A study in Elle

I've really been playing around with my camera a lot trying to get more comfortable with the settings that used to leave me frightened and confused before.  I asked Elle to be my model for a few quick pictures yesterday.  She wasn't thrilled with the whole thing bit I love the results. I don't mind the milk mustache or the bug bite on her nose.  In fact, I think they add something.

Maternity photos

My best friend is pregnant with her second child and this past weekend she did me the incredible honor of letting me take some maternity photos of her.  I know that I am so very much a beginner at this stuff but we had so much fun and I was really happy with the results.  It reaffirmed for me that I want to continue to practice and to get better.  Here are a few of my favorites from our little photo shoot.

Pictures of her

I'm attempting to become a better photographer. Don't laugh.  I recently invested in a pretty nice camera plus a "here's how you use this you moron" book to go with it.  I use Elle as a practice model a lot because a) she's always willing to have her picture taken and b) she's the most gorgeous child on the face of the planet c)she works for Tootsie Rolls.

Here are a few of the pictures I've taken of her recently.  I think my practice is slowly starting to pay off.

Obviously I did a little photo-shopping on these.  I have a nice photoshop program but all of these were done with Picnik.  It's easy and you can get some neat results pretty quickly.  They have a free version but the paid version is not that expensive and really, really worth it.  (I was not paid to write this, I'm sharing because I really like the site.)

Minnesota Zoo Photo Contest Entry

The Minnesota Zoo is currently running a contest on Flickr where you can submit your own zoo pictures.  The grand prize is a camera.  More specifically the exact same camera that I just bought.  I know I don't have any chance of winning but I was pretty satisfied with the the pictures I entered.  I think they turned out ok considering that I took the with my old crappy camera and edited them with pretty basic tools.  So, without further ado I present to you...

Barnyard Animals category

Tropical Animals category

Deep Sea Wonder category

Butterflies category

People and Places category

Northern Trek category

Textures

No time to talk! I've discovered the joy of adding textures to my pictures and I plan on spending the next seventeen years of my life photoshopping lacy overlays onto all of my pictures.




here
I'm just starting to play around with this but I think it's a lot of fun. With some practice you could take a boring picture and turn it into something arty. Give it a try, you know you want to! (You can find more of my textured photos here.)

I use Photoshop Elements for all my photoshopping needs and I got all of the textures from here.

After the ice cream sandwich

The spider on my contact case