Technique – Page 8 – Pics by Peep

Washing Away The Tears

Image February 8, 2013PeepSideshow DarkwardLeave a comment

I lost someone I love yesterday. If you follow my blog or scan down the page, you will see my post about tears. I’m still grieving, and I will be for a long time to come, but I need to move past my tears and try to accept that she is gone.

So, this morning, I took down my curtains and washed the windows in my apartment. Well, at least the inside of the windows; one of the perils of being an apartment-dweller is the inability to reach the outside. Regardless, the simple act of mixing the vinegar and water, washing and polishing helped me to bring back the sunshine. Both emotionally and in reality. As a metaphor, it describes what I am trying to do to recover from my loss.

The photo above is one I took a few weeks ago, but never shared publicly. The original intent was very different from what this version represents. I played with an overlay that was similar to the background to bring a bit more sunlight into the image. I’m looking back – at the memories and laughter she brought to my life. And there are still shadows. But the sunshine is spilling softly around me, brightening my life, lifting my mood.

The Boudoir Whale

Image February 5, 2013PeepSideshow DarkwardLeave a comment

Odd title for a post about photography…but it came up today in a silly conversation and it just stuck in my head 🙂

To try to tie it together, I’ll be spouting about the enormous possibilities – oceans worth of them – when doing bedroom shots.

When I think of boudoir photography, I think of very soft, hazy pictures of women in filmy lingerie. There is a huge market in this type of work for women who want to give their partners a little excitement and spice up their love lives (now, why do humpbacks suddenly come to mind? 😀 )

This photo is one that exemplifies the sensual style that typifies boudoir photography.

But I often choose to swim away from the pod when it comes to my photography. (Don’t krill me; I know that was bad!)

This picture is also a boudoir shot, but it is whimsical and sweet, rather than steamy and sexy.

Yes, I have breached convention with this photograph, but I love lobtailing in the face of the norm 😉

And that, my dear readers, is my whale of a story!

Even Kittens Blink

Image February 2, 2013PeepSideshow DarkwardLeave a comment

Ah…how many otherwise perfect photographs have been ruined by the simple act of blinking? You’ve framed the shot, gotten the lighting and angle just right, and at the instant you snap the shot…your subject blinks!

Sometimes it works out. The closed eyes suit the mood and style you are wanting to capture. Although usually if you want a photo of someone with their eyes closed, you simply ask them to do so.

That doesn’t work in Second Life. Unless you have a pose, such as some sleep poses, that override the standard animations of the avatar and closes the eyes, you have to wait until the subject blinks, then freeze the frame and hope you didn’t capture them with lids half closed. If so…you wait again until they blink and hope you are a bit faster on the mouse button.

But this post isn’t about those instances of trying to capture closed eyes. It’s about those accidental “oopsies” where closed eyes either work…or they don’t.

This one, I think did.

When I was scrolling through my raw shots to find one or two to finish, I almost went past this one. This was cropped from a full-length shot. And while I don’t think the “blink” would have worked in a full-frame shot, I liked how it turned out for a close-up.

This one, on the other hand, didn’t.

I thought I could pull off a dreamy look when I saw this one. Instead, to me, it just looked like…I blinked.

Sometimes those droopy eyelids will allow me to show a different mood by happy accident. But most of the time, it’s just one more shot for the rubbish bin.

As for the title of this post? Yes, it’s true…sometimes even kittens blink 🙂