Smart Mommy Solutions» photography

Protected: The information given tonight

Tonya — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 13:59:59 +0000

Protected: Welcome Photography Class

Tonya — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:49:31 +0000

Sweet baby hummingbird

Tonya — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:38:36 +0000

My birthday is next week, and I found an awesome deal on a zoom lens for my camera. I found it at Target for only $99. It is a Canon EF 75-300mm zoom lens. Today I had my first chance to see how well it works. We were outside, and my daughter pointed out a hummingbird on the tree. I ran in to change lenses, and came back out to snap some pictures. I noticed that there were two hummingbirds at first, but that when I came back outside with my longer lens, there was only one. I waited patiently, and even sat down for a bit to wait and see if the mommy came back.

It was well worth the wait. Here is the baby waiting for mommy to come back.

Baby is still waiting.

Here comes mommy.

I am so jazzed about my new lens. I did have to manually focus because there were so many branches that the camera couldn’t figure out what I wanted it to focus on. I just manually focused and then stayed in the same spot to take all of the pictures. The baby stayed in the same place the whole time.

I have high hopes for things that I will be able to capture now.

Spider web trial

Tonya — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:16:35 +0000

I have been trying to get a good picture of a spider web for a while. When I was out for a morning walk, I ran into this web. It was not easy to capture. I had to go back to the house and get a step stool and a water squirt bottle in order to get the water drops on it. It looks better with the water drops. Unluckily, when I was spraying the web, the spider decided not to be a part of the picture. I will keep trying to get the perfect shot.

I am linking up to Macro Friday at Blogging from Bolivia.

Tutorial on how to blur the background of a picture

Tonya — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:34:53 +0000

I have taken some good pictures, but sometimes the background is too focused and distracts from the close-up of the subject matter. You can blur the background in photoshop, and I will walk you through the steps. I am using photoshop elements 7, but I’m sure that the steps would be similar in other programs.

Here is a picture of a fern straight out of the camera.

And here is the same picture with some extra blur in the background.

Open your picture in photoshop, and select the part of the picture that you want to be in focus. You can select using the selection brush or quick selection tool. I will often use the quick selection tool until it starts selelcting troo much, then switch to the regular selection tool. You move your selection tool around the object while holding down the button on the mouse. To take parts away from your selection, you hold down the Alt key while moving around with the left click button down on your mouse.

Once the area that you want to be in focus is selected, you copy it by right clicking and selecting copy. Next you create a new layer. This can be done by either going up to layers on the top too bar and selecting new layer. You could also go to the right palette and click on a little icon for layers.

Once you have a new layer, you paste your selected image that you copied into the new layer. make sure that you are on this new layer when you do this.

Remember whenever you are working with layer, you have to have the layer that you want to work on selected.

Next step is to go back to your background and then go up to layers in the top toolbar and make a layer from the background.

You can then go to the layer with the background copy, go up to effects, and select blur, and choose gaussian blur. Slide the bar to get the amount of blur on the background that you would like.

You want to have the right amount of blur. You can have too much blur.

But you want to have just the right amount of blur.

Your selected image layer should be on top of the background so it will stay clear. You then need to use a soft eraser brush at about 50-60% transparency and erase the hard lines around your selected image. You want it to look like it is a part of the blurry background rather than just copied and pasted onto it. You may have to play around with tis to get it looking right. Remember, if you don’t get it right the first time, you can always start again by undoing or revert.

This picture’s before.

And here is the after with some extra background blur.

Summer is over, what have you done

Tonya — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:59:18 +0000

Well, summer is over. I was off work all summer, and really luxuriated in the laziness of it. I took a photography class, and posted some of the pictures on the photography section on day 1 of class, day 2, more from day 2, my favorites from day 3, and then some extra pictures from class. The cool thing about taking the class was that our time was devoted and carved out specifically for taking pictures and editing them. We spent all day every day photographing and editing pictures. You have to spend the time in order to get better. Another great thing about the class was its location. We were in Northern California on the coast near Mendocino at the Albion Field Station, which is owned by Pacific Union College. The coastline is wild there, and we were camping in a little valley on a river/estuary, so there was wildlife galore. There were deer passing through camp daily, osprey overhead, owls next to our camp each night. It was awesome. We were very tired by the end of the week because we started photographing a 6:30 every morning, and we weren’t done until 9 each night. Long days, but pleasant. It was cold there too. We were there mid July, and I don’t think that it got above the 60s every day. I never took my sweatshirt off. Here is a picture of our camp.

Then there is boating on the estuary.

Finally, Here are the cabins that were for rent to camp in. You still had to bring your own sleeping bag and linens, but you got a bed and shower.

So, after our lovely trip to the wilds of Northern California, my daughter had surgery to have her tonsils out. We then spent a lot of time at home recouperating and I spent more time on the computer with my pictures and editing software. I decided to list some pictures on Etsy, and made cards and bookmarks out of my pictures. It has become quite a hobby.

Here is a sample of some of my cards.

I also love this picture that I messed with and made more like art. Here it is in my shop.

Now I am back to work, and I have not completely organized my house like I was planning to do when the summer started. I wonder if my house will ever be completely organized or is it important to always have that to strive towards? I completely ignored my therapy blog once I took the photography class this summer. Now that I am back at work doing therapy, I will have to start updating the therapy stuff again. It seems that life is going to be very busy for a while. Looking forward to Thanksgiving break and Christmas break.

More pictures from class

Tonya — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 15:14:45 +0000

Here are some more pictures from the photography class.

My Favorite Pictures from the third day

Tonya — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:07:16 +0000

Here are my favorite pictures from the third day of my photography class.

A fern that is unfurling.

An ant on a flower.

Another Banana Slug.

Favorites from day 2 class

Tonya — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 22:10:00 +0000

Here are my favorite pictures from the second day of our photography class.

Nice little harbor seal on the Albion River.

Turkey Vultures having a little fishy snack.

Another Turkey Vulture.

Water drops on a leaf.

Photography class day 2

Tonya — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:56:34 +0000

Some other pictures from day one.

A closer view of the bird.

A quail with her babies.

Another view of the banana slug.