Wednesday, December 18, 2013

“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.”

I am not a professional photographer.  My younger son would insert a "duh" here.  I take pictures to document my life and many are just snapshots (I love my camera phone) that would inevitably evoke a laugh or two from any good photographer.

Even though I don't directly make money from photography, I am passionate about capturing moments in time.  Even as a child I remember going through our photo albums trying to remember how I felt at the time the photo was captured.  These memories probably would not be accessible to me without these visual reminders.

This weekend we went to the San Jacinto Battleground.  If you are a Texan this is probably on one of your bucket lists for Texas vacations as this is the site where we fought and won our independence from Mexico.  The other "sacred" Texas spot is the Alamo, where Texans fought bravely and lost but went on to kick some rear at San Jacinto.

This was the boys' first visit and my husband and I had not been there since we were children.  I had forgotten how the park is so beautiful; a peaceful haven in the middle of a busy industrial area.  They are trying to return the marshlands around the park to their original 1800's condition, and so far I am very impressed.


We saw many alligator tracks, but much to our disappointment no alligators.


We loved the boardwalk hike.  Unfortunately I forgot my real camera so I took all of my photos with my camera phone.  I have the Pro HDR app and I love using it for images with bright sun.  This is the only phone app I use regularly.

The light was beautiful and the weather perfect.  And Imp was not relieving himself on the side of the boardwalk as my husband tried to insist when he saw this photo…  He was looking for the allusive alligators.

Since this is a photo editing site I usually have to show my own personal photos, and sometimes it takes real confidence to post my "work".  Especially when it is snapshots.  But if you don't see the before's how can you appreciate the after's!


As I was going through my images I found this one.  It was an HDR image that hadn't focused properly.  As you can see, it is all a big blur, except for the sun.



This is what it should have looked like.  Boring and definately needs some work on the perspective.  But something about the blurry version spoke to me and I had to edit it.


I made the tower straight by copying the background and skewing that corner.  Then I added two Flypaper Metallic textures on Soft Blending mode (Fossil Stone and Etched Copper).  I also played with the contrast a bit and then it was finished. Love!  I wish I could post the high-resolution image here, it is so beautiful.

“Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you.”   Zig Ziglar 

I think the most important thing about being a photographer is having that confidence to look at your own images and feel free to edit them as you wish and create art that makes you happy.  It is not all about pleasing your clients or the professional photography community.  I won't make any money with this blurry camera-phone photo, but I have turned it into an impressionist art piece that I would be proud to hang on my own walls.  Even if my friends and family don't get it (or just don't see it hanging in my closet).  ;-)

As a photographer, take some time to create art from your photos that please you, for your own walls. Hide it in your bedroom or bathroom, but print it and get it up there and enjoy it!

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1 comment:

  1. Thank you for this post. This totally looks like something that I would try to do, then decide it wasn't good enough and delete it. This was a boost to my confidence. :)

    ReplyDelete

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Rita