My Kids

[Arya Wiese]

I wasn't sure where to put this, not really street photography but not really portrait either as it's more photojournalistic but not really either (spelling is my weak spot sorry if I spelled it wrong).

I was practicing with my sb600 lens and bouncing light off walls/celings and such. I was working on learning how to dial up and down - much harder then I thought, but a fun experience non-the-less. I am also working on my b&w conversions - getting them to look more like when I was developing my own b&w's in the darkroom.

My Iso was at 200 and my f/stop was around 2.4-2.8 and my shutterspeed was between 60 & 125 some images may be higher ss.

When I asked my youngest to look at me she would look at me but close her eyes and scrunch up her nose and say "cheese" lol or not look at me at all.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m99/bearlyhere2006a/November%202007/DSC_0105.jpg

My oldest was really into getting his picture taken but went gansta on me and was telling me "what up my brotha" and then said "I'm done" and walked away.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m99/bearlyhere2006a/November%202007/DSC_0055.jpg

My middle son was into his video game and didn't want to look at me at all, so I told him I wouldn't leave until he looked at me and I got the take the darn picture look with smile from him.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m99/bearlyhere2006a/November%202007/DSC_0020.jpg

[Arya Wiese]

This picture was taken last night after the kids settled down and I walked in and found them on the couch together and being sweet - I pulled my cell phone out and took this picture then emailed it to myself and worked it over in photoshop - if I had gotten my DSLR I would have missed this oppertunity and moment. Enjoy.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m99/bearlyhere2006a/November%202007/mykids11-16-07.jpg

[Eric Van Gilder]

Nicely done. I never thought about working over cell phone images.

[Arya Wiese]

thank you Eric. I never thought about doing until this image. I didn't have time to run and get my camera and had my cell phone and thought why not...it made a very decent 5x7 image for me - any bigger and it would have looked really bad in print.

[Asher Kelman]

Arya,

Beyond fabulous kids and a superb photograph! What phone and how many pixels for gawdsake?

What did you use to get the very interesting effect? Anyway I love the work and you must be proud. Such tenderness in the middle guy and the nonchalance of the young fellow on the right balances that! Did you use all 3 channels to make the B&W. I ask because I was wondering how noisy the ddifferent channels turned out.

Thanks for sharing!

Asher

[Eric Van Gilder]

Arya, my wife absolutely LOVED these. You have another fan. :)

[Asher Kelman]

Mine too! This shows that it's the photographer that counts! Well you do need cute kids.

Asher

[Arya Wiese]

Asher: My phone is a LG cherry chocolate phone from Verizon. I had the resolution set to 640x480 (thats the 2nd highest...I had the choice of 1280x960, 320x240, 176x144 & 160x120). The scratchy blend is one that I got from another photography forum it came with the scratchy top and the border as well. I just used a gradient layer to change to b&w then used my brightness/contrast then went in with my burn tool to give a bit more detail - then I used my unsharpen mask 60 for the top number 2.7 for the middle and 0 for the bottom number. Cropped to 7x5 for my final print not using any resolution in the box and the resolution came out to be about 160. not perfect but it's going to be a nice gift when people open their christmas cards this year.

I am glad everyone likes it, it sure warmed my heart when I saw them sitting there. Thank you for your last comment Asher about it being the photographer and not the equipment because I always hear "if I had a fancy camera like that I would take great pictures too" frustrates me to no end - I worked hard to be where I am at and I practiced non-stop - ever since I could hold a camera...lol

[Asher Kelman]

The scratchy blend is one that I got from another photography forum it came with the scratchy top and the border as well. I just used a gradient layer to change to b&w then used my brightness/contrast

Explain how you use that gradient! Do you still have the url of these scratchy filters?

Asher

[Arya Wiese]

Here is the link to the other forum - CLICK HERE (http://ilovephotography.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=219311&hl=5x7+aged+blend)

It was shared in July of this year and the link probably expired but if you got ahold of the person who shared it she may reshare it.

for the gradient layer I choose black at one end and white at the other and then a grey for the center nothing too fancy then I use brightness contrast to get the look I want. Just what I learned messing around with photoshop.

[Asher Kelman]

Here is the link to the other forum - CLICK HERE (http://ilovephotography.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=219311&hl=5x7+aged+blend)

It was shared in July of this year and the link probably expired but if you got ahold of the person who shared it she may reshare it.

The link is broken it seems! :(