Inspiring ✿ Creative ✿ Artistic

So, I am going to be a mere hour from the next Adobe® Photoshop® CS4 Down & Dirty Tricks Tour with with Corey Barker.

For those of you who are interested check it here Down & Dirty Tricks Tour

I want to beat myself with a photoshopped wet noodle for not getting that NAPP subsription, like I have planned on doing, every time I think about it. (which is almost daily and there are so many discounts that depend on it!) The one thing that sooths this ravaged soul is that Scott Kelby won’t be hosting the party at Phoenix. For $100 I want to see the man, the myth, in the flesh. Not that Corey Barker or Dave Cross are artists to sneeze at! But to lose my seminar cherry is going to require a name I have known to be synonymous with photoshop since I first discovered it.

So, maybe next year they will hit Phoenix again. Maybe next year I will have the fundage to actually go. Maybe next year I will finally remember to join NAPP!

Tour PDF – Redirecting to Kelbytraininglive.com

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Taking this idea from Epic Edits,  I am playing with textures today.

TEXTURE

If texture is a big part of your subject, make it stand out and make it obvious. Match up the textures between your subject and your background. You might even try texturizing the entire photo for additional impact.

Textures have been a very large part of my photography life since I discovered Photoshop and all of it’s abilities. As much as I <3 {OOC} Photo’s and the flair and knowledge that it takes to create un-adultered photos. My weakness is still photoshopped images.

I used the same photo for both of the following pictures to show examples of two different types of texture techniques that I use.

Flower-300×200.jpg

Double layer textured image

This image I simplified by layering a gerbera daisy on top of a texture that I found on the web.

I should take a moment to say, if you collect images that are free to use in your photography, it’s a good idea to either edit the name of the photo with the original creators name or web address, or edit the EXIF data on the image. I have so very many textures and overlays from artists who give away their creations for free with only a request of recognition. This image however did not get the edit info and as such I have no idea who the original artist was .

IMG_0895-300×193.jpg

This second gerbera I went a little out of my normal safety level and used a texture from Graphic Authorities Urban Youth kit. I set the texture to Overlay and then set fill to 54%. I could have taken it a few more levels but I was leary of losing the nice bokeh effect that was still present.

Day 3 proved to be fun, I brought out an old picture from early 2008 not long after I first got my Canon XTi and was learning painfully slow how to use a camera again.

Reminiscing, Inspiring, Learning.

It’s what this is all about.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Yeah right…

So I finally have the gallery up. Kudos to Photogallerycreator on creating a free and amazing gallery for wordpress! I was trying all sorts of hand coded galleries and then stumbled upon the FIAGallery. I am a happy camper now

So now that the site is up and almost to my standards. (Not to sure about the pink frou frou look yet. It’s me, but not sure that I want that to carry over to my photography persona. I found an amazing wordpress skin on a photographers site from Hawaii… I wonder if she would share it with me! Well… after I make a ton of changes to make it more “Me” that is .

So tomorrow starts back up my 60 days of Inspiration. For tomorrow I am going to be going with Textures from Epic Edits blog

TEXTURE

If texture is a big part of your subject, make it stand out and make it obvious. Match up the textures between your subject and your background. You might even try texturizing the entire photo for additional impact.

Photo by Sukanto Debnath

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Read the manual.

How many photographers have read their users manual when purchasing that shiny new camera? I know I didn’t, not at first. I wanted to learn everything through use. Now I keep my manual in my backpack and refer to it as my cambible.

Todays second day of Photographic Inspirations once again comes from Photopreneur

2. Read the Manual
It’s not just Photoshop that can do all sorts of things that you don’t know about. Your camera probably has more settings and functions than you know… or know what to do with. You might find a lot of new ideas in the middle of your camera manual.

IMG_6410-300×147.jpg

The following picture is totally OOC (out of camera).  From reading my manual I was able to start taking pictures that turned out perfect totally OOC with absolutely no need for post processing, aka, no photoshop at all!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

So, we’re going to try for a 2 month period of Inspirations, using the list on this site.

I have found Inspiration to be the driving force behind my work. I can sit and look at bridge for an hour, trying to pick out just the right picture to work on. But if I have no inspiration, no goal in mind, my day can end with me doing no editing at all. So onto day 1 of a trip to Inspirational photography

1. Play with Photoshop
So much of photography these days happens after the shutter release has been pressed. There’s probably a ton of things that you don’t know how to do in Photoshop. Learn something new and see what that does for your photography potential.

IMG_7506-191×300.jpg

I chose to do a lite photoshop edit with this picture. I have had the song “Feeling Groovy” from Simon and Garfunkel going through my head the past few days and it just kept making me think of this one photo that I had caught on 4th street in downtown Tucson last week. A Vox/Flickr friend who lives down Tucson way invited the sister and I to go down for a fun photo session and I am thinking that there are going to be several of those pictures used in this theme.

A single grungy/pinkish layer was used.  Multiplying the layer and then toning down some areas. I really wanted the lightpost to show, but it would have taken just too much lightening to get the full effect.  This is probably about as simplistic as I get with photoshop editing. But it’s a start.

See you tomorrow!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

So for my first post, I though the best thing to do would be to inspire myself, and hopefully you dear reader. I spent the evening working on the blog and looking up all sorts of inspirational photography ideas. I finally decided that I am going to start with the first idea from this blog.

1. Play with Photoshop
So much of photography these days happens after the shutter release has been pressed. There’s probably a ton of things that you don’t know how to do in Photoshop. Learn something new and see what that does for your photography potential.

My sister leaves to go back home to overcast wintery snowy Chicago on Thursday.  So I have decided that I will start my trip down inspiration lane that night. I am going to shoot for 1 inspirational idea a day, I can’t wait to see how this pans out …

So, for a picture that has been inspiring me lately I leave you with some beauty.

Set a goal and work towards it

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

So, where do I hang now… I have finally got the site up and running. No gallery yet, I just have not had the time to dedicate to it atm. I am seriously thinking of having a friend of mine from Scotland do it for me, it's what he went to Uni for lol… Yeah the new web code is a bitch and I don't have time to work on my photography, start a studio and learn XHTML, PHP, SQL and all those other acronyms that go along with headaches.

So with that in mind, here is what I HAVE been up to lately! I had the hubby put some DIY stuff together for me and came up with this! It is so awesome for macro and small objets trouves

DIY Macro Backdrop

Studio set up

I am also going back to school soon! I am signing up for a small workshop here in town and then come next semester I am finally doing it.. I am getting my associates in digital arts! I am so excited!!

I am probably going to be posting a wee bit less on Vox… if that is at all possible?? You can find me on my site though, I even have a shout box in case you want to hollar at me . So come on over and point out anything the site is missing, or misspellings . http://lisavanalstyne.com/ *odd for some reason Vox won't let me link anything….*

I leave you today with beauty.

Flower Power

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

So, I am probably going to step on some toes with this post. If your not a tree hugger you may just want to turn around and leave now, cause I am probably going to piss you off.

Yesterday the hubby and I were heading down Tuscon way to see my wonderful friend Maureen Kirk-Detberner. She had some of her photography in an art show and I just had to go support my girl!

On the way down there it was sprinkly weather, but the sky was so beautiful, I was glorying in the texture of the clouds, they way that they mimicked the mountains that they caressed. We passed past the oh so beautiful San Xavier Mission on the Tohono O'odham Reservation, and was oohing and aaahing at how beautiful the land was in that area. Then not far past the boundries of the reservation came the "sudden but inevitable betrayal" of man. Yes that is a Wash quote from Firefly.. I just had to use it in this scenario.

Grotto

Mission San Xavier Del Bac

In the middle of all the unspoiled beauty was an entire mountain range being strip mined. I am not talking about one or two small mountains, this was an entire range…. the image of an Indian with a tear rolling down his cheek would be really fitting here (to those of you who remember that commercial from around circa '70s commercials). O.o This is me, now disgusted…. My sister and I were just complaining to each other the night before about how wasteful we (humans) are, after watching a rehab show where they were gutting a house and just threw everything, including a bathtub in perfect shape, into a dumpster.

Salt River – Maricopa County AZ

In this day and age, I am just absolutely disgusted that we are not doing a better job at re-using, reducing and recycling. How many more mountain ranges are going to have to be reduced to flat lands before we realize that they are not going to grow back, and granite counter tops really aren't the be all, end all in our very short life spans. (Short compared to the age of the mountains torn down for that counter top).

I yearn for the day when we finally open our eyes and begin to (en-masse) use the brains that God gave us, and think before destroying the beauty around us. Life is beginning to disapear around us because of our abuse of our very unstable eco system. What is it going to take?

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Xavier aka Rudolph

DSC00299.JPG

Read and post comments | Send to a friend