Pt 2: Mal & Lan Photo shoot

Mal & Lan: Little Hunter St StoryBoard, originally uploaded by mindy_w.

Hi All,

Finally finished the post processing of the photos. It really takes much longer than expected. i play around with the settings so much just to see what works. i think each photo takes me about 10 minutes at least. I wonder if i'm doing the right thing...i do the following
- open it in my RAW editor and play around with the settings, i try to recover as much as i can. i always play around with the temp, brightness, saturation, clarity, recovery, fill light
- open it in Photoshop Elements and crop if necessary, unmark to sharpen the image, touch up any blemishes using the dodge tool and perhaps put on a Gaussian blur to try and make the sking a bit more silky
- then i might apply a colour pop action or apply a burn action around the edges
- then i might add text or add a texture on top of the photo.

i still don't really know how to use curves or anything to fancy but i guess i have to learn. Here are some other shots i liked:

1st Photo Shoot

Mal & Lan - Angel Place (1), originally uploaded by mindy_w.

Sydney is currently hosting an 'Art & About' project where different art projects are springing up. As part of this Art & About project is something called 'Laneways by George' where artists come in and do up laneways within the Sydney CBD.

This was the backdrop to my first photo shoot, it was quite fun. I have only processed half the photos but here are my faves so far:

i'll work on the story boards and upload them next!

toodles
mw

Woof!

Sydney - Dog Park (1), originally uploaded by mindy_w.

Hi all,

I am starting to warm up to babies and dogs. I was walking through Haberfield the other day, on my way to the Bay Run and there is a Dog Park in Haberfield where all the dogs are free to run around and sniff other dog's butts! Theres also a cafe at the end of the park where dog owners can mingle and their dogs can mingle. Theres also some sort of training ground there for dogs to practise dog tricks.

Here are some snaps. Hope you have a lovely weekend!

mw

Check it out

Sydney - Iron Cove Bridge (1), originally uploaded by mindy_w.

More shots from my Bay Run walk later!

Going out for chicken @ Granville! Exciting!

mw

Sun shining = happier people

Sydney - The Rocks (2), originally uploaded by mindy_w.

i have often wondered if there is a direct correlation between weather and mood. of course when i googled this, there has been a study on it - thank god it had a summary blurb. the summary is, depending on how sensitive you are to weather. i could have told you that!

Another interesting thing is that i found out that there is a medical disorder about this 'Seasonal Affective Disorder' aka SAD (how coincidental) it is a type of depression that affects a person during the same season, it affects women more than men. interesting!!

anyways, this is a photo i took out at the rocks. not sure if i like it. what do you guys think?

Here are other sunny photos:

sun setting across anzac bridge - i was not driving!

sun shining out at the skate park at olympic park. pretty cool skate park actually.

i do like this sun flare shot out at woolwich! you can just spot someone at the top of the stairs.

in other news, one of my photos got short listed for a work competition today! how excitement! i dont' think i will win though. and no, it was not this photo.

mw

Meeting antics

I should really stop doodling in meetings. Do you like my date balloon? Water is required for many reasons. To keep awake, to have something to play with, to assist in my quest for silky skin and finally to provide a backdrop for this photo.

Where does the weekend go?

Balmain Storyboard, originally uploaded by mindy_w.

i have no idea where some weekends go, why are they so damn short. i guess i'm so knackered during the week that i waste my weekends sleeping. the extent of my laziness is staggering. i convinced myself that because the clouds were grey and it was 3:30pm that i was in no state to go running. i opted for sitting in front of my tv and watching
- new episodes of vampire diaries (its getting better!)
- new episodes of anime series darker than black (really good btw)
- old skool - v. funny, vince vaughn is hilarity it self.
- get smart - surprisingly good, anne hathaway was not as annoying as i thought she would be and steve carrell played a v. believable maxwell smart.

anyways, this story board was last weekend when i could be bothered getting off my butt and doing something in the lovely balmain region. so many lovely little gems in there. if you get a chance, you must visit Adriano zumbo! yum-o-licious if you are a chocolate fiend! yes, fiend.

some other happy snaps of friends and the general inner west area. i love the inner west.

bye!

My foray into textures

2009-06-28_0351---antique-multiply, originally uploaded by mindy_w.

Hi All,

It's currently 2am. i am not asleep because i am blogging. i might be obsessed. but i might be still adjusting to the daylight saving. anyways, id like to share with you my thoughts on textures.

I had no idea what textures were 3 days ago, but i found out from reading different websites and even looking at the flickr group about textures (flickr website). The concept is quite easy, you take your photo and then you place on top of your photo a 'texture' and then you blend the texture into the photo. In the above photo, i used an 'antique' looking texture and then used the blending mode of 'multiply' in Photoshop Elements.

Here are some other examples i have done using different textures

Here i have used a letter type texture, a light texture and a heart texture. Which one looks best? 

Here is one that i did on a nice looking daisy - i used a metallic/rustic type texture and overlayed using 'colour burn' in photoshop elements. 

Here is one that i have blogged previously, but i overlayed it with a golden rustic texture to bring out the urban feel and i think it looks more afternoon-y 

 

Last one, this was at the wall cafe in surry hills. I used two textures, one was a thick lined paper and the other was a coffee stained paper and i overlayed it with multiply i believe in photoshop. 


Anyways, I am getting to the point now where I am blog stalking a lot of photoblogs - i think the number is getting up to 70. There are a lot of talented people out there, mainly in the US. I think its because they have more probability of talent due to sheer numbers.

Just a thought - anyways, enjoy the weekend all!

mw

storyboard time

i've been playing around with story boards, i've seen so many great websites recently that do really cool things with story boards so because i was such a keen bean i researched it on saturday night (my excuse was that it was raining outside and i was re-discovering surfing on the internet because i recently got internet installed at my place! yay!). anyways, so the first story board i did was of my friends little daughter. isn't she adorable? 

next story board i did was of my bf's nephew. cute little thing, i did a couple of them. oh i need to say i have been going to this great blog - coffee tea photography to look at their tutorials and they provide great templates and actions to download for free! Running actions save so much more time when doing story boards, think of them as macros that you would run to automate steps. all you need to do is plug in the pictures in the alloted spaces. anyways here are my next attempts: 

This one is not really a story board, but i like the idea of polaroids so i tried that out. i also used a paper texture as background. i am loving textures at the moment, will blog about that tomorrow. doesn't sound exciting, but its quite interesting....well i think anyways.

Last but not least is my sister malinda with her bling. on our most recent excursion to look for her wedding dress we stopped off to have lunch at balmoral. i thought it was an opportune time to get some shots of the bling. a bit rainy that day, but i like the clear umbrella ella shots.

off to bed i go, hi ho. 

mw

Wheels keep on turning...

Sydney - Wharf Area (3), originally uploaded by mindy_w.

So loosely am i connecting the above picture with the subject of the post. I was so psyched to get cable broadband installed at my place today - giggling like a school girl psyched. when did i get so addicted to the internet? it offers so many different things
- ability to download tv shows that air in america to get it 'first' in australia - i am loving vampire diaries btw.
- ability to read interesting world news - i love the website http://www.foreignpolicy.com/ AND how i found it was through google's fun website http://fastflip.googlelabs.com/. This totally satisifies the people of x and y generations, that like to 'flip' or 'channel change' within 3 seconds if it does not hold their fancy.
- ability to learn different things, everyone is so willing to share information. i have learnt so much and am always surprised at people's ability to be so open about things on the internet. i guess it still feels like you are anonymous
- ability to keep in touch - as sad as it sounds but i am thankful for twitter and facebook - without these mediums i would not know what my friends are doing. sad, but true.

i believe i am using dashes too much.

anyways, this was taken at the Rocks near the Sydney Dance Company. I will be experimenting with photoshop next couple of days and delving in the world of photoshop 'actions' - excitement plus!

happy long weekend readers!

mw