A toy camera pic from the fall that I found today.
Wedding photo before and after
This post is to show the difference between an edited and unedited (or straight out of the camera) wedding picture. I want to post this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, sometimes I get asked be a prospective client what I mean when I say that a cd of edited proofs are included with my sessions and weddings. This is meant to be a visual example of what ‘edited’ means. You don’t get anything from me that I haven’t looked at and adjusted. Secondly, I find it interesting to see the process behind things. I might be picking this up from my lovely wife who thinks that there should be an on demand ‘How It’s Made‘ for anything she encounters. Since I find it interesting, some of you might too.
I grabbed one of my favorite images from Shawn and Kara’s wedding for an example. The before shot is without any editing on my part. I opened the image, resized it, and saved it again.
Before:
After:
The first thing I did was I open the image into Adobe Camera Raw. I warmed up the colours, increased the overall brightness, recovered a bit of detail in the highlights, deepened the blacks, and adjusted the contrast. Once the image was in Photoshop, I cropped a bit off of the left. This was to balance the composition a bit more. Then I did a bit of selective lightening and darkening in order to further bring visual attention to the main subjects. Finally, I used a curves adjustment layer (highlights, midtones, and shadow adjustment) to give it a bit more pop. After a quick resize and sharpening it was ready to go.
Even though this wasn’t a heavily involved edit, I think it demonstrates the difference that a little bit of work can make to the final photo. Here they are smaller, and next to one another for easier comparison:
canvas print options
I’ve just added some canvas print options in my ordering galleries. I love the look of prints on canvas, especially Through the Viewfinder. It’s a great way to turn pictures into wall art. Here’s an example of a couple of portraits that I did, printed on canvas at 20×20 inches and hanging on a client’s wall (obviously taken before Christmas). As always, if you don’t see something in my shop that you’re interested in, just send me a quick e-mail, info(at)adamgrahamphoto.com.
shooting in the fog
Yesterday and today have been a nice mid-winter gift of warmth. The mantra around here recently has been, “January is almost over. February is short. Our first flowers bloom at the beginning of March.” It’s a bit of a self-deception but we like to mark the beginning of spring with the arrival of our snowdrops. Yesterday felt closer to April with the warm temperature and heavy fog. No complaints from me, I love shooting in the fog. Here are the results:
first ttv with new cameras
These are a couple of my first Through the Viewfinder pics with my new bottom cameras. I like the depth that the Voigtlander seems to have but I’m not entirely sold on all the extra angles. I guess it will depend on the subject. It’s nice to have the choice.
Unsurprisingly, the Duaflex seems very similar to the Duaflex IV that I usually shoot with. It has the rounded corners and tendency to blow the highlights really bright.
Voigtlander:
Duaflex:
new old cameras
Yesterday I took some more prints down to the Yarmouth Waterfront Gallery. This is the first year that they’ve been open through the winter and invited me as a guest artist (open on the weekends 10-5). I decided to check out the antique shop upstairs to see if they had a dresser since mine is being taken over by P when he moves into his new room. While looking around I spotted a gorgeous Voigtlander Brillant. It has a really interesting viewfinder that I’m excited to use for some Through the Viewfinder work. I think I may also just try it out to use it with film. I happen to have a fresh roll of 120 film sitting here and it seems to be in mostly working order. I also really liked the sticker with the hand written exposure cheat sheet the was stuck on the side of the camera (it fell off when I got it home).
When he saw I was interested in the Voitlander, the vendor dug out a few other cameras he had packed away. Two more pseudo-TLRs with nice bright viewfinders. One is an startlingly cute original Kodak Duaflex (my main ttv camera has been a Kodak Duaflex IV) and the other is a Kodak Brownie Reflex. The Brownie Reflex needs one little repair in order to get it TtV worthy. I couldn’t believe that I got three at one shop. I also like that they were manufactured in all different places, Germany, Canada, and England. Take a look at the pics and you’ll see why I couldn’t resist getting all three:
new blog layout
This is a winter shot from 2008 to test my new blog layout. I wanted to keep it nice and simple but make it so I could include larger images. Since this is all about photography, I wanted to be able to highlight the pictures more.
Freyja
This is my adorable niece Freyja. I hadn’t been able to meet her until this Christmas, so I tried to take full advantage of cuddling time. These pictures are from a short session we did to get some pictures for a calendar for my mother-in-law.
after the storm
Today is a perfect winter day. We had a big winter storm over the last two days that left us with a lot of snow. The high winds that were supposed to hit us last night didn’t happen so the snow was still stuck to everything this morning. It was absolutely gorgeous. Here are a few pictures:
Spring in the middle of winter
Through the winter my wife likes to bring in branches off of our quince bush. Bringing them into the warm air inside the house forces them to act like it’s spring and blossom. It’s lovely to see fresh blossoms inside when it’s a blizzard outside. I’ve been getting a bit more of a taste of that because I’m working through my old images in order to more properly catalog them and make them available for sale on Clustershot. Channel spring with a taste of the new batch of images that I’m getting ready to upload:
