Saint-Germain-en-Laye Trees

(taken by Amy)

This beautiful photo was taken by Amy on the grounds of the Saint-Germain-en-Laye castle where Louis XIV was born. At the end of this row of trees is the famous 2.4-kilometer stone terrace built by landscape architect Le Nôtre. It overlooks a large part of the Parisian region as well as sections of Paris.

Amy took this with a Konica Minolta Point&Shoot camera. The photo, with its symmetrical straight lines, really highlights the formality of French gardens.

ISO 200
f/3.4
7.7 mm

Snowy Path

Here is a little reminder of the season that just ended, and a good candidate for some experimentation with vignetting.

I used a layer mask with an ellipse to get the vignette effect. But, at first, the corners were completely black, and I did not care for it very much. So I decided to make that layer transparent and obtained the shadowed corners. What do you think of it?

To do the B&W conversion, I used a desaturation layer, and increase the contrast with a Levels and a Curves layer.

f/22, ISO 400, 55 mm, 1/125 sec.

Lillie's Light

I find the light and shadows projected onto the wall by this light post fascinating. The complexity and clarity of the geometric angles made it obvious this photo would be in B&W. After isolating the ceiling and applying a Gaussian blur filter, I used a desaturation layer to convert it from color.

ISO 800
f/19
Focal length 40 mm
Exp. time 0.1667 sec.

First Stock Sale!

I have just sold my first stock photo! The sale was done by stock agency Dreamstime.

A few months ago, as I started learning more and more about photography, I decided it would be a fun challenge to submit photos to various microstock agencies. The process is more rigorous than I had thought, as every picture is examined by professional photographers and needs to meet their standards before it can be added to the site's catalog. Needless to say that many of my submissions were rejected. However, the reviewers often add helpful critiques to the rejection emails, so this has been a good learning experience.

You can see my Dreamstime portfolio here.

I did not do much editing in this case (that is the preference in stock photography): only a Curves layer in LAB mode to increase the intensity of the colors.

Exp. time 1/350 sec., focal length 26 mm, f/16, ISO 200.

Joy

Once again, my photofriday.com weekly entry is a photo of Liliana. I am not writing anything about the circumstance of the shot, except that I wish you could hear the sound that accompanied it...

For the first time, I experimented with gradient masks in Photoshop. I am looking forward to learning to use all the possibilities they offer. I may have overdone it this time, but I thought it would really emphasize that little angelic face. What do you think?

f/5.6, ISO 800, focal length 26 mm, exp. 1/45 sec.

Westie in his favorite spot...

My dog Maestro loves laying in the sun. Throughout the day, he finds the warmest spot to sleep, and follows it as the sun moves. Sometimes, when the angle of the light through the window is such that only a square inch is left, we find him sleeping there... with his nose catching the last rays.
This photo was relatively straightforward. I did the B&W conversion in LAB mode, then added a couple of Curves and Levels layers. I also had to dodge the bottom of his right paw, as it was completely black.

f/16, ISO 200, focal length 45 mm, exp. time 1/125 sec.