I like visual reminders of things I should know but frequently forget… so today’s photo is a cheerful reminder of “It’s the journey, not the destination”. I took this photo of the landscape, but it’s the sinuous road which catches my eye and makes me want to explore this glorious part of Utah again and again.
See more at www.kelleybard.com. Enjoy your journey!
Sweet photos from a recent photo shoot and a not-so-recent-but-recently-finished waterfall image. Sorry about no posts the past 2 days… I’ve been wiped. It’s nice being busy with photography, really! I know I’m lucky to get to do something I love. but when I get a bunch of jobs and some are rush jobs, I’m a bit overwhelmed. I think I will learn better post-processing as I go, I’m already tons faster and better than when I started.
This beautiful animal was not far from the side of the road in Zion National Park. I’m not a wildlife photographer but I have great respect for them! I just don’t have the patience 🙂
See more at www.kelleybard.com.
One of the last photos taken on my recent trip through Utah, Arizona and Nevada. This was in the center of Utah. I watched this storm build for a while and stopped to take several images of it… this was when I finally started to see rain falling off to the right and I wasn’t sure how long it would be before I got hit with it, so I stopped and took several exposures for an HDR. I love how the underside of the clouds is so richly textured, and I’m a sucker for sunrays so the strong light beams are incredible to me. The dappled light on the ground was an extra gift here, as I really wanted to get some light on the ground and for the most part it was in shadow. HDR for HDR Friday… enjoy!
Thanks so much for viewing my work here. If you are interested, my website has lots to explore and enjoy. www.kelleybard.com. Feel free to browse!
I really like the look on this woman’s face… but I didn’t want to make the image into a sad, contemplative photo, as you don’t want sad, maternity images (that may sell SOMEWHERE but not to my clients!!). So I tried to turn it into a warmer image with the slight color tint. I suppose I could also go in with Liquify and give her a bit of a smile… I love photoshop. Have I said this before?!? Anyways, I like how this came out. The blur makes the dress (some wrinkles were distracting) come out better, a slight vignetting helped with the focus, and the stark but warm image with the beautiful skin and hair really ties it all together.
In maternity images, I know that most clients will buy 1-2 images, maybe a few for family but never the amount that a family or baby shoot brings out. But that doesn’t matter much to me. It is such a special moment in women’s lives, and a time when they are truly gorgeous and glowing… I’m glad to get to celebrate that. I try to bring together art and classic imagery with these shoots, to clearly show the beauty being presented.
Enjoy my work at www.kelleybard.com. I redid the portfolios last night so there are more images (from my client folders, in many cases) which have not been shown before. Enjoy!
Valley found as I explored SE Utah along one of the Scenic Byways. Utah is really beautiful. I can’t wait for more photo explorations there!
See more at www.kelleybard.com.
It was very fun doing a maternity shoot recently, I really enjoy maternity and child photo shoots. It’s a wonderful experience to get to document a fleeting moment in someone’s life. This woman was gorgeous and fun to shoot… and totally radiant. The fun outfit, shoes and location she picked made this part of the shoot very interesting, too, as it wasn’t the classic maternity image. I love creating unexpected images.
See more of my images at www.kelleybard.com.
One of my favorite roads in America, Route 66 runs through the Southwest and has sections that are found as far east as Chicago. It’s an old road, the main artery into the west for much of the 20th century but largely abandoned now. The sections that are open go through beautiful, open country with hardly any traffic. Some of the towns located on it are hanging on by a thread, others are completely shuttered. It’s eerie.
You also find these old Burma-Shave ads all over the place. They are priceless: odd, quirky, mostly dark humor that keeps you interested in what the next sign down the road has to say. I pulled over here before a big curve to take in the road, valley, and sign. The resulting image (3 exposures processed in HDR) still didn’t give the aged feeling to it, so I worked on the image with some textures and detailing. I like how the warmed up colors really highlight the old look of the sign, and the sky is much more interesting with the layers of textures. Overall, a photo I really enjoy.
See more at www.kelleybard.com. Thanks!
Have you ever taken a landscape image you liked in theory but it just didn’t have great or interesting lighting? Here is a way I’ve found to create a better image from a good one:
This was a tree I found on the way to Bryce Canyon National Park. It was in a gorgeous area of these red rock formations, and I looked up and saw this tree and fell in love. The sky was more blue, and the rock wasn’t as vivid or well lit (it was solidly overcast, so the light was nice and soft but not interesting), so I chose to process it as an HDR. I took 3 images (my normal landscape protocol so I can pick and choose HDR’s in the future) and processed them in Photomatix. The result I liked best left the tree and rock dark. So I processed it a second time with the same images, this time making the light on the rock brighter and lightening the tree area as well. I followed the process discussed below and mixed the two .tif’s to create the rock lighting that I wanted. Then I finished the photoshop creation with some cleanup touches and here you are!
Process:
1. Take 3 or more shots (for me, the Canon can take -2, 0, and +2 exposures every time I shoot an image) whenever you might possibly use a photo for an HDR.
2. Process the set of exposures in Photomatix, the Nik HDR program, or Photoshop (any HDR creation program). Process it once as your ideal sky and save it. Then undo tone mapping and re-create it with your ideal rock lighting. Save that one as well.
3. Put both images into Photoshop, layer the images (shift and drag one onto the other) and mix them however you find best!
4. Finish it with noise reduction, sharpening, saturation and hue changes… whatever you wish for your HDR image.
5. Save it as a final image and enjoy!
So, a new option to use with good photos that I want to turn into great photos. Nice to find.
See this at www.kelleybard.com. Thanks for viewing!
Wow, that’s an interestingly HUGE image, huh? Different crops do different things in wordpress. I picked this one today because the water looks SO INVITING. But not the best image I’ve ever done. Although I like the color of the water. Lake Mead, on the Arizona side of the Hoover Dam.
See more (and hopefully better) at www.kelleybard.com.
THANK YOU all for the attention since I recommitted myself to this blog, not that i”m getting hundreds of hits a day but it’s nice to get the “like” stars and the comments. Love to build more connections here, so please, keep coming back and stay in contact!
Kelley Bard Photography- The PhotoBlog 