni-and-glue artwork given to you by a child. Tell! Show! Anything goes.

Superhero Photo Challenge: Shoot into the sun

photo by Anna Kuperberg

I am a self-taught photographer and every once in a while I get a little insecure about the fact that I don't know much about F-stops and shutter speeds. I'd love to be able to walk into any situation and instantly know how to set my camera for the perfect exposure. But alas, digital came around just in time! and now I get to simply play and experiment and know just enough to get what I want but not too much to lose my sense of play. And then there's that handy little screen that shows you what you're getting. Thank god for the little screen!

One "rule" someone told me many moons ago and I had never questioned was this: Do not, I repeat, DO NOT shoot directly into the sun!! Your subjects will turn out dark, you might have lens flare, the picture will be terrible and you will look like a total hack. Did any of you out there believe this too? Are you blinding your friends by having them look into the sun like me?

When I fell in love with Anna Kuperberg's photos I noticed how brilliantly she used sunlight. And I want to highlight the word, used... she didn't just tolerate the sun or work around it like I did, she really uses it to her advantage and gets the most extraordinary images shooting straight into the sun. (The photo above is from my maternity portrait session with her)

This week's challenge is in two parts. First, I want to see your best shots shooting right into the sun (or having the subjects head just blocking it) Get some lens flair! Have some fun... I also want to hear your tips for getting great images this way. Do any of you know how to use the sun to your advantage? I would love to hear. (And if you are using flickr, please tag your photo with superhero photo challenge. Your shot will end up on this page.)