Quick New Orleans Update

Just a quick single image from New Orleans. The other photos I've been working on aren't quite ready to make a public appearance yet.

New Orleans - Part 1

A few weeks ago, I traveled to New Orleans to visit my sister. She's there working in the public school system and recently got accepted into the teachNOLA program. Congrats Jill!!! Her students are an amazing group of kids.

Expect to see a lot of New Orleans in the coming weeks. I'm in the process of editing roughly 300 photos (not all will make the final cut!) so it will be a bit-by-bit process. Photos will be posted in roughly chronological order.

And now on to the Big Easy.

Jazz City

On the first night there, Jill took us to the Napoleon House. A perfect into to New Orleans. The 200 year old landmark was meant for Napoleon although he never actually make it there.



You don't get too much more "southern" than these two characters. The city is filled with street corner musicians.

St Louis Cathedral

As always, all images are © Melissa "Blue" Amrich and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

Crop or Not?

Here's the original shot without any cropping. It's not my favorite shot. I was playing around with the depth of field and didn't quite get what I was going for.


But, here's my late night solution:



Yup, it's the same photo, just cropped into a vertical. I think I like it better. At the very least, it definitely fits in better with my recent work. Cropping might be a crutch for not shooting well enough to begin with, but it is a good tool for figuring out exactly what it is I'm going for before I go out to shoot next time. Besides, if I hadn't included the original photo here, who would know?

Tide

More Beach Fun

Still playing the a sort of abstract, flattened space. I'm not really sure if it's something I'll keep working with or not.


There should be a few more beach photos up this week.

Ocean

I took my Aussie dog to the beach last weekend mostly to get some new photos of her but also to get out and play with the camera a little bit. The theme of the day seemed to be flattening space. It seems funny - in painting I feel like I'm always trying to create a 3-dimensional space. For some reason, right now I really want to flatten space in my photographs.


There are a few more photos from the shoot that I'll put up as I get them edited. Also, I plan on putting the whole series of Iris photos on her blog.

Rosie the Labradoodle

Here's a couple of my favorite photos of Rosie from a shoot I did a few weeks ago. Her eyes are easier to see in larger versions. First, some typical portraits:




This one is actually my favorite:

Henry Wenry

Just a couple photos I sent to my sister for her Birthday. Henry is really Jill's dog. First, here he is looking handsome.


This one is Henry looking more like himself. Beagles aren't very serious dogs.

Weave Poles

This is the shot that I wanted.

This is the shot I got first. Because why would I ever play with weave poles without the Aussie? She's helping.

Textures

Just playing with the new camera. Nothing in particular.

Playground Series

I uploaded the whole playground series on DeviantArt. It's another old project (old as in about 3 years ago now), but it's an idea I want to revisit. I've got DeviantArt arranged in roughly chronological order, so it's a bit toward the back now. Here's the series in case you can't find it on there.

Bridge
Over Under
Perspective
Tunnel
Turning
Arches
Slide

I really like how abstract the colors and shapes on the playground can become. It started out just as an experiment with the idea that you can't really see a whole space in just one photo. So I started combining multiple images or trying multiple exposures. This series was the end result, which became much more abstract in some instances than when I began (and probably more so than any of my other work). If I go back to this project, I'd like to try using a much more shallow depth of field. I'm not sure what I could use as a subject other than playgrounds or if I even need to switch subject. Agility equipment is in the running, which I guess is a sort of playground. Go ahead and throw out any ideas. I'd love to hear it.

Moss

I actually did play with the new camera today! Since my life is governed by the demands of a little red dog, we ended up at the state park.

It's taking a while to go through today's photos because I decided to shoot all in RAW. Since I've never done it before and it's a time consuming process regardless, I've finished one. That's right, one. If it looks like crap on your monitor, I'm blaming this monitor. My better monitor bit the dust last weekend (or hopefully, just its power cord).

Louie the Goldendoodle

Trying to build a portfolio for pet photography.

Naturalis

So definitely not something new, but I did (finally!) get the Naturalis series up on DeviantArt. I think it only too me 2 years of procrastination and three tries at photographing it to finally come up with hafway decent pictures of it. Just in case anyone hasn't seen it yet, it's over there.

Spring?

Here's one sign of spring... maple syrup! Or at least the beginnings of it. I seem to be losing intensity in the greens when I save these ( or upload them? Somewhere along the way). I'll have to play around with it a bit.

Salem

Photos from the Salem Wax Museum

State Park

I took the red dog over to the state park for a walk this afternoon, and I actually remembered to bring my camera since I wanted to try and get some nice photos of the Dogess in nature. I think we found the last bit of ice still hanging around.

Deer

Iris was in the other room raising quite a ruckus (as usual) and when I went to quiet her down, this is what I saw:


The deer went back to munching on the bushes as soon as Iris quieted down. First there was one deer, then there were two, and then they just kept coming...