Retouching Practice

Hi everyone, guess who hasn't dropped off the side of the planet! I have a tonne of deadlines happening around this time and I would be lying if I said I wasn't stressed out of my brain, but thankfully today I found some time to do some personal work, and wasn't it lovely! Its been quite a while since I did any retouching work and since I'm considering it as a possible career path, I thought it was due time to get more practice done. I downloaded this photo from here and it was quite enjoyable to work on. I haven't done a great deal of hair retouching before so this gave me a chance to give it a proper go, I also tried painting in hair and eyelashes which I think has worked really well here. Overall, I'm really pleased with the final image! I was able to spend enough time on it to keep my mind off of deadlines but it wasn't too long that it felt tedious. I'd recommend this image if you'd like to spend 2-3hrs retouching.

Surrounded in Mist

This is my first attempt at some Fine Art landscape photography. Its based on the theme of "beauty" and even though the image is not stereotypically beautiful, I think the minimal and gentle elements that the mist has lent to the image give it a beauty that is entirely its own.

I've been looking at quite a few artistic movements for inspiration and the ones that I believe have influenced this image the most include Romanticism, Postmodernism and a touch of Surrealism. If you have any thoughts about the photo above then please do let me know! It would be great to add some comments to my project journal!

We have a winner!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thank you for your entries everyone, its been fun hosting my own giveaway but we can have only one winner and that is Mischa S! I will send you the instructions on how to get your Visual Watermark software shortly!

Wordless Wednesday

My Goals for April

• I keep hearing about these blogger chats that happen on twitter but I never seem to be at my computer when they happen! I look back through the tweets tagged with #lbloggers or whatever hashtag it may be, and it does seem like such a nice way to get to know new bloggers and maybe make some friends! Only thing that may be problematic is that I am quite a shy person so taking part in these chats at all will be a challenge for me, but it would be so great to get involved!

• I've realised that I don't really write that many photoshop-themed blog posts and that bothers me.. I LOVE photoshop and can spend a whole week just playing with it, but the problem is that I don't know what to write about when it comes to photoshop. Do you want tutorials? freebies? I just don't know! I'll have to start a chat on twitter about this or maybe google some ideas, haha.

• I have lots of projects on the go at the moment spanning from this blog to my degree work and any second that I don't spend working on any of it makes me feel guilty and just crappy in general, but at the same time if I work constantly I get all grouchy with a bad case of brain-hurt! I need to strike a perfect balance and an hour seems like just enough time to do something just for myself without feeling guilty. This could be reading a book, watching some youtube videos or playing my ukulele, the beauty of this is that I can do whatever I want.. god, that's a relief already! 

Do you have any goals for this month? I'd love to know :)

My Photo Series for The Big Spring Beach Clean

As part of my photography degree we were assigned a project where we had to create a series of documentary photographs that looked at the theme of Social Concern. As I am a member of the environmental charity, Surfers Against Sewage, I thought it would be the best idea to photograph one of their campaigns because the issues they battle against are very concerning for myself. After researching through their campaigns and events I found out that they would be hosting a beach clean local to me, so I got in touch and asked to photograph the event. They gave me the all-clear and these are the images that I got!

It was such a cold and windy day so it was amazing to see so many people come out to help when they could've been tucked up inside with a cuppa! It was great fun, and I'm glad we were able to clean up the beach so much! 

Happy Easter Colour Palette

Blowing eggs for Easter makes me feel like a big kid, its so nostalgic for me since my mum used to sit my little sister and I down just before Easter with an egg each for us to blow and then decorate. Nowadays I don't use masses of paint or stickers to decorate my eggs, I use Sharpies and paint markers instead since it makes the decorating process so much quicker since there is no drying time. I really liked my handiwork this year so I decided that I wanted to show you guys, but when I saw the photograph I didn't "see" the eggs, what caught my eye was the subtle colour palette. And then one thing lead to another, so my Easter egg display became a Easter colour palette instead, haha. I love when little things like this happen! It feels so organic to do something with a vague idea or plan, but then become inspired to create something completely different.

Hope you all have a fabulous Easter!