Portrait of a Painter

not only was i celebrating my birthday in tdot last week, but i scheduled a few shoots with some talented peeps. one shoot in particular was with the brilliant painter John Viljoen. i met John YEARS back as a model for his painting classes. and no i was not nude :) this time around however the roles were reversed and he was my model in this series, Portrait of a Painter. Oh! and his lovely model would be Mina :) gorge!!!

thanks to wedding photography, i've learned the art of documentary photography. yes you can go for that one epic shot, but it's also quite interesting to communicate a story through several shots. John wanted me to do the latter with our session. an image by itself may say very little but the minute you pair it beside another a story begins to develop. it usually takes me some time to choose images that best communicate a story...it'll evolve but here it is so far:

my fav photoshop actions are these by Red Leaf Boutique. i learned photography on an old skool Nikon FE film slr, which is why i'm in LOVE with these actions...they give it that film quality i oh so miss.

with RL actions above, and without below

these actions are a pretty penny for someone as "frugal" as me but they're well worth it. i only wish they had them for Light Room. sad face :(

i know i'm crazy...

..and since i know i'm crazy i can't be crazy, cause crazy people are not aware of when or if they are crazy.
look at all the wonderful ways you can use photoshop. when i was looking for photos of jimi for my halloween costume i came across all these fan photos where they do all sorts of photo shopping to his images and post it back on the web. coolio! i just REALLY wanted to embrace him as a real drama queen slash thespian would. i promise this is the last vain post of my hendrix halloween :)

L'HALLOWEEN!

i'm at it again!
guess who i was for Halloween? that's right... Hendrix! i paid $5 for my top and $1 for my guitar necklace both from Bohemian Gallery on Main St., $9 for my boots at Salvation Army and $6 for my blow up guitar which i'm sure i could have bought at the dollar store but wasn't gonna risk it. and because i'm OCD, according to close sources, here's what i did with my halloween pics. enjoy!
cost: $21+tax