setas, mushrooms, funghi

Hubby loves going for some mushrooms, he knows every kind and type. He enjoys the smell, the softness, the sight of them, and the, second part, the kitchen part: cooking them with love and herbs.
And me? I love photographing them!

De www.flickr.com/photos/ana_gr/

stone love

“Love is not written on paper, for paper can be erased. Nor is it etched on stone, for stone can be broken. But it is inscribed on a heart and there it shall remain forever.”



I bought the pebble at sjengraving, at Etsy. Check the shop. It is fantastic!

adding a cotton cloud sky

Some weeks ago I was the photographer at a wedding. I chose the place for posing: a wild park with trees, green grass and sky. The problem was it was 13.00, the sun was shining and there was too much light. It was either the couple or the sky.
I knew this would happen, so the previous week I had been taking some blue-sky-with-cotton-clouds shots to combine with the couple's shots.
I opened the clouds in Photoshop

Then control+A to mark the complete picture, Control+D to select it and Control+C to copy it.
I had opened the couple picture, and then Control+V to paste those clouds as a new layer:

Then just played with opacity, moved the layer to where I wanted the clouds to be, erased the part on the bride and groom, andthe result was just what I wanted it to be.
I had fun, because the process was super easy.
Here is the cople with the fake clouds, plus an action bly Florabella.

And here is the cloudy sky:


Feel free to download and use the cloudy sky. I will be more than happy if you find it useful.Clicking on the picture will take you to my Flickr page, where you can download it.
Thanks for reading! Here are the instructions to download the file: The file is here

Models

I am learning how to lead a session for portraits. I feel more and more confident with the directions. I feel I know what I want and how to make myself understood.
I learn lots from online classes, such a Zack Arias' this weekend.
Or Elizabeth Halfords video on shooting children.
Or Skye Hardwick's Posing guide.
Learning is crucial. It really makes a difference.
And I do practise, practise and practise. My best model is my sweet 11 year old daughter. She loves posing for me -it's not always been so!
So here she is! She's beautiful and sweet. And I love her.

Happy Mother's Day!

My first wedding.

Last weekend I did my first wedding. I must say that it was a family event; I hadn't been hired: The couple asked me to be the photographer of the event.
Everything went out easier than what I had expected.
I got everything ready two days before, cards, battteries, clean lenses, etc, then checked and double checked the night before.

The best:
.First the outcome. I like the resulting photos, well, most of them.
.And second, how it feels to be respected as a pro, or something like that. I just told the orders and everybody was more than willing to do what I said. It was fantastic, especially when you have the family run away when they see you with the camera!
.Yes, the list: I had a *must do* shots, written and recorded in my mind, and yikes! It proved to be so useful!


The worst:
.The responsibility it was. i was a bit scared of not being able to do a good work.
.And second: The huge pile of work that I still have now, processing and preparing the album.

The day was beautiful, the sun was shining. But the time for the event was 12.00, so the session was on location at 13.00. Can you imagine sunshine in Spain at 13.00? yes, too bright. So, for some photos, I combined the originals with some cloudy sky that I had taken the previous week, just because I thought this would happen.
Here is an example of that wedding.


Here, I combined a layer with the blue and cloudy sky, and then edited it with one of Florabella's actions, i think Milk and Honey, which I love.

Any criticism will be welcome. Hope you like it!

tilt shift? No, just scale model trains.

What do you think of this? Looks like supersharp antique warehouse or so. With the help of textures (by Flypaper Textures, btw), the aspect is very realistic, imho.
The thing is my brother is an enthusiast of model trains. He spends hours and tons of patience creating landscapes, stations, rails, everything. It needed being photographed! So cute, so perfect!
Here are some more. I love the tilt-shift effect.

going green

It may be spring warmth or it may be not.
Nature starts to wake up, and so do many things inside my mind. Feelings that were asleep, sensations that were long forgotten, a need to go faster, further, newer.
And it's hard to manage this awakening. Trying to understand the way, trying to drive feelings, or just letting it grow, as trees and bushes at the touch of spring sunshine.