Digital Portfolio

Here is my digital portfolio. It displays not only my photography, but other interests that I have been working on. Enjoy!

http://www.wix.com/jessiesalmans/digital-portfolio

Camera Phone

For all those who have yet to purchase a smart phone, this post is for you. I myself have a LG chocolate touch, which is very old and has a poor camera. Taking pics is a drag, and I hate showing my friends on twitter and fb since mine arent up to par considering I love taking photographs. Here is an example of what a photo on my phone looks like with out any editing.

To edit these photo's to make it look like you used a fancy iphone is simple! First you are going to ahutofix your photograph. All computers have this setting and it will change your photo minor. Then you are going to adjust the hue depending on the colors in your photo. I have cool colors, so I will enhance those in my photo.

Next you will sharpen your photo and I changed the color in the flowers to brighten the picture, but this is optional. If you would like to do this go to www.fotoflexer.com and choose the Color Rotate option.

Last I'm going to soften the photo since the colors now are a little intense. I'm going to do this by adding just a little sepia to the photo and rounding the edges. This will create a look like looks like you took it on your iphone and even touched it up using instagram. For people who dont have this luxury, its great to edit the photo's to still share them with friends and family. It is also nice because it only take a couple of steps and less then 5 minutes to do!

Fisheye

Directly above is a fish eye photo. Most people don't know what this is, but when they see the image they understand the name. Most photographers spend a lot of money on special lenses to make their photo's appear as if they are literally in a fish bowl. I'm going to show you how in 3 easy steps how to create this look with just editing!

Here is your starting image. The first step you are going to want to do is crop the photo with a circle/oval shape. If your computer doesn't allow this then you can doin it on paint very easily. It has a preset circle crop button that will allow you to do this.

I'm going to use the oval shape to create a different image than my first example. Next you are going to blur the edges. This might take multiple times to blue the image enough to make it look like it is in a bowl. It took me 4 times to get the blur that I wanted for this effect.

Last step if you are going to chage the background of the image to black to emphasize the shape. If your computer doesn't allow you to paintbucket the background you can you FotoFlexer editing. It is a free website that allows really cool edits. I decided to use this to show you the process. I used the border tool and clicked on vigenette/matte. This basically means it is sofening the edges only instead of white it will be useing black.

You are finished! Now you have a photo that has the same effect as a fishbowl lense and didn't have to spend a dime. This also makes this look like you used photoshop or had a professional edit your photograph for you.

Nature Photography

Spring is my favorite time of year and the best time to shoot because of all the bright colors. When taking pictures of nature you want to make sure that you are just enhancing the photograph and not changing it completely. The photograph above is a good example of a photograph that is edited well, and the photograph below is an example of a photograph that is edited too much!

This is my favorite nature photograph ever taken and it’s called the "Chameleon" What makes this camera good is the bright colors that displays the natural beauty of the plant. You can tell that this picture has been edited, but you still see the natural detail in the plant. When a photo is edited too much, it tends to start looking fake and unreal.

Engagment

These are two pictures I took today of my sister Nicole and Reece my future brother in law! Congrats Nicole and Reece, love ya guys

Abstract Photography

Most people do not know what Abstract Photography is. According to dictionary.com abstract means... "of or pertaining to the formal aspect of art, emphasizing lines, colors, generalized or geometrical forms, etc., especially with reference to their relationship to one another." An example of an abstract photo that I've taken would be,

When I'm looking to take abstract shots, I tend to be drawn towards textures. Even though I'm drawn towards this characteristic, its not the only one for abstract photos. Usually its a clean image with high intensity where you can identify the object thats being taken. Most of these picture have high contrast and they are very close shots.

The image above was inspired by the famous photographer Brassi. As you can see this abstract photo is high in constrast because it is black and white. It also has texture and has a repetitave pattern which creates abstract. Even though you know the photo is tire tracks in snow, it isn't apparent at first glance. Hope you are inspired to take your own abstract photos and just remember these three words when shooting... contrast, texture, and the unkown.

Good Places to Shoot

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Here as a Washburn student its sometimes hard to think of places to take pictures in Topeka. My top four places to do so are displayed here on this map. 1. Chesney Park 2. Shimer Park 3.Lakewood Park and 4.Downtown. So far I have been to all of these places and have really enjoyed them. If you don't decide to take pictures these are still great places to have a lovely afternoon of nature and great sights!