20/52 - Window View

Going along with all of the pregnancy pictures that I've been taking, I figured I'd post another one.  I know the theme of these pictures is starting to look very repetitive, but oh well, I've got a pregnant wife, so I'm going to capture it!

We did one of these pictures before when she was just over 3 months pregnant and really liked the way it turned out.  So, we decided to do antoher one this month, but she wore a light blue sports bra (boy) this time, instead of the pink one she wore before. 

This picture was really easy to set up in that I just needed her to stand in front of a window.   I think the most difficult thing about it for her was getting her hair to stay up...it required a few bobby pins to keep her bangs from falling in her face.

I really like this type of a picture since it is kind of a mix between a silhouette and a portrait.  I like the fact that when you first look at it, it looks like a silhouette, but then as you look more, you can see all of the detail still in her face and body. 

It's been a lot of fun getting to document and capture the changes in her body and the 'feellings' that we've had going through the pregnancy so far.  I'm really looking forward to the next few months and getting images as things get closer to the end!

Let me know what you think.

T.

19/52 - Baby Momma

Earlier this week, I had a picture come to mind that I wanted to try to capture of Paige.  Thus far, most of the pictures I've done of her have been more serious or just showing her belly or just her head or something, so I wanted to get something a little more fun.  I wanted it to look a little more like she was dancing or celebrating or something like that.

I had a specific pose that I wanted to try to get, but didn't know if I'd be able to pull it off due to my lack of a real 'studio' or really even very much space to get it all done.

So, after getting home from work, I asked her to put on the dress I had in mind, a bright pink dress she bought for a wedding, and I got busy setting up the shot.

We started off with a few of the poses I had in mind, then changed it up a bit and tried a few other shots as well.  I was right that we didn't really have enough room to pull off the actual pose I wanted to get because she couldn't extend her arm all of the way and I couldn't get her feet in the picture either.  So, I had to crop in a little bit so that I could get the entire background as uniform as possible, without seeing the outer edges of the bedskirt I was using as a background.

But, we ended up getting a picture that was very similar to what I had in mind.  If I thoguht Paige could jump without hurting herself or the baby, I would have tried something like that too, but even not pregnant, she doesn't have hopps, so I didn't want to push my luck with the baby! 

Below is the end result.  I had to over expose slightly to blow out the background so that it went completely white, then clone out some of the wrinkles you could still see.
Oh, and if you noticed, her dress wasn't bright pink any more either.  In Photoshop, I used a "replace color" tool that allowed me to select all of the different shades of pink of her dress, then adjust the hue to get a different collor.  It ended up changing some of her skin color too (since there is some pink in her skin) but a quick layer mask got rid of that.  I thought light blue would be a little more appropriate for a baby boy than the bright pink dress...just a personal opinion.














Let me know what you think.

T.

18/52 - Belly Ribbon

I know I've been doing a lot of pictures of Paige and her belly as my weekly updates, but since she's pregnant and I want to document the pregnancy, that's what gets shot the most.  Plus, I've been kind of lazy at shooting other things, so these will most likely continue.

This week, Paige crossed the half way mark.  She was 20 weeks on Wednesday, so she is officially half way home!  It's crazy to think that she has been pregnant for 5 months now...it really doesn't seem like it has been that long.

As an added bonus this week, we had another ultrasound and they were able to tell us that we're going to be having a little boy!  We are both really excited about it, especially since Paige has thought that it was going to be a boy from the start.  She's had dreams that it was a boy and everything.

So, this week, I wanted to get a picture of her with the indication that the baby was a boy, so she bought some baby blue ribbon to tie around her belly.  I know there are tons of these types of pictures around, but I still really wanted to get one.  We tried a couple of different poses, but ended up liking this one the best. 
It is a pretty simple picture, but I think that it's really cute and a fun way to let people know we're having a boy.

Just for fun, I'm throwing in a couple of pictures that we got from the sonogram.  One is just a profile picture of the baby's upper body and the other is the definitive picture of him being a boy.

 

Here are the two pictures that we got from the Sonogram. 

It's a Boy!!!!!







Little Baby Roberts!



Let me know what you think.

T.

17/52 - Washington, D.C.

This last weekend Paige and I took a trip out to Washington, D.C. It's just a 5.5 hour drive from our place and we've been wanting to go ever since we moved out here. My aunt and unlce live just outside of the city in Chevy Chase, MD, so we used their house as home base for the long weekend. They were wonderful hosts and my Uncle Mark rode into the city with us on Friday and spent the day touring around with us. Outside of all of the touring, we kept it pretty low key. They grilled out both nights and had very nice dinners out in their back yard. I couldn't have handled going out and partying with all of the biking, walking and standing we were doing during the day.

We brought our bikes with us since there is a bike path that goes from Bethesda (right next to Chevy Chase) all the way into D.C. and it would be a very convenient way to get into town and around the city. It was a 10 mile ride on the bike path from their house to the Lincoln Memorial.

Friday, we headed in and really hit a lot of the National Mall. We started at the Lincoln Memorial, where the trail dropped us off, then hit the Vietnam Memorial, WWII memorial, Washington Monument, the White House, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Capitol and the Library of Congress all before heading back home. Between the ride into the city, around the National Mall and back home, we put in about 25 miles on our bikes. It was a long day.

Saturday, we decided to put our bikes on the Metro and head in that way, rather than riding in. We took the Metro to Gallaudet University (the biggest deaf college in the US). Since almost all of Paige's sign language instructors attended school there, she really wanted to go see it. From there, we rode our bikes back downtown and hit up the National Archives, Smithsonian Natural History and American History museums, then rode across the Potomac to Arlington National Cemetary. Again, it was another long day, capped off by a 1.5 hour commute on the Metro, due to construction and delays (coupled with a screaming baby) which made it seem even longer.

All in all, it was a great weekend. It was a lot of fun getting to D.C. since it was both of our first time to go there. Having the bikes was critical to getting to see as much as we did and I was really glad we brought them.

There is still a lot of stuff that we didn't get to see, but we hit a lot of the big points. I can't wait to go back again.

I didn't take a whole lot of artistically inspired pictures, but rather a lot of touristy pictures (I've been Here, type) so there isn't anything really special about a lot of them. As I get through the rest of the photos I took, I might come back and post some more, so check back.

This is a photo I got of the Washington Monument. It's a 2 picture verticle panoramic that I stitched together in Photoshop, then converted to B&W.

Paige and I in front of the White House. The President or Prime Minister of Israel was in town, I believe, so they had extra security and had the perimiter pushed even further back. We are standing on the Elipse, which is across the street from the White House. Normally, you can get right up to the fence.

Here are a few more pictures that I got while we were walking around.  I finally got them processed and uploaded to the computer.  I put a certain style of processing on these pictures that really bumps up the contrast, brings out more details and gives an older, kind of grainy look to them a little bit.

I then either converted them to 100% black and white, or I desaturated them about 75% where there is still  a little bit of color remaining.

Arlington Cemetery



Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

 

Seating at 'Unknown' Ampitheater





The "West Face" of the US Capitol



US National Archives



Smithsonian Natural History Museum

Let me know what you think.

T.

16/52 - Baby Bump

Paige is actually starting to show now and has almost fully transitioned into her maternity clothes. She thinks that she's getting 'fat' and looks too big, but I think she's beautiful and looks great. She can still fit into some of her regular clothes but is wearing more materinty than not.

I wanted to get another picture to kind of showcase her belly. I thought that by using cross lighting, I could get a nice shadow going right down the middle of her belly to really show off the bump and really bring out some of the detail of the curve.

Both of the lights are set at the same power to try to get the same amount of light on either side of her body, but the left light was placed slightly in front of her and the back light was slightly behind her, so I cross-lit her at an angle. I thought this would bring a little more shadow on her body and give it a little more of a 'key & rim light' feel.

It took a little bit to get the light placement and camera settings the way I wanted, but I was pretty happy with the way it came out.

I really like the 'low key' style of pictures because it really makes your subject stand out against a black background and I think the darkness really gives it a different feeling.

I wish I would have gotten more definition in her clothes, so they didn't look like they completely blend in with the background, but I guess I could go in and change that up a bit in PS if I wanted to.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more of these pictures to come as her belly continues to get bigger!

Let me know what you think.



T.

15/52 - 5 o'clock somewhere

I havne't had much time to get out and shoot over the last couple of weeks.

I got this picture 2 weeks ago while I was just messing around outside. I wanted to try to balance ambient light with the flash. I think that the picture turned out fairly well, withe the exception that the entire image looks a little underexposed. I wish I would have slowed down the shutter just a bit to bring in more ambient light and brighten the flash...but, it was my first time trying to do this, so I'll just live and learn.

This was taken while Paige was on spring break and back home in Chicago for the week, hence the beer and cigar, haha.

The set up for the shot is pretty simple, I've just got one light, set around 1/4 power camera left, 7 feet high and 10 feet away from me.

It took a few shots to get the exposure the way I wanted it (even though now I realize it's too dark) and it was tough getting the focus correct, as I was shooting this all myself.

So, it took some time, which I didn't have much of becuase the sun was quickly setting, but I eventually got something.

I'd like to try this again, when I can get one of Paige against the sunset. I think that would look pretty nice.

Let me know what you think.

T.

14/52 - Beauty Lighting

This week I wanted to try out a lighting style that I saw on a post from Scott Kelby. I really liked the way this lighting style made the subject look as the background is completely blown out with some of the light wrapping around the subject's face. Then, just firing one light to brighten the face. I think that it gives a very natural and flattering looking light to the subject.

It's a very easy set up, with just the two lights, so it really wasn't too hard to put together.

I had Paige pull her hair back so that the light coming from behind wouldn't be blocked by her hair and it would wrap around her face a little. Also, I thought it would make the lines of her face more 'clean' and less distracted.

So, Paige stepped in and I got a few pictures. I made some joke about how she was holding her head at one point and made her laugh, so I snapped another picture while she was laughing, and I really like the candid feel to that picture coupled with the lighting.

All in all, it was a really simple shoot that just took a few minutes. Post processing was easy as well as I didn't really adjust the color at all.

So, thanks to Paige for posing for me again. I really liked the way the pictures came out and will have to try this style again at some point.



Let me know what you think.

T.