With this week's theme, I seriously thought about taking a photo of myself and just putting that up. I am vintage, or fast approaching...(sigh). But I need a haircut, and maybe some summer color before I subject anyone to that.
Instead I selected our dog Moe as my subject. Moe has a favorite spot in the yard. Anyone who knows me and knows Moe is already raising their hand and screaming out "THE WOODEN GLIDER!!!" Moe had many allergies as a puppy and into young adulthood and has since overcome them, but still does not like spending any time laying in or on the grass. So he always chooses "his" glider to spend time on in the yard. The glider is the perfect background to capture a photo and turn it vintage. The wood is old and weathered from many years of sitting under the trees near the tree island in our yard.
Vintage is mostly about the tone of the photo. There are some striking visual images you can look through if you google "vintage photography." On the other hand, there are some really bad ones as well.
I personally am not a fan of hazes that overwhelm the photo. In vintage especially, that reminds me of a bad film experience--you know, you take the film to the photo shop to be processed and the guy behind the counter says "a few of them were hazy, but I processed them anyway." Well, that's what I think of when photos are overdone with haze. Everyone has their own eye, however, and some folks like haze and mist and fog and so on. My eye wants to see some color and detail.
So in this first photo, I applied a texture called "worn paper" to the background and a vintage treatment which I tweaked myself to let some of the color elements show through. I would have liked to have a bit more detail around Moe's muzzle, but that's the shortcomings of my photo and not the process.
Instead I selected our dog Moe as my subject. Moe has a favorite spot in the yard. Anyone who knows me and knows Moe is already raising their hand and screaming out "THE WOODEN GLIDER!!!" Moe had many allergies as a puppy and into young adulthood and has since overcome them, but still does not like spending any time laying in or on the grass. So he always chooses "his" glider to spend time on in the yard. The glider is the perfect background to capture a photo and turn it vintage. The wood is old and weathered from many years of sitting under the trees near the tree island in our yard.
Vintage is mostly about the tone of the photo. There are some striking visual images you can look through if you google "vintage photography." On the other hand, there are some really bad ones as well.
I personally am not a fan of hazes that overwhelm the photo. In vintage especially, that reminds me of a bad film experience--you know, you take the film to the photo shop to be processed and the guy behind the counter says "a few of them were hazy, but I processed them anyway." Well, that's what I think of when photos are overdone with haze. Everyone has their own eye, however, and some folks like haze and mist and fog and so on. My eye wants to see some color and detail.
So in this first photo, I applied a texture called "worn paper" to the background and a vintage treatment which I tweaked myself to let some of the color elements show through. I would have liked to have a bit more detail around Moe's muzzle, but that's the shortcomings of my photo and not the process.
In the second photo, I did not use a texture, and I used a different vintage process which allowed me to once again tweak and keep some color elements. In this photo, Moe's muzzle is more pronounced and the tone is a little brighter. I particularly like Moe's eyes in this photo. He has such an expressive face!
Those of you who are fans of my Facebook page "I got the shot photography" will see the difference in these processed images, versus the original ones I posted on the page. Let me know what you think, and have a great week. Grab some images for your vintage collection and feel free to post them on my Facebook wall.
RSS Feed