Wordless Wednesday

August 10, 2011
Which Way?

by mothman0 (click on photo to see in flickr)

All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! August’s theme is Sky!

(And yes, I promise a real post soon!)


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Filed under: Your Photos

Wordless Wednesday

August 3, 2011
Krka Falls

by Joe_R (click to photo to see in flickr)

All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme was Statues/Parks, and August’s theme is Sky!


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Wordless Thursday

July 21, 2011
Addo11 024 Landscape

by Peter De Klerk (click to go to photo on flickr)

All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme is Statues/Parks

(sorry I’m a day late, yesterday was John’s birthday, and I guess I got distracted!)


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A Quick Portrait Editing Trick

July 19, 2011
f/4.0; 1/13sec; 58mm; ISO 400

f/4.0; 1/13sec; 58mm; ISO 400

This is one of my quick tips that I haven’t mentioned before because I was afraid it was some sort of “fad” for me. I often find that I do some trick when editing that after a while I stop doing because I think it looks stupid. But I’ve been using this particular method for a quite a few months and I still try it on a lot of my portraits.

You guys know I usually like to describe what exactly is happening and why it works to produce a better photo. But to be honest? I don’t know the math behind this one or why it always seem to like how it looks on portraits. But… I do like it on portraits!

Read the rest of this post…


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Wordless Wednesday

July 13, 2011
Acadia

by rachel_pics (click to view in flickr)

All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! July’s theme is Statues/Parks


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A Wedding Recap

July 11, 2011
A photo from the first wedding I shot

A photo from the first wedding I shot

As you all know, I was a second shooter in my first wedding back in March. For those of you that don’t remember the background, I was asked to help out a friend. I was incredibly nervous about it, as I think anyone should be the first time they shoot a wedding – it’s a big deal! You only get one shot!

I’ve already written about what I was doing to prepare for the shoot, but of course on the day of the wedding, I learned a few more Dos and Don’ts, so if you’re wondering how it all went, please, read on!

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Wordless Wednesday

June 29, 2011
2011-06-04

by bgottsab (click to view in flickr)

All Wordless Wednesday photos are not taken by me, but are photos submitted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr. Join the group to see your photo featured! June’s theme is Doors/Windows. July’s theme is Statues/Parks


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Using G’MIC to Create Vignettes

June 24, 2011
f/4.0; 1/125sec; 105mm; ISO 800

f/4.0; 1/125sec; 105mm; ISO 800

In late 2009, I wrote a post about adding a vignette to a photo. I was never really happy with that post, and it has bothered me now for a year and half that I never wrote about a better option. Then, almost exactly a year later, I posted about the FIL Script (side note: I totally forgot about that script! I really liked it, too. I should use it more often), and I made a quick reference to the fact that if you wanted to use some of the grain options, you would have to download the G’MIC plug-in.

What I did not mention in that entry was that, after downloading that plug-in, I finally came full circle and was able to provide a way of creating vignettes that I’m much happier with. The concepts are the same as from my first post – either create a new layer with a black area set to overlay, or create a duplicate layer with a layer mask and make that layer darker somehow (don’t worry, if you’re confused, I’ll detail the concepts below).

The key that G’MIC provides is the ability to produce a radial gradient starting at the center of your photo without you having to eyeball. Now this seems to me that this is something that gimp really should provide for you out of the box, and I looked all over for it, and maybe I’m missing something obviously but I could never find it! Even if they do, and I am blind for missing it, there’s still a reason I’d use G’MIC, but I’ll get to that in a bit. First, let’s see this in action…

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A Few Words about Wordless Wednesdays

June 22, 2011
Photowalk.24 - Beacon Journal

Window and door in Akron, Ohio

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Wordless Wednesday concept. The idea is on Wednesdays, you post one entry that has no text, just a photo. It’s an idea I’ve always enjoyed on other blogs and wanted to implement over here on iffles.com, too, but I’m always feeling like you must be tired of seeing my photos anyway. Plus I think I’ve duplicated on posts (in fact, I’m pretty sure you’ve seen the above photo before… but I’ll get to why I posted that one in a second).

I’ve also, as mentioned in the last entry, wanted to change some stuff around here so I’m not as stressed about posting, and one post that always took me a while to create, and was constantly stressing over both the content and how fast I was able to get it up, was the recaps of the photos posted to the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr.

And so, I’m merging the two ideas into one. Instead of picking out a number of my favorite photos in the group at the end of the month, I’m going to pick just one a week to showcase in Wordless Wednesday. I will still, of course, give the photographer all the credit and link back to his or her photo on flickr.

Because June’s theme is Doors/Windows, I decided to post the photo you see above to kick this whole thing off in a Worded Wednesday entry. It’s one I took, and not this month, either, so it’s all-around cheating, I suppose. But from here on out – YOUR photos!


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And… We’re Back!

June 19, 2011
From a tree in my yard, with my new Macro lens

From a tree in my yard, with my new Macro lens

Or, I’m back, at least.

I know it has been too long since I wrote an entry over here. A few of you have contacted me via my flickr account asking what happened to the blog, and I’ve provided the same answer each time: life got busy, and I had to prioritize, and unfortunately iffles.com just didn’t make the cut.

I’ve always said that I didn’t want to be a profressional photographer because I didn’t want something I loved turning into something that stressed me out, and I realized that this site was doing the same thing to me, so I had to take a break.

I did not, however, intend for it to be this long!

I do have some new entries planned for the upcoming weeks, but I feel you deserve to know some things that have been going on since I last updated:

  • I did shoot the wedding, and yes, one of my upcoming entries will be about the entire experience
  • I bought a 100mm f/2.8L Macro lens. Love it.
  • I haven’t stopped taking photos – including some taken on a mini-vacation John and I took for our 5-year anniversary
  • I broke my toe. This has nothing to do with photography, but it’s one of the more noteworthy things that happened since I last posted.

I promise an entry of substance coming up soon (as you as you define “soon” as a period of time shorter than the time period between this and my previous entry), but I also I want to prevent this site turning into something I stress over, so there may be a few format changes around here.

I appreciate those of you that are still checking up on the site, and I hope you are not disappointed when the entries start rolling in again.

Oh, one more thing! I notice some of you haven’t forgotten about the iffles.com Monthly Themes group on flickr, and I’m still over there looking (and, as always, amazed at the many great photos submitted), so in case you forgot about it, may I remind that June’s theme is Doors/windows!


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