Siren Song

About 10 years ago, a young idealist I know intimately dogged digital photography within an inch of it’s life. She swore digital would never be better than and definitely would never replace film. Film was just better by such a large degree, it was unfathomable. Ahh, the innocence of youth.

Flash forward to 2004 and by this time, digital photography has grown by leaps and bounds that that photographer. . .ok I never had thought possible. In December of 2006 I purchased my first Digital SLR a Canon 30D. I was in LOVE! It cost me more than any of my film cameras, heck more than all of them put together (I will admit, I saved money by purchasing old reliables from fellow photogs with the desire to upgrade).

But the cost was not so bothersome to me because there was another cost that was entirely obliterated by the advent of digital. The costly processing of film and having to have every photo printed. And then came the weeding out of the “bad” ones. So my 3 or 4 Canon SLRs got packed away in a camera bag along with loads of unused film only to see the light of day every once in a while.

One of those times was when my husband and I planned a trip to Piedmont Park for him to try his hand at photography a bit more than he was used to. I brought out one of my old faithfuls and the accompanying rolls of film in order to not feel empty handed. It was torture not seeing the fruits of my labors right away and whether or not I got the shot. Sadly, it was not torture enough because they are still lying around undeveloped. My curiosity was evidently not that great. . .

. . .or rather, the real culprit is my frugality and the fact that there are no decent local film labs in my area that could lovingly develop my film and scan it to CD for me so that I may view my film creations in the same ease that I do my digital work. Either that or the ones I find have the ability to bleed me dry in the area of my wallet. {{inward groan}}

Early this summer, before my Canon 30D was sadly demoted by the acquisition of a 50D, I shot a couple that you saw before on this blog here. As I shot with my trusty 30D, I loaded one roll of film for Spencer to shoot at his leisure. Knowing my tendency towards procrastination, I got the film developed and scanned to CD right away. . .at Wal-Mart. :( I even got a set of prints for kicks and giggles.

I was thoroughly surprised by the results. They were creamy and rich in a way digital is not always. Sadly, the following images do not do the prints justice.

The above images were completely untouched by Photoshop. Straight out of the camera.

For those who do not follow closely the buzz in the photography industry, the reason this post came to be is because there has been a lot of said buzz in the photography world about film. Now, by no means do I plan on going back to film as my sole media as do the amazingly talented Jose Villa (please check out his phenomenal work which is a source of inspiration to me) and several others that I have come across (Joseph Canlas is another good one to check out that is 100% Film as his blog proudly bosts) but there are certain things about film that I miss.

One day, some time ago, I came across an order a bride had placed with me for prints from her wedding that she never retrieved (lesson learned there that we won’t get into right now) and I marveled at several facts.

1. I have grown by leaps and bounds in the past 5+ years.

2. I was amazed at the memory of the confidence I used to have shooting weddings and such. I looked over the images and recalled how it used to be when I would shoot roll after roll of film, trusting myself and my abilities enough without the possibility of seeing how I truly did until anywhere from a few days to weeks after the actual event. {{sigh}} Those were the days.

As I typed this, I looked over at my dear 50D and picked it up and changed the review time of an image after shot from 2 seconds to None. I still have the ability to push the play button, of course, but I am going to endeavor to resist unless necessary.

As wistful as this post may sound, I do not plan on giving digital the heave ho by any means. Too blasted convenient. However, relegated to the post of “knick knack” is my first ever SLR (single lens reflex) that I bought from a pawn shop for $100 of hard earned money. My dear Pentax K1000. Also there resides my overpriced TLR (twin lens reflex). An $80 E-bay find. My Yashica A.

As I mentioned on Twitter just the other night, I have 35mm and 120mm film lying around the house and an itch that needs scratching. We shall see how this turns out and I will be sure to keep you updated.

P.S. “This is what part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed.” Mitch Hedburg

P.S. For real. Check out this blog of an old friend of mine who has also succumbed to the siren song of film.

contact me or view my online portfolio. . .

Schraeder Family – Lilburn Georgia

When I worked in a cubicle I made an excellent friend. We ended up sitting across from each other and had to discipline ourselves not to talk so much and to get more work done. Last fall, I was supposed to get pictures of her family but our timing just never quite worked out.

SOOOOO, this fall we pinned down a day and braved the cold & overcast weather to get some fun shots at the playground…oh, excuse me the “Mountain Park Park”.

For some reason, I really like this image.That worried look in my friend Stacey’s eyes is due to her firstborn son attempting to sharpen his skills on the concrete skating ramps. This was a great reaction to their dog, Grady, who decided he wanted to see what this skating thing was all about and plunged into the pit only to find there wasn’t an easy way out. Dylan showing off his mad skills. These next two I played with especially for Dylan.A sweet little moment. Hayley (sorry if I spelled it wrong Stacey) doing her best impression of Captain Underpants. I will admit I am not sure who this character is. No matter how hard Hayley tried, she couldn’t get in sync with her sister. Our attempt at a nice family picture. Things were a bit crazy at first. This is the picture that they used for their holiday cards. I had to be a photoshop surgeon on this one because it was Stacey’s favorite except for the fact that her youngest, Hayley decided to cross her eyes for a series of shots (just like her momma). So I took her head from another shot and out it on this one for her. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. However, this one is my favorite of them. Stacey’s face in this first shot is absolutely excellent. Even though this shot was taken as Dylan was unhappy to not be able to go back to the skate ramps, I love how it came out. Mom and her two girls having fun on the playground. Stacey tried to get me on here too but I begged off saying I was carrying too much equipment. ;)There’s a new superhero in town. Mark told me he was “letting me” have this shot of him smiling. Hey, I’ll take what I can get. As we were leaving, the kids noticed a baseball was left on the field so they tossed it around for a little bit. I don’t know much about form, but Dylan looks pretty sharp in this series. Once we got back to the house, Taylor wanted to get some shots with her new(ish) bunny, Oreo. She was so sweet and responsible with him/her?Just look at those bunny eyes!

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Amalgam

Good lord what a weekend. It was such a LONG weekend for being only 2 days long. Packed to the gills with fun and work and fun work. The Pirate Party was this Saturday and OH BOY was it cute and fun and HOT as hades! The humidity was enough to make a person exclaim, “I’m melting…melting away! What a world, what a world!”

Directly after that I had to rush home to finish cleaning up the house for the girl’s night that I had been planning to have BEFORE Spencer lost his job. You never realize fully how messy your house is until you know people who have never seen it before will be coming over. {{rolling eyes}} First impressions and all. I decided to make something that I thought would be easy and inexpensive. Swiss style cheese fondue. Not easy and not inexpensive. It called for Gruyere cheese, which is almost $10 for a block and Kirsch Liqueur, which they don’t sell in Georgia by the way. It took both my best friend and I to make it and I still don’t think it came out the way it was supposed to. At least it tasted okay.

Fast forward to Sunday and after the meeting at the Kingdom Hall, Spencer and I came home and crashed before going to a “Jazz on the Green” going away party for some friends of ours. Fun times considering it stormed all afternoon before the party. Undaunted, we all spread our blankets and mats on the lawn anyway and snacked and enjoyed the live singing.

Picture wise I have lots of goodies to come. I am finally almost finished editing and post processing the tea party pictures only to have to start on the Pirate pictures. {{SIGH}} Just in case you guys wouldn’t have guessed, my little man was the cutest gentleman pirate EVER!! Then I also have pictures of the jazz night to work on. YAY! On the good side, after being in Covington for two years people are finally starting to realize that I have a gift for taking pictures. I have never been one to push myself but I would mention my photographic past to people at random times. I guess because photography is one of those “hobbies” almost anyone can say they are good at, my statements didn’t hold too much water until the evidence was seen. :D

While you patiently await the above-mentioned peektures I will grace my blog with some more of the picnic pictures mentioned previously.

Now I promise I am not going to plague you with ALL of the “before and after”s but be prepared to scroll for a while with all of the pictures because after I learned some kick butt tricks from my favorite Pioneer Woman, I opened up this picture folder and went to town on them

So here we have my little man showing how truly froglike he can be to accent his lovely face painting job.Here we see why photoshop is the best thing since sliced bread. What seems to be a good picture can be made great by a few clicks of the mouse and all of a sudden you have the colors and so forth that you remember seeing and not just some blah imposter colors.
You may remember this picture from a previous post? Can you believe the difference. I feel ashamed for sending out the bbq pictures to family and friends before I got the chance to "fix" them.

Another cute as can be butterfly girl.This is the lovely artist at work on her first volunteer, JJ. As you saw, he got a frog so Liam had to follow suit.

These are the lovely hosts of the BBQ. Please ignore the colorful shirt on the gentleman below. I must admit they are a bit accentuated by the action I chose.

Turns out I still was not able to post ALL of the pictures I wanted here from the BBQ as time would not permit. More to come later, if you can stand it.

I can't do it

I stopped strictly following the "Ultra Simple Diet".

I know! I know!...I'm a failure.

My chiropractor laughed at me when I said this. I told him that I had been going through so many mood swings and I just felt BLECH on the diet and he said that I was probably just detoxing. I told him I didn't have time to feel like that especially right now. He told me to try it again later at a time when I don't have so much going on.

I still feel like a failure.

What a sad post for my 100th post.

Let's brighten things up by letting you feast your eyes on the bluest pair of eyes you have ever seen.
Isn't he the cutest? These were taken almost a year ago I think. He has grown so much since then and he has the most beautiful blonde hair. I think this one is my favorite. Funny side note, he is actually slobbering all over my lens cap grasped tightly in those chubby little hands. It never got so much love from me. :DAs you can see, I desaturated this one...all but his BLUE eyes. I then took a yellow brush and made his adorable blue ducks stand out a bit more.I call this one my Olan Mills shot. It is just too babyriffic. To go along with the perfect pose I used my newly acquired blur effect to make it more studioesque. {{wow, I am all about making up words today}}I can't help but loving this shot too. It is so typical of his personality. Friendly and all in your face. You can just imagine him giving you wet, open mouth kisses, can't you?