How different Photographic Treatments change the look of a Subject

Take a bunch of hydrangeas, a hand painted ceramic bowl, a string of pearls, a cedar table, some floaty organza and a couple of torches.  Add to this mix your favourite camera equipment and your editing skills.  Get busy and arrange the items in a pleasant fashion. And now experiment!

In the first photograph, a standard 50mm lens – the plastic fantastic, diffused torchlight, and a long exposure of a couple of seconds was used.  The diffused torchlight was used to “paint” the light onto the hydrangeas.  The brightness, contrast, levels were then adjusted in Photoshop to get this final results.

There’s a real trend toward adding textured layers to photographs these days.  Adding textures really changes the feel of the photo.  It somehow ages the photo, giving it a real retro/grungy/moody look.  I recommend you shoot your own textures or if you really prefer, you can obtain free textures by simply searching Google for “free textures”.  I’ve used 3 different texture layers (my own) to the original image, and have blended them using varying opacities and blending modes.   I find I use overlay, soft light, hard light and multiply the most.

This image is identical to the image above - it has been layered with textures to change it's appearance to a more moody and vintage look.

This final image was shot using a very different technique – in fact it’s a blend of two techniques that I enjoy – the dreamy Lensbaby and the Through the Viewfinder techniques are absolute favourites of mine.  Different brands of Twin Reflex cameras will also yield varying results.  So, in these final two images, I used the Lensbaby Muse with the +4 macro filter; I inserted that into the “tube of darkness” which directly points to the viewfinder on the top of the Twin Reflex Camera.  Using the Muse lens, really softened the overall look of the image and the square format plus some cross-processing, gives it an aged appearance.  Follow this link if you’d like to know more about the Through the Viewfinder technique.

Through the Viewfinder using Lensbaby Muse +macro 4 filter and Argus Argoflex Camera

Through the Viewfinder using Lensbaby Muse + macro 4 filter and Kodak Duoflex Camera

Coming Soon - How to apply textures to your images.

Once upon a time there was a little girl who simply loved shoes. She loved high heeled shoes and flat shoes, sensible shoes and silly shoes. In fact, she thought all shoes were beautiful.
Then one day while out shopping, the most beautiful pair of shoes called out to her from the nearby shoe shop shelf.
“Hello little girl who loves shoes,” said the black shiny shoes (for everybody in the land knew that this was the little girl who simply loved shoes). Well, the little girl fell instantly in love with the black shiny shoes but alas she didn’t have a special occasion to wear them to and so couldn’t take them home with her, so she spoke kindly to the shoes,
“Oh, sweet little shoes, you truly are the most beautiful shoes I’ve ever seen, but I have no special place to wear you. The only way I can take you home is if the Shoe Fairy grants me a wish – if only I had a fancy-dancy ball to wear you to, then I would bring you home and wear you to the ball and we would dance, and we would be so very happy!”
That afternoon, when the little girl checked the letterbox, what should she find but a pink and silver envelope and in that envelope was a shiny pink and silver invitation to a fancy-dancy ball. The shoe fairy had granted the little girl her wish!!


The little girl was so happy, she rushed back to tell all her other shoes she would be bringing a new shoe friend over to meet them. So the little girl got into her shiny little car and drove back to the shops as fast as she could (without speeding of course, because that would be silly and dangerous and really not necessary). And there they were – her black shiny shoes with the most beautiful satin ribbon – waiting for her.
The little girl was so happy at being able to buy those beautiful shiny black shoes, that she celebrated by buying a new shiny red dress with the most beautiful shiny red satin ribbon. And they lived happily ever after.
And as she lay down to sleep after the fancy-dancy ball, the happy little girl who simply loved shoes was heard to whisper, “thank you Shoe Fairy, I love you Shoe Fairy,” which made the Shoe Fairy smile.

wall art print available online from RedBubble