My latest photo inspiration: my grandpa

While I've always loved my grandpa he's always been someone I've felt I don't really know. Even though we talk via phone periodically, he lives in Georgia and I only get to see him once a year at most. After my grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer last July we started hearing from him more often, and have visited afew times in the last months to make sure he's doing okay. The first time we visited I went looking for something to do around his apartment and found bags and bags of random pictures packed away in a closet. I decided I would scan a bunch of them into his computer and send them to myself so I could have copies of them at home. As I sat alone with the computer, my grandpa came and began to talk to me about some of the pictures. Pictures, he told me, he'd taken. I asked him about different techniques he'd used in different pictures, and he explained everything. He told me about his Leica (which I was disappointed to hear he sold afew years ago), the darkroom he'd bought set up in their old apartment in New Jersey, and how he'd once been asked to shoot pictures for a local theater group to be shown on display during intermission. I really enjoyed talking to my grandpa about it; his enthusiasm for photography was contagious.
It was great to have a photographer explain some of his pictures to me, but it was even better to have that photographer be my grandpa.

inspiring photo series

http://thedailywh.at/2012/01/05/photo-series-of-the-day-14/

As told in the video above, Jeff Harris is a Toronto photographer who has been documenting every day of his life for twelve years. I really like this idea because it forces the photographer/subject to be aware and appreciative of their environment. While I think Harris's plan is brilliant I was disappointed to find he doesn't take all of the pictures himself. Not taking your own pictures makes them less of your own. On a positive note, by taking a picture everyday one is able to see Harris's growth in photography; as time progresses his pictures become more creative. On his website you can view all his pictures from Jan. of 1999 to Dec. of 2011. I would suggest viewing the video above before looking at his website.


http://www.jeffharris.org/2011/02/

Putting images into shapes

I was really drawn to this piece because of its dimension which, I suspect, is the result of the artists layering and shaping her images and then setting them against a black and white background. I found a Photoshop tutorial which allows you to insert your images into shapes; something I may very well try!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU2Jxbt13-U

Composite

So in learning about composite, I didn't find a great tutorial I found Emma Brown! Emma taught me the basics of the program and helped get me on my feet in creating the two images above. I tried using the CS5 book only to find my usual Photoshop frustrations surfacing. Personally, I don't think the CS5 for Photographers book is for me. Its for users who are really familiar with the program so it presumes the reader knows basic Photoshop tools and terminology. In stumped me at the first step when it instructed to trace my image with the lovely pen tool. After working with the Emma I found it much easier to use the magnetic lasso than to try and navigate pen tool with its extensive anchors and handles. After referring to the pen tool, channels, and layer masks (things I'd never heard of) Evening and Shewe continue with another instruction I didn't know how to follow "I resized it to fit the full width of the image." At this point, I closed the book. I did look through the index though, and found some things I'd like to try as I get more of an idea of what I'm doing.

Pop Art Tutorial

So while looking online from montage ideas I came across some really cool pop art, and researched further to find this tutorial. Not only does it give you short easy steps--as opposed to overwhelming you with five at once-- it also gives you the key commands for most of the steps (something I want to become better versed in.) I'm hoping to use pop art in my montage, not for people as in the tutorial but for object(s) which I would composite into my background layer.

http://photoshoptutorials.ws/photoshop-tutorials/photo-effects/pop-art.html

Before and After:

Photoshop tutorial

So I've been trying all weekend to download the Photoshop CS.5 month free trial, but haven't been able to. Despite my stupid computer problems, I found a tutorial on inserting toy camera affects through photoshop that I really want to try as soon as I can. I also discovered the Adobe photoshop reference page which breaks down basic ideas like layers and filters. Below is the link to both pages along with some pictures that were shown on the tutorial.

Adobe Photoshop Reference Page: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/photoshop/cs/using/index.html

Toy Camera Photoshop tutorials: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/10/uncovering-toy-cameras-and-polaroid-vintage-effects/

Making your pictures look like Hulga pictures via Photoshop

 How to insert light leaks into your picture via Photoshop

 Creating a double exposure/composite in Photoshop

If I can ever get my computer to cooperate with me, I hope to try these tutorials soon!