The assignment this week was to put up holiday pictures, which was conveniently assigned right before the 4th of July. The pictures above were taken in Idaho Falls while we were saving a space for family to come and take pictures, and then the subsequent fireworks show. It was interesting to take pictures of the fireworks with a digital camera… but I really liked some of the light paint effects you could create. I didn’t have a tripod but I tried using different objects to steady the camera, but I liked the pictures that weren’t steady more than the others. I hope you like them! Let me know what you think!

1. Flag: July 4, 2009 3:42 p.m. Idaho Falls, ID, f/4.3, SS 1/1000, Samsung Digimax L70

2. Fireworks 1: July 4, 2009 10:29 p.m. Idaho Falls, ID, f/5.2, SS 4.0 seconds, Samsung Digimax L70

3. Fireworks 2: July 4, 2009 10:27 p.m. Idaho Falls, ID, f/8.3, SS 4.0 seconds , Samsung Digimax L70

4. Fireworks 3: July 4, 2009 10:27 p.m. Idaho Falls, ID, f/5.2, SS 4.0 seconds, Samsung Digimax L70

We had the opportunity to choose what edit we wanted to do this week, so I chose to do a crop and twist effect. This effect was fun to play around with and I found one that I really loved and wanted to share.  By using the rectangular marquee tool you select the part of the image that you want to be the focal point. You then copy and paste the selection on a new layer and twist it. I chose to do two copies of the image and add a stroke and drop shadow to them as well. I reduced the opacity of the original image and placed a white layer behind it so you could see the change better. I also changed the sizes of the copied images to give it a different effect. Hope you like it! The picture was taken on our Bannack Montana trip.

This weeks photo assignment was with water. I took all these images in the BYU-Idaho gardens. It was a lot of fun to work with the blurring and stopping of the fountains. It was also perfect weather because part of the time it was overcast and the other part was bright and sunny, so it was easy to take both shots. I was very grateful for the overcast which allowed me to take some awesome blurred shots!

1. Umbrella 1: June 11, 2009 12:51 p.m., f/6.4, Sony DSC-H7

2. Umbrella 2: June 11, 2009 12:50 p.m., f/7.1, Sony DSC-H7

3. Up Close: June 11, 2009 12:50 p.m., f/4.5, Sony DSC-H7

4. Big Falls: June 11, 2009 1:19 p.m., f/4.0, Sony DSC-H7

5. Small Falls: June 11, 2009 1:00 p.m., f/8.0, Sony DSC-H7

6. Close-up Small Falls: June 11, 2009 1:00 p.m., f/8.0, Sony DSC-H7

This weeks edits were to work with motion effects. I decided to work with an effect I had never used before, the fisheye lens effect. I have used a fisheye lens before, but it was interesting to try it in Photoshop. You can find this effect under Choose Filter-Distort-Spherize. It was a lot of fun to work with, and I got a little carried away on some pictures, but these two are the ones I liked the most. I took both of these shots in the BYU-Idaho gardens. The first one I used the inverse effect, by making the slider on the spherize box a negative number.  The second shot is just a regular fisheye.

This weeks assignment was to take multiple shots and merge them together to make a panoramic image. I chose to put up two that I had taken. The first was taken on a hike in Heise, Idaho. We were standing near the top and looking out onto the valley and I wanted to be able to see the whole view. I took a total of 16 pictures for this shot and then used the Photomerge option in Photoshop to make it panoramic. The second was an amazing cloud that was by my house. I tried taking single image pictures of it but they would not capture the whole cloud. So I took 17 total pictures and merged them in Photoshop. As you can see… I should have taken more images of the top left… But I still loved the clouds so I wanted to put the image anyway.

This week, we were to take pictures every day and choose our best one for a week of photo journaling. I had a lot of fun taking pictures of the sky because the clouds have been amazing the past few days. We will have clear skies and then a huge storm and the clouds are just miraculous! Saturday and tuesday have intersting pictures because of what I do all day. On saturday I am constantly on my computer doing homework, so I took a picture of my “study area” … my bed . On Tuesdays I do not go to school, I stay at home and do homework and clean. I was cleaning the bathroom this last Tuesday and loved the macro view of the Q-tips! Most of the other pictures were taken at random places around Rexburg because that is where I spend most of my days.

1. Thursday June 4th: 7:17 pm Rexburg, ID; f/4.6; Nikon COOLPIX S210

2. Friday June 5th: 4:53 pm Rexburg, ID; f/4.6; Nikon

3. Saturday June 6th: 11:56 am Ucon, ID; f/4.6; Nikon

4. Sunday June 7th: 8:42 pm Rexburg, ID; f/3.1; Nikon

5. Monday June 8th: 8:59 pm Ucon, ID; f/4.6; Nikon

6. Tuesday June 9th: 4:27 pm Ucon, ID; f/4.6; Sony Cybershot

7. Wednesday June 10th: 3:23 pm Rexburg, ID; f/5.9; Nikon

This week we were to make a spread for our photography photobooks using our “weekly photo journal” pictures. I always have way too much fun coming up with different layouts for photobooks… but I could not pick one that I really liked. Let me know what you think about this spread!

I had a lot of fun with this luminosity trick. I did not take these photos, I found them on stock exchange (sxc.hu). All of the photos of my own that I was trying to get to work did not have the right kind of lighting to really make the effect what I wanted it to be, so I found these ones and they worked perfectly! I used different blending modes for each image in order to get a different effect with the gradient tool. The tutorial can be found at http://www.planetphotoshop.com/design-effects-2.html

1. Teacake: uploaded by ddrccl. http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1172789

2. Girl: uploaded by Jesse Therrien. http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1127193

3. Dayley: uploaded by Debby Gerhardt. http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1120717

This week we were to take portrait shots and enhance them in Photoshop. I have never taken portrait shots before so this was a very new experience for me. I really like the 3 bannack shots and could not decide which one to use of Jared so I put 2 up. I enhanced the color of teeth, blemishes on faces, and the colors of the environments in which the shots were taken.

With the shots I took at Bannack, the wall was a very beautiful color and didn’t show up in the shots so I tweaked it a little. I also mixed 2 shots together of Jared. I had used spot metering and one shot was darker but had more detail, and one was brighter had had more of the original color. I copied one onto the top of the other and then loved the image around so they matched up.I then changed the opacity and some of the levels, and I loved the outcome. It seems a lot more realistic now.

With the river shot, I loved enhancing the green in the plants because, again, the color was just not as real with the camera. I had a lot of fun trying out portraits! Hope you like them!

1. Jared: May 15, 2009 12:50 p.m Bannack, MT; f/2.7; Sony DSC-H7

2. Bryce: May 9, 2009 12:25 p.m. Heise, ID; f/7.1; Sony Cybershot

3. Jared 2: May 15, 2009 12:48 p.m Bannack, MT; f/2.7; Sony DSC-H7

4. Jamie: May 15, 2009 12:46 p.m Bannack, MT; f/3.2; Sony DSC-H7

This week’s photo assignment was to take photos at night time and of lights, in this case I chose moving lights for my light photos. The first and second pictures I took using our mail box as my tripod. In the first photo I wanted the street to be pretty dark, but still recognizable, and for the street light to show up the most. I played around a lot with the fstop and shutter speed, and it was a lot of fun.

I did pretty much the same thing with the second shot as with the first except I moved the camera when the shutter had been open for 2 out of the 2.9 seconds it stayed open. I did this because I wanted the background to be as clear as possible with the streaks going across it. It took a lot of shots to get the light just right, but thats what made it exciting!

The last shot was taken in my bedroom using a glowstick. I used glowsticks in a lot of pictures but this one showed up the clearest. It says my name, which I like, but my favorite part of the picture is the light coming through the door; it adds a different feel to the picture.

1. Lonely Street: May 27, 2009 9:49 p.m. Ucon, ID; f/2.7 ; ss 1.o seconds; Samsung Digimax L70

2. Street Lights: May 27, 2009 9:51 p.m. Ucon, ID; f/5.8 ; ss 2.9 seconds; Samsung Digimax L70

3. My Name: May 26, 2009 11:56 p.m. Ucon, ID; f/2.7 ; ss 12 seconds; Samsung Digimax L70