I feel the need to shoot things.

... but not in a disconcerting way.

Since I've gone a fairly long time without doing regular photography experiments, I thought it was high time I started enforcing a shooting regimen.  So, I now have to upload at least one thing - something, anything - for stock photography every week.  I'm going to start out by playing around with food related items.  Even just playing with arrangement and textures.

Yup.  At least one thing a week.  Even if it's not all that impressive.  Like garlic cloves on my fireplace hearth.

Boom.  Weekly goal realized.

What I Do All Day

You may wonder, "Andrea, you're a photographer, you currently work in the photography field, and you never update your blog EVER.  What do you do with your time?"

I'll tell you what, I do lots and lots of editing!

I have been working for another photographer for a while doing primarily editing - and BOY is it time-consuming!  The process he chooses to use brings in a lot of lost detail in post-production, so I spend hours painting windows and other details back into images of buildings.  Below is a before and after example of one instance where I both shot and edited for one of his clients.

This is one of the less dramatic examples (some images have such extremes between light and dark that once I pull the detail back in, the two images look starkly different), but the amount of time it can take to accurately trace around windows and objects is exhausting.  Note all of the bright window spaces that are completely blown out in the original image on the left - it's my job to make those visible again, then make sure all the colors are accurate and pretty, contrast is nice, the image is sharp... yeah.  Every single one of those tiny, bright windows and lights and bright patches of sidewalk.

So, now you know.  Instead of pursuing art projects, I've been painting windows.

On the bright side - I've gotten SO good at painting windows, and being that far up in a highrise for a shoot was terrifyingly cool.