Self Portrait: Month May

In Bliss
Focal length: 50mm
Shutter speed: 1/10
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/1.4

This months Self Portrait was shot just in my room with a wide f-stop and a car sun panel to light my face. This shot just kinda fell in place so no words as to what I was thinking but all I remember is that I didn't want to be sad. I added some flowers through Photoshop since I learnt this brush tool at my internship. Enjoy! :)

Shooting 120 film

Shooting film is the best way to keep your roots in touch. I shoot now and then whenever I get the chance to carry the extra camera to the location. These were taken on a drive near San Diego- route 67 (not the famous 66! ;) ) and were just casual shots taken with my Yashica TLR camera. It was fun learning how to load film...shoot...and unload. If I had messed up then I would have gotten zip nada! Anyways, it all worked fine with the help of Youtube and the camera store guy. I had to wait few weeks to see the final result since its 120film ( only certain photo labs process such film). Here are some good results... enjoy!

p.s. all the shots come out in a square framing...which i think is a cool result! :)

One of those beautiful days

Yesterday I had a chance to just go out with my camera and take some shots during mother-daughter walk and watch the sunset. Had a blast and here are some shots from the day! Happy Belated Mothers day! I hope you guys gave all the love and respect your mothers deserve. I just don't know where I would be without mine! Luv u Amma -soo much! :)

Whispering Winds

"If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."- Mother Teresa

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air…” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Between Two Worlds

Published!: Blurr Photo Wins

Recently I entered a competition on Snapixel magazine for a Lensbaby competition and ended up having two photos selected. One of the Photos won third place on the Blur contest (Tractor and Flowers) and the other is published in the magazine (Dandelion Dreams). I will be receiving 100$ to buy anything from lensbaby! yay! cant wait!

Do you have any suggestion for lensbaby purchase? Let me know on the comments :)

To see the Full version of the magazine check out the link: Issue 3and here are some page grabs from the magazine! Enjoy and thanks for all your support!

Blur Contest win - page 16-17

Blur photo published: page 35

Things on My Mind: Photoshop

I have recently gotten into learning Photoshop after a long time. Remember from the beginning of this year I had one of my ten goals set to learn Photoshop. Well my brother finally got me Photoshop CS4 to learn with and I must say that I am very impressed with how much you can do with it. But the more and more I learn to use it...I have started to get the feeling that I have become a mistress in the relationship of photography. Its probably because I am one of those people who learnt photography the old school way by starting with a manual camera- my Minolta.

I am not going to say it does not help at all. Recently I used it on my self portrait picture to remove hair that had fallen on my face with the heal brush and clone stamp tool. I also use Photoshop now and then to remove dust from my pictures. But learning Photoshop just scares me because I do not want to become a person who says "..oh ill fix it later in Photoshop.." or have someone say "...that picture looks so good it must have been Photoshopped.." So I have decided I want to learn it and more than that learn how to fix my mistakes on camera itself.

(click to view larger)

Left - raw file -> Right -clear face file

Its sad to think though that Photoshop has become synonymous with Photography. Can there really be no good photography without Photoshop? I probably have these thoughts running through my head because I am more into the "talent" side of photography to capture an image...more than how well you can manipulate it. I do not want to sound mean but would you really call an auto tuned song -a talented singer? And then again its a given fact that I should learn this tool called Photoshop if I want to survive in this industry. What are your thoughts on this?