Photobooth Friday::Everything’s Just Dandy(lion)!

Posted by Tiff in Photography | 4 comments

The kids and I were out at the park when I got back from the retreat, and we came across a huuuuuge field of dandelions. If there’s something that makes my heart skip a beat as much as an ice cream sundae right in front of me, it’s a giant field of dandelions glowing in the sun. So Sassy and I made lots of wishes while blowing the seeds every which way (you’re welcome, neighbors…)

As often happens in the middle of doing something mundane, a vision popped in my head. I saw myself with a dandelion on my head with the seeds being blown away like thoughts taking flight. So I took a picture of a dandelion and filed it away.

And THEN, the kids and I were at the Huntington Beach Dog Park (so amazingly cool!) and I had a few moments to take the shots that would complete my vision. I only had my 50mm lens, which is gorgeous to shoot with but kind of a macro-ish lens, and I knew that I wanted a bigger area in the shot so I could crop the picture into a square. This was a perfect time to try the Brenizer Method which is what the man Brenzier calls “Bokeh Panorama”. Basically, it allows you to widen a shot to get a look that maintains the gorgeousness of the 50mm lens, but in a wider angle as if you were using a wide angle lens.

So, the original shot had me centered, but I wanted more sand, surf, and sky. (slight panic…I knew I was going to be cropping my head out so wasn’t worried about what I looked like…until now…)

So, here’s the genius of this method. I instructed Naturalist to take the picture with me centered. This got the focal point set on me. Then she switched it into manual focus so for the rest of the shots, the point isn’t refocused or changed. Then she took a series of 9 more pictures, starting at the top left of me, but up to include more of the sky. She kept a portion of me in the picture as reference, because I then took all the shots and merged them into one. So 3 across the sky, 3 more across the middle area to get more beach, and then 3 more across the bottom to get more sand.

When I got them into Elements, I merged them as such:

First I cropped a giant square around me. See how tiny the 50mm lens picture is, compared with how much detail I wanted in the picture?

Then I started merging, first sand:

Then beach:

Then sky:

until I had a rough draft of the shot, with more background filled in:

The shot of my body that I wanted to use was set as the background layer, and I erased my other bodies that were layered on top, so that was the only thing that was left in the center. Then came the task of cleaning up the shot so no ‘seams’ showed from where the pictures met up. This meant a combination of erasing, cloning, and spot brush healing. And THEN came the photoshop magic….adding in the shots of the scarf blowing, taking off my head (is it wrong that I absolutely love doing this part the most?!), and adding the dandelion in. This was all thanks to my favorite quick selection tool and magnetic lasso.

Once those details were added, I then flattened the layers so it was all one shot, and then I worked with the curves and exposure levels to get the image not quite so blown out (one of the drawbacks to shooting in the middle of the day on a bright beach…). I also added in some textures. And voila! My vision, pretty much how I pictured it. All told, it took maybe 3 hours, including time spent making snacks and sandwiches for hungry kids.

This made me think of all the seeds we plant in our hearts. Some will turn in to flowers, some in to weeds. Some will blossom and be beautiful, others bloom and spread seeds of negativity everywhere. Still others may never find fertile soil and take root at all.

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