Archive for Make Better Photographs – Page 7

A Photographer’s Diary, The Icebreaker

Last week I delivered the most challenging course yet, to a group of people suffering from mental health problems. It was challenging because it was the first time that I had come across a group where there was hardly any interaction between each other, never mind me.

I had gone prepared for it to be tricky, and I had tweaked the course accordingly, to try my best to make it easier to understand, with lots of examples relevant to everyday life.

So, imagine this. There I am talking to the group about how the subconscious mind, how it works, and how if you think negative thoughts it will go out and find things to help prove it’s a negative world. I am surrounded by people, who are staring at the floor, not showing any signs that they are listening, more worryingly, not showing any signs that they are benefiting from it.

My conscious mind goes into overdrive. Suddenly the person sat there teaching positive thinking starts stressing. These were my thoughts; they look uncomfortable, they don’t look like they understand what I’m talking about. What if it’s over their heads; though it can’t be? What if I’m not helping them at all?

If I could have laughed out loud at myself I would have, how hypocritical was I. I’m telling them to think positive thoughts and here I am having negative worrying thoughts. Read More→

A Photographer’s Diary, Going Back to Film

I recently returned to film for the children’s career day that I worked at. When I say film, it was a disposable camera, which, and this may surprise you, turned out to be of poor quality!

It was strange to be working with film again, suddenly having to remember the vagaries of use and with these cameras, winding the film on.

That in itself was a new concept for the 11 year old children. Most had never experienced film before and held the camera, high in front of them, pointing at the subject looking for the digital screen.

It took me a long time to convert to digital, and only now do I realise how much I take it for granted. The ability to instantly see your results, correct and alter accordingly, is what helped me to take to digital so quickly.

So imagine, children who have never seen film cameras before; children who have no comprehension of how their photos come out of the camera onto paper. Their assignment, was in their appointed job roles, create a storyboard for a television programme. Read More→

Going Greener – Behind My Eyes

There are numerous tools at our disposal to edit photos and the same effect can be applied with virtually all of these tools. Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop are some of the more popular ones and the plug ins and presets for each of these programs are great in number. We typically choose these tools for editing based upon how they fit in our workflow and our comfort level for using them.

For me, I use Aperture for managing my library and basic photo editing, then will export images into other tools for specific effect application, with the main program being onOne Software’s Perfect Effects within their Perfect Photo Suite 6. The effects obtained from Perfect Effects can undoubtedly be achieved with other tools, but I go to Perfect Effects because it fits my workflow and comfort level where the other avenues may not.

Below is a video showing how using a couple of presets within Perfect Effects can quickly and easily take a normal image of a flowering plant to one with dark, rich greens and a bit of glow to give a totally different appearance than the original frame. What software would you use to produce this kind of effect? What would you have done to this image? What behind your eyes would drive you in this image?

A Photographer’s Diary, Behind the Scenes

This last week was my local RHS flower show, and quite by accident I applied for the press pass for the wrong day. It was for the press day, the day before it is open to the public, and what fun it was.

There had been much concern by the designers and the public as to whether this show would go ahead, due to non-stop rain in the build-up. Agricultural and rock shows have been cancelled across the country, yet the amazing garden designers ploughed on. Helped no end they told me, by the fact the soil under the grass is sandy, and so quick to drain surface water.

Some gardens were continually being flooded under monsoon downpours. One dug down to put in metal pond, only to have it be pushed back out by the rainwater getting underneath.

This was the joy of going on press day, I got to chat with designers, hear about their story, and the best bit; was being able to walk onto the gardens. It really brought them to life, rather than standing behind ropes and looking on wistfully. Read More→

A Photographer’s Diary, Free Blog Series and Headache!

I am very keen to pass on, through Healing with Photography, as much information as possible, to help people who are suffering in some way with low self-esteem, depression, anxiety. It’s with this in mind, that I have been working hard to bring together a group of healers and life coaches from around the world to share their work with my community, through a guest blog. This is eventually going to lead on to a teleseminar next spring, again, a chance to bring even more information to help people, whilst being philanthropic.

I have enlisted the support of people to the blog, who I followed, and studied and helped me in my recovery. The likes of Sonia Choquette, six sensory and wonderful psychic. Sonia helped me to renew a relationship with my intuition, and begin to trust me again to listen to my inner guidance, the first major break-through for me, and now I use my intuition all the time in my business to help me move forward with ease. She is an author from the illustrious, and life changing Hay House publishing company, renowned around the world; I was ecstatic when Sonia agreed to be a part of this blog series.

My list has been long, and many well-known people in this field, haven’t bothered to reply to my request, though undaunted, I continued to draw up my list and just ask. I’m very happy to say all the people that I really wanted on board, to share their skills with you have said yes. Jennifer McLean, from her long running, and life transforming, Healing with the Masters series, is taking part. Jennifer introduced me to many people who broadened my horizons through her series, and I’m so looking forward to being able to share her gifts with everyone. Business coach Jack Canfield, the funny and talented, life coach Amanda Gore, actress and healer Dee Wallace, and then some UK healers, like Amelia Campbell. Read More→

Spelling-Dancing-Cropping – Behind My Eyes

The Letter M

My son was working on his spelling the other night and he was trying to perfectly write his name, ‘Sam’. His ‘S’ and ‘a’ were pretty much on the money, but his ‘m’ was a bit off. The problem was not with legibility, it was clearly an ‘m’, but instead of rounding the humps, he treated them as if they were points, or direct lines, so it looked like a miniature upper case ‘M’ instead of a rounded lower case ‘m’.

From a communication standpoint, there was no problem, his name was clear and easy to read. But when writing the ‘m’, I could imagine his mind saying, “…point, to point, to point,” making straight lines to limit distance and ‘technically’ get the letter correct.

As I thought about how to help him conquer this, the thought of a stiff, straight up dancer moving from point to point on the floor came to mind and it was mentally compared to a dancer with grace, flow and curves (think the good dancers on Dancing With The Stars versus the very bad ones). Even though they both move from one point on the floor to another, the one who is loose and graceful would look so much better and comfortable than the stiff, upright dancer, counting the least number of steps it takes to get there. Read More→