I Heart Faces Sepia Toned

Here is my I Heart Faces entry for kids this week. This week's theme is Sepia Toned.

This is my little toddler. She is a joy to take pictures of - always bright and cheery and as cute as can be. This photo was taken during her bath and I had fun tinting it and applying some Vignette in Photoshop. I hope you enjoyed my picture as much as I enjoyed taking it.

And this week, I actually have an entry for the adults category as well. A special mommy and baby moment in the rain at soccer. My five year old actualy took that picture. She told me to make a silly face.

Flash Photography At Dusk

Here is my favorite picture from today. I was experimenting with my flash some more. Specifically, I was experimenting with High Speed Sync (H Flash on my Canon Speedlite). To my understanding, what High Speed Sync does is allows you to use a higher shutter speed than you otherwise would be able to and the Speedlite automatically adjust the strength and speed of the flash to match your setting. That's the best explanation I can offer for High Speed Sync right now. You can use this with night photography. Of course, your flash won't illuminate or freeze objects that are far away - they have to be in flash range. The downside to flash, especially when it's the only source of light, is that it's very one dimensional unless you are using multiple multi-directional off-camera flashes. I'd love to do that one day. Here is a neat blog dedicated to the purpose of educating photographers about off-camera flashes - Strobist. I think it's fun just to read about - even if I don't have the ability to delve into this area yet.

Here is my picture, taken at dusk.

30D, ISO 640, f14, 1/80th of a second, 70mm of 70-200L, at dusk with high-speed sync setting on 430EX Speedlite

Night Photography - Roses

My favorite picture from today is a picture of a rose taken at night.

To tell the truth, the reason this is my favorite picture is that I neglected to use my camera until dusk fell and wasn't happy with my pictures. So, I went outside and played with my camera and my flash in the dark.

Night photography is such a challenge. For one, the flash has to be pointing straight at the subject and since I'm not using a flash diffuser or bouncing a flash off the ceiling like I would during the day, my straight on flash produces flat light. Secondly, it's hard to see if your subject is in focus.

Use a good lens, give your eyes time to adjust, check your images, and take lots of shots - that's my advice (not that I am an expert on this subject). Also, when taking a picture at night make sure there isn't anything in flash range behind your subject and you'll be doing good. Anyhow...this is a subject I want to learn more about, but tonight I gave it a shot.

30D, ISO 1250, f4.0, 1/60th of a second, 70mm of 70-200L, 430EX Speedlight set to H (high-speed sync), some editing in Photoshop

My Girls And I

I made a polka dot collage of my girls and I. How much fun is that? Here is the tutorial on how to do it:

Special Dots Tutorial

I Heart Faces - Birthdays

Here is my pic for I Heart Faces. This week's theme is birthdays. I decided to have a little fun with my pictures. I just discovered a website where you can get free brushes for Photoshop and I thought I would play around with them.

This is the website I got the brush from:

Graphic-Illustrations.com

Here is my kid's entry: