Meet Me at the Flower District

Last Saturday, I traveled with my dear friend Victoria to the flower district. Between 6th & 7th Ave along 28th Street, there are scattered flower stores throughout. It was one of the first true days of Spring, and I was in awe at the colors, the vibrancy, and the freshness of the flowers. Even though they weren't quite sprouting from the ground, something about it felt so fitting for how this city does spring. I was fortunate enough to have my camera on-hand from a photoshoot earlier that morning, and couldn't resist getting some tight shots of nature at its finest. Can you tell tulips are my favorite? From a photography standpoint, I was actually quite amazed at how little I had to edit these photographs with Camera Raw. I've recently been shooting both in Manual mode and with Manual Focus as a means of solving the focus issues I've been having with my 50mm prime lens. I've found that I'm much happier with my photos afterward - probably because I'm putting more thought and precision into my settings and how I'm framing the shot. I've included the settings along with each photo below:  F/2.0 | 1/250 | ISO 100 F/4.0 | 1/60 | ISO 1600 (this was shot indoors)

F3.5 | 1/60 | ISO 200

F2.8 | 1/125 | ISO200F3.5 | 1/1000 | ISO1600 (Clearly the ISO was a leftover setting and for some reason I decided to compensate with the shutterspeed..the reverse would probably have made more sense)

The Girl With the Purple Hair: Allison Gandolfo Hair Feature

  One of the best parts about living in New York City is that it's the intersection of so many different industries. While I originally moved here for the business world, it's been fantastic meeting friends who have backgrounds in dance, fashion, theatre, technology, architecture, and more. This has opened up a whole new world for collaborations, and I'm so excited to be featuring new projects in very different styles than I typically shoot. Thus, I was absolutely thrilled at the opportunity of photographing hair for a hair portfolio! My dear friend Amalie (who is quite the multi-faceted individual herself with both medical and stand-up comedy interests) went to the fabulous Allison Gandolfo of the John Barrett Salon at the top of Bergdorf-Goodman to try an adventurous hair color before she had to completely dive into the professional world. She came out with bright purple and blue highlights which blended perfectly with her typical jet black hair. I admit, I was hesitant when she first told me her plans, but Allison did such a detailed and well blended job! In terms of photography, this was my first time truly using my prime lens for portraits, and I have to say - I truly understand what the raving is all about! I really liked how the f/3.5 images turned out (the top few photos) and I felt much more involved in the shoot because I was physically moving and interacting with Amalie rather than just zooming my lens in and out. As for shooting hair as the main subject, I found that it was much easier to capture the details in the shade due to her naturally dark hue. I also was very careful with my post-editing, making sure that I didn't alter things too much to ensure that the colors remained as close as possible to reality. However, I made the mistake of over-exposing Amalie's skin a bit too much on some of my shots. The more you shoot and practice, the more you learn!

Introducing...The Photograph Collective

One of the things I struggle with the most in the real-world is finding the motivation to make time for my hobbies. After I moved to New York, I took an unexpected hiatus from my blog and regretted it deeply. Even now that I'm settled in, it's been difficult to motivate myself in shooting and expanding my creativity. As much as I love what I've been photographing recently, I want to stretch myself for the sake of art. I loved being in my Digital Photography class where you had a set amount of time to work within the confines of a random challenge. It allowed me to experiment with abstraction and self-portraits, but also to get feedback from my classmates and professors on how to improve. I browsed around on Flickr for groups, but was intimidated by groups with 5000+ members and weekly challenges which had hundreds of submissions. Instead, I crave a smaller and more intimate group. Thus, I have launched a new idea: The Photograph Collective. A group of 5-6 amateur photographers who operate as a community with a mission of growing both technicals and creatively. Once every 6 weeks, 1 member will create a challenge based around a theme, either abstract or literal. At the end of the allotted time frame, each person will share their series with the group and share praises, critiques, and suggestions. Finally, the group's work along with corresponding responses will be published on thephotographcollective.wordpress.com. I'm so excited that two of the first photographers to join will be: 1) The amazing Stephen Turnock who I met in London, but is studying abroad in Évreux, France 2) The phenomenal Beatrice who I have known since high school, and is shooting in San Diego, California. This means that we are looking for about 2-3 more amateur photographers to join us - no matter where you are in the world!

If you are interested at all or know if anybody interested, please email us at thephotographcollective@gmail.com and introduce yourself!

Don't be afraid to join! I'm an amateur myself, having only started shooting about one year ago. I think this would be an amazing way to have a community of some sort. 

Gaussian Blur & A Small Announcement

I'm excited to announce that I've finally switched my URL over to amandaliew.com! As I've fallen in love with blogging and photography more over time, I figured it was finally time to make the commitment of getting my own website. I hope this keeps me all the more committed to blogging and continuing this journey! Due to my limited time, the majority of my photographs have been taken as sets to illustrate a dinner, a setting, or a portrait session. Since my Digital Photography class, I haven't spent much time playing with Photoshop since Camera Raw suffices for quick batch editing. However, I decided to take some time to play with this singular image and thought it would be interesting to walk through the process step-by-step. The original image in DNG form is below:

At first glance, it's a little tilted, and the background clutters the image significantly. In the moment I could have taken this photograph with a different aperture to focus better on the subject and blur out the background, but alas I can't go back in time.

My first few steps were done in Camera Raw where I changed the image to grayscale and increased the contrast to make the lampost's deep black metal stand out more.

At the next point, I entered Photoshop and created a duplicate layer of the background. I then converted the layer for Smart Filters and applied a Gaussian Blur  (10.1 pixels) to the entire image.

Of course, I didn't want the entire image to be blurred, so I began to paint away and "erase" the Gaussian blur on my subject, the lampost. For this process, I highly recommend zooming in very close and also clicking frequently. There's nothing more frustrating than painting a good portion, screwing up the end, and then having to undo the entire command. If you look in the left hand corner of this photoshop image, you'll see there is a white box and a black box. When the black box is on top, your paintbrush is removing the Gaussian Blur. When you flip the two so the white box is on top, you can replace the blur in the same way. For this image it was easier to erase the blur in large strokes and then replace it with smaller strokes to be more detailed. In other words, it's easier to trace around the edges rather than trying to guess where the subject is. 

When completed, the lampost now stands out much more than the background. Of course, I'm still learning quite a bit with this process and when taking a few steps back, I wonder if I was a little too heavy-handed on the Gaussian Blur and whether it looks like an "authentic" depth of field. Additionally, the trouble with a process where you are carefully selecting an image is that inevitably it's going to look a little fake and "pasted in." For example, at the very bottom of the lampost you can see I got a little lazy and unblurred a little too much of the area surrounding the foot. Still learning, though! As usual, I always welcome tips and feedback.