{flashy} "Hey Girl" Photo Challenge

Perhaps its because I am not quite done sharing about my trip to Cambodia (you wouldn't think so considering I have yet to blog about it since the first time over 3 months ago) or that I haven't ventured out with my camera as we are just now starting to see days of sun without rain, but I am again entering in a portrait shot in Cambodia for this months I Heart Faces photo challenge.


In villages filled with children so happy for some extra attention, that leaped in front of my camera smiling to ear to ear, this little girl caught my attention. She seemed to be curious but skeptical of why this big group of people who did not speak her language were spending the day in her village. I took her picture a few times, smiled at her, said "ah-goon" (thank you) one of the few words I learned, and went about my way as to not make her uncomfortable. I saw her a few more times that day curiously peeking around but never getting too close. I admit, I kind of wanted to give her a big hug and tell her not to worry :-)

{flashy} Fix-It Friday #136

It has been quite a while since I have participated in Fix-It Friday over in the I Heart Faces community. When I saw the image up for editing today I knew I wanted to play! Editing my own photos, I often stick to basic clean edits but sometimes it is a nice break to have a little fun with it. I knew looking at this picture, by Angie Arthur Photography, that I wanted to give it a saturated urban feel. 

Here is what I did for my final image, it may look like a long list but each step is fairly basic

Edited in Photoshop CS4

• Cropped
• Selected a portion of the brick wall, feathered to 20px and copied to a new layer to get rid of the small amount of window that was left after cropping. 
• Levels adjustment layer on each channel (you can see my tutorial on this here) 
• Duplicated the background image and set to Overlay blend mode, reduced to 80% opacity and masked back her shirt to bring back some detail
• Duplicated the background image and set to Multiply blend mode, reduced to 40% and masked back the girl. 
• Duplicated the background image and ran a High Pass Sharpen with a radius of 20px and set to vivid light blend mode, reduced opacity to 35%
• Duplicated the background image and set to Linear Light blend mode, reduced to 10%
• Selective Color adjustment layer, selected Reds and reduced magenta to -50 and upped yellow to +5
• Gradient adjustment layer with a violet/green/orange gradient, reduced opacity to 30% and masked back the girl at 50% opacity to reduce discoloration in her skin. 
• Flatten layers and save. 

{flashy} I Heart Faces B&W Challenge

It has been quite a while since I have participated in the challenges at I Heart Faces. I have been hoping to jump back in to Fix-It Friday's but it looks like I will start with the B&W challenge! I love black and white photos but for some reason while editing my photos I rarely think about doing a black and white edit. This challenge was a good motivator for me to pick some of my recent favorites and have another go at them.

I took this picture at the first village we visited in Takeo, Cambodia as we were setting up our clinic for the day. This photo has reeled me in from the moment I pulled it up on my computer. Most people may pass right by it, but I. Am. Just. Stuck. On. It. The light pouring in from the window. The man's smile. The children anxiously awaiting brand new tooth brushes, which many had never used before. It is a story.

Take a look at some of the other entries!

{flashy} Snow Day + I Heart Faces entry

Growing up in sunny southern California we never got to experience snow unless we jumped in the car and drove an hour away to look for it. I have memories of playing in the snow with my family when I was young, but in recent years those experiences were few and far between. About 7 years ago (geez has it really been that long?) I was visiting my parents for Thanksgiving and while up late spending time with my family we realized it was snowing. I was so excited and so in awe, you would have thought I had never even seen snow before. I think I spent the entire next day sitting on their couch staring out the window, watching the snow fall. Much like rain, I find it to be so peaceful for me. It makes me smile. It makes my soul sing.

When we moved up to the Portland, OR area last summer one of the things I was looking forward to most was winter. Or to even have real seasons at all. The area we live in is no stranger to snow, or so I was told, but I quickly learned that our weather is totally unpredictable. Throughout the winter months we had snow forecasted quite often but rarely did it ever show. And when it did, it was very short lived and never amounted to anything.

Finally, last week there was talk of us being hit with the worst snow storm of the season and I started getting antsy. In the back of my mind I doubted it would happen. Thursday morning we woke up to a beautiful white blanket of snow, and better yet, it was still coming down. Here we were, in the last few days of February and now we have snow.

Carson and I ate breakfast and then went outside to play. I snapped some pictures first and then put my camera away to play in the snow with my son. Within a couple hours the snow had nearly completely melted away. We watched it snow off and on for the rest of the day, never again sticking to the ground.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the day, and that I've taken in recent months as well. It makes me smile. This is what I have been ever-so-impatiently waiting for.

I've come to realize I have a hard time sharing without story telling. This whole entry started because I wanted to submit this photo for this weeks I Heart Faces photo challenge.

So there you have it. A photo, and its story.

{FLASHY} Fix-It Friday #82

Over at I Heart Faces they do a weekly participation edit. A contributor offers up a picture and anybody can join in and edit the photo. Looking through entries and checking out the steps somebody takes to edit is a great way to learn!

This is my first time participating, hopefully I did the picture justice!

The SOOC

(straight out of camera)

My Edit

I have to admit I don't always have a set workflow for editing. I like to play until I like it! Here is a quick run down of what I did with this picture.

• Levels adjustment on all channels at 90% opacity
• Second levels adjustment on all channels at 50% opacity
• Brown gradient, hard light blend mode
• duplicated background image at 85% opacity (this is to let the gradient come through)
• duplicated background, screen blend mode at 45% opacity
• High pass sharpen, overlay blend mode
• High pass sharpen again, hard light blend mode
• And a slight crop

You can click here to check out the rest of the edits!