Life Inside the Doll House

I have not been using Photoshop so much this past few weeks because things have been busy and I have lacked that creative drive. I have spoken of my love of Digital Photo magazine before. Apart from having great articles it comes with a disc full of tutorials every month. This month's magazine gave me the push that I needed to get back into Photoshop.  Day 109 - I was keen to try out the sort of high key tone image that is popular with family photography studios at the moment. The tutorial promised that it could be achieved in less than 60 seconds. When it comes to personal style I find myself swaying towards extreme high key tone and very dark and moody shots. I am undecided about which suits my style best. I took a series of well lit, white background shots of Bear reading. The first two images are my usual Lightroom editing style. The last one is the 60 second Photoshop one. I really like it and can imagine it blown up on our walls. It really was very easy to do and I can a...

This year we have had a particularly lovely Easter. It has been wonderful to spend time at home with the family, especially as they are at such fantastic ages. We were all so exhausted by the pace of our normal lives and this break has been very welcome. Of course the chocolate has been well received also.  My husband and I have noticed that the boys are becoming much more mature in their approach to life. They ask interesting questions and think about things in much more abstract ways. Roo has expressed an interest in helping out more with cooking, which delights my husband no end.  Day 107- Enjoying fresh maturity in our new kitchen Day 108 was Easter Sunday, which for us, is all about the chocolate.  Only one more day of Easter weekend left. The weather is horrible and we have had to change our plans. Who knows what the day holds...

It is Easter weekend and I am swamped by 100s of photos to edit. It was a rather slow week but then we went to the beach on Good Friday. We got there late but we had the first blue skies and beautiful sunshine of the year. I made a conscious effort to go crazy in the golden hour as I have always missed out on this opportunity before. It was also my first opportunity to shoot RAW in continuous mode with good light and I am blown away by how well my new camera managed it. It has left my old camera in the dust in so many ways but it's ability to keep focus on a moving subject is truly fantastic. I am also being a bit bolder with my edits these days. The low sunshine made for tricky shooting conditions and some photos were over or underexposed. I really am feeling the benefit of shooting in RAW these days. There is no way that JPEG would have cut it.  Anyway, lets play catch up... Day 101 - Sunday. A lovely family day of games and cuddles for the cat.  Day 102 ...

Woo hoo, it feels good to be at day 100 already! It really has gone very quickly. Scarily quickly in fact. I feel that it has been an interesting week in many ways but certainly from a photography perspective.  Day 98 was one of those days when my husband and I take the day off together and spend some child free time in London. I wanted to share my recent experience of the National Portrait Gallery, so we started off there. This time I tried to open my eyes a little more to how others used composition and lighting. I am trying to make a conscious effort to train my eye. We did enjoy the Gallery but we were even more impressed by the Photographer's Gallery in Soho. I was aware of this gallery but hadn't necessary planned to visit yet. They had a few exhibitions but I was blown away by the work of Saul Leiter, especially his street photography.  I have a bit of a thing for street photography. We recently watched a documentary about  Vivian Maier  which I loved...