Don't forget to...

The other day I took my sidewalk chalk outside (I'm a big believer that sidewalk chalking is an ageless pastime) and drew some happy little pictures and words and of course, a hopscotch court on the street/sidewalk. Later, when I was driving past on my way to run some errands, two women were walking with a little girl along the sidewalk. When I was stopped at the traffic light, I saw out of my side mirror that the women and girl stopped to play a round of hopscotch. Sitting there in my car, it put a huge smile on my face. I’m thinking of sidewalk chalking more often, in hopes that it puts a smile on someone elses face as well.

A photo for a rainy day.

Photoshop - Vintage Seventies Style

For the most part, I prefer to keep my photos as natural looking as possible - that is to say, after post-processing, I don't want them to look much different than what I actually took the photo of. This is especially true of landscapes, photojournalism and nature photography. However there are some photos that look perfectly fine as crisp, untouched images, but might look even better with a little photoshop magic.
The topic of "photoshopping" can be quite controversial, and I plan to go into my own thoughts on that at a later time. But controversy aside, the use of photoshop to change a modern, digital image to look like something that came out of a film camera in the 1970's, for example, can completely change the feeling of a photo. The viewer is transported back to a time and a place, maybe given a sense of nostalgia from their own past. Usually when I take a photo, I already have an idea of what feeling I am trying to convey. Take this photo (SOOC-straight out of camera) I took out west, somewhere on the road between Colorado and Utah.
The open land, the tractor, the big blue sky, all give you a feeling of being on a road trip across the American West. But after a few tweaks in photoshop, I'm able to transport that same feeling back in time. Now the viewer likely gets the feeling they are on a road trip across the American West, only 35 years earlier.
For this I used Pioneer Woman's seventies photoshop action, which I downloaded from her site. Keep in mind that the vintage style photoshop actions may not produce the same sense of time if your photo has a piece of modern technology as its prominent feature. For all I know, the tractor could be brand new, but it's small enough that it doesn't take away from the scene.
Have a look at a few other photos I applied this action to.

Note that all of these photos looked good initially, but by making a few changes it completely transformed the feel of the image. The key is to start off with a good photo - a bad image to start with will still be bad to end with (trust me, I've tried).

There are plenty of other techniques and styles I like to work with in photoshop, but I wanted to highlight the vintage seventies style first. For whatever reason I have a real fascination with the 1950's, 60's and 70's. If I could pick any decade to live in, I'd choose one of those. So using photoshop to transform my photos from 2009 to 1970's is a fun way to let me pretend I'm living back in time, if only for a second.

Also, if you like the vintage seventies style, download Pioneer Woman's photoshop action sets free here. Her actions are my favorites!

[Small plug: All of these images are available for purchase as prints in my Etsy shop.]

First Post - Irish Cupcakes!

Back on St. Patrick's Day, I came across the most amazing recipe for cupcakes over at Smitten Kitchen. That afternoon I whipped up a batch and they came out looking as delectable as they tasted. I ended up with some of the most drool-worthy food photos I've taken thus far:

Because of time restraints, I had to forego the 'from scratch' recipe and use cake mix. I chose reduced sugar Pillsbury boxed cake mix. The recipe calls for Guinness instead of water - part 1 of 3 in 'Why are these cupcakes Irish?'. The chocolate filling inside is made with Jameson Irish whiskey - that's part 2.
Again, I had to make a substitution by using store-bought icing. I went with buttercream frosting and mixed in part 3, Bailey's Irish Cream (okay, I might have used a bit more than the recipe called for...). The frosting was my favorite part!
I jazzed them up with green sugar sprinkles. Note the Irish additions in the background.



I seriously recommend this recipe any time of year, not just St. Patrick's Day.

Oh and perhaps I should note (this being the first entry and everything) that this is my photo blog which I will use to update with some of my favorite photos and my newest sets. I will also post about updates to my Etsy shop which can be found at http://aliciabruce.etsy.com.
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