Photography 365 Project: (Day 167: Converting My Everyday)

I never used to be a huge fan of black and white photography, but I have to admit that it's growing on me.  I find it especially useful for the times my husband's face is lilac-coloured from a purple computer screen.  Here is my lovely SOOC (straight-out-of-camera):

This is what the photo looks like in black and white (by simply pressing the conversion button and doing nothing else):

It's kind of blah.  My eyes dart all over the frame from the bright tip of the lamp in the top, left-hand corner, to the square of kitchen light reflecting in the window behind the loveseat.  My eyes just briefly graze over Nick whose skin is a nice grey that almost matches the wall in the background.  I'm looking everywhere.  My eyes are attracted to all things bright and shiny - the white canvass with the heart, the glare on the couch arm, that one especially bright tiny dot right in the middle of the window.  I'm taking in the room as a whole.  Even the board games on the very far right-hand side are peeping out from the shadows at me.

So with a little love and time spent in Lightroom and Photoshop, I managed to create the look I envisioned.  I minimized the distractions and pulled the focus to where I wanted it.  I didn't want to say, "Look here is my livingroom and it happens to be in black and white.  Oh yeah, Nick's there, too".  I wanted to say, "Enter this moment with me.  Let all the outside distractions fade away at the end of a long day, and come into our little relaxing space.  A space where it's just Nick, me, a couple of drinks, and a computer keying up our evening show that we are about to enjoy together on the couch :)".

Photography 365 Project: (Days 161 - 166)

Tuesday night, after teaching, we enjoyed some nice BBQ'd steaks for dinner, and cuddled on the couch to catch up on t.v. shows.  Watching t.v. is always better with a 7-11 break to run for candies, don't you know ;)

Wednesday night I didn't have any piano students after work as the three I would normally teach this evening took their Summer break early this year.  We spontaneously decided to take advantage of the $0.25 wing night at a local restaurant.  We, unfortunately, were not the only ones with this idea!  It took a good 2.5 hours to drive there, wait for a table, wait for a menu, and then wait for our wings, and get back home.  But they were delicious and it was worth it.  We always buy more than we can eat so we have lunches the next day :)

Thursday was eventful enough that it got it's own separate post here.

Friday night I was pretty wiped out.  Probably because I was missing 3 out of 5 regular "bus naps" on my commute this week due to getting a couple rides into work and emailing students on the bus.  It could also have been because I worked 7am-3pm instead of my usual 8am-4pm this day in order to go have a meeting after work before catching the train home.  I came in the door around 5pm and promptly set my alarm for 6pm to grab a quick sleep.  My friend Alana came by around 6:15pm to pick me up for a girls' night at the movies.  We got into a little bit of trouble bringing our cameras in, but since we were taking photos of random things, we got off with a little chat from the cleaning crew and that's about it.  

Saturday I got up by 9am in order to have time to walk over to the mall for my hair appointment.  My hair dresser had an unfortunate answer to my query regarding if I had a lot more grey hair than the last time I was there a few months prior.  My mother was completely grey in her 30's, so genetically I'm doomed in that regard ;).  I got her to put in another batch of blonde foils and threw in some violet-red ones for fun as well.  I was relieved that they settled into a bright red and stopped looking purple as the day went on and my hair absorbed the colour more.

The afternoon involved a quick stop at Target on my way home for baking supplies, some Netflix watching, a bit of cleaning the house, and a LOT of cookie baking!  A dear friend stopped by to visit while I finished baking, but before she showed up, Netflix was keeping my company in the kitchen :).  We had a good visit, practiced our duet together for the next day's recital, and headed out to the evening service at church, grabbing sushi on the way.  Nick finished his work on set early and stopped by to finish church with me before we headed home.  He had to continue to work into the night on a wedding, so I curled up on the couch with my t.v. series and photos to edit from throughout the last few days.

Sunday morning dawned with grey skies and low temperatures.  Definitely a day to stay inside!  I slept in, had breakfast with my husband (who was still working away on that wedding edit), and then took a little nap.  I woke up in time to get ready to head out and run some errands (picking up juice boxes and camera equipment for the recital) before we headed over to the music store together.  (Tom Lee's gives free space to teachers for recitals).

Last Summer was such a gong-show that Nick never got to come, so he promised me he would be there in 2014, and he was true to his word!  He filmed it for me, and it was actually the first time in 7 years of knowing each other that he has actually seen me perform!  All the students played wonderfully and we were done within 40 minutes, which was great.  I asked the store employee to repeat himself, though, when he asked if we all liked playing on the $100,000 Steinway grand.  Who knew!?  Pictures were taken, awards handed out, and cookies and juice boxes consumed.  Then it was back home to relax for the evening.  Although poor Nick had to head back out to finish the wedding and deliver it at the reception tonight :(

Five-Hour Holidays

Thursday evening felt a lot like a mini holiday.  After work, I walked down to my in-laws' hotel room, since the conference they were in town for had put them up relatively close to my office.  I grabbed a few shots from their awesome 23rd-floor room, and then we headed off to dinner on a sunny ocean patio.  I discovered a beautiful corner of our city that I didn't even know existed!  I always need people to come in from out of town so that I can appreciate my own city, haha.  After we finished dinner, we took a slow, leisurely walk back along the docks.

We meandered back to the hotel room enjoying the scenic route, and then crashed for a bit while waiting for Nick to wrap on his shoot.  We agreed to meet him at a local gelato place that has 218 different flavours.  Some of them are really... interesting.... We grabbed our treats, and the four of us headed back out into the sunshine to sit and chat for a couple hours.  

We said our goodbyes and goodnights and were home before 10pm, which was good because as much as it felt like a holiday, the next morning came bright and early :)

Sometimes SOOC Just Ain't Gonna Cut It!

I used to think that if I was a great photographer, I would just pick up a camera and magic would happen.  Sometimes it does.  That's always the goal - to get it right SOOC (Straight-Out-Of-Camera), but in reality, without any post-processing work at all, the photos are usually going to look rather ordinary - even if I did everything right!  And sometimes... sometimes you just can't create what you want without a little editing.  Here are a few of my favourite before-and-afters from the last month that just wouldn't have happened without extra love!

Gotta love the duck lips created by the backlighting here!

A quick trip to Photoshop, and a little warming up the image, and it looks a lot cozier (and less weird!):

This next shot was white-balanced properly, but there were two things I couldn't control:  1.  The fact that the inside of the chest was orange wood, and 2. the fact that I needed the back door open to let in more light from behind:

A nice conversion to black and white to kill the orange colour and Photoshop to remove the door:

 This shot Nick took of us.  If he had brightened us up, he couldn't have kept the nice blue sky in the background.  So he shot to retain the sky, and I fixed the rest afterwards in Lightroom:

Lastly, this parking lot shot.  I had to shoot dark to keep the sky from going completely white and also because I wanted a silhouette look.  There's simply no angle I could have shot this from that would have removed that big yellow post to the right and all the buildings in the shadows along the back.  But a LOT of patience in Photoshop gave me a result I'm finally mostly happy with!

Yes, these examples are a little bit dramatic, but the dramatic ones are more fun in my opinion!

Photography 365 Project: (Days 156 - 160)

160 CONSECUTIVE days of shooting and not a single miss so far!

Thursday, June 5, I had the evening and house to myself after my last piano student, so a relaxing bath was in order.  I usually get bored in the bath, so I drag in a stool and my computer.  However, after the mysterious "water damage" I had to deal with, I've been a lot more careful as of late!

Friday, June 6, Nick's sister Stevie was in town and we had a great evening with her.

Saturday, June 7, was a day with more family at the lake, which I blogged about here.

Sunday, June 8, was a catch-up-on-sleep day for me.  (No, seriously, I didn't get up til 2:30pm).  Nick spent the day on a film set, and I spent the afternoon/evening editing photos and cleaning/organizing the house.  We ended up having "guacamoles" for dinner around 10pm.  (We don't call them avocados anymore, and sometimes I forget that's their real name!).  Yes, guacamole, salsa and chips counts as an actual planned meal around here, and is often requested!

Monday, June 9, it felt good to be back to a normal routine day after a couple days of visiting people.  I'm such a creature of habit.  After too much change, I crave my routine no matter how boring it is.  Monday was a day at the office, followed by a handful of students, followed by a quick trip to the grocery store for chicken wings (my favourite food group).  Nick was reluctant to pose for me at first.  That is until he forgot his wallet at home and didn't realize until right at the checkout.  To make up for almost 30 minutes of waiting for him to go and fetch it, not only was he more than willing to pose for me (to make me slightly less annoyed), but he even came up with the idea of jumping against the sunset for me :)


And that's the last 5 days in a nutshell!  The project continues!