Trying again...

Tried again for a few minutes with a semi-cooperative model, and got some more shots to submit. I sent 6 to fotolia for review, and since iStockphoto already accepted 2 earlier, I only had to submit one this round! Not only that, they reset my timer, so it was only 3 days. Now, if today's is rejected I think it'll go back to 6, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

I am very lucky to have such a great model at hand! I think I'm mostly limited by my ability to come up with ideas that are fun or interesting enough to keep her entertained while I shoot... I'll have to work on that. Maybe tomorrow we can break out some power tools...

Almost!

Not being one to stick to the original plan, I sent these three in to iStockphoto for approval. To my happy surprise, 2 of 3 were approved. But #3 didn't quite meet their lighting requirements.

Looking over the image, I can see what they mean. It took a while in lightroom to really get that background white, and I ended up with her face and hair a little too bright in spots, and a little too dark in others. As a result, when I look at the image I feel a little too drawn to the chessboard, and not drawn enough to the beautiful model.


I reshot today, but couldn't get exactly perfect before said model got bored, below I'll show some of the attempts. You might also notice said model had frosting and crumbs on her face and the remains of a painted-on "unicorn pegasus" from Tuesday... The lesson: make sure your model takes a bath once in a while, and washes her face and brushes her hair before your photo shoot.

A little better, but I'll keep trying for a better expression... I do like the shallow depth-of-field shot of the chessboard though. I might see how they like these two at Fotolia, they seem a little more forgiving of my less-than-perfect backgrounds.

In the meantime, I'm loving Kelby Training! For a meager $20 a month, I'm watching hour after hour of training on general photography, Lightroom 2.0, and Photoshop CS4. Beats watching TV and learning nothing, but don't get me wrong- I haven't missed an American Idol episode yet.

A little Lightroom goes a long ways.

Still working on getting this completely blown out background in-camera, but in the meantime there's always gradient and local adjustment in Lightroom. This was accepted into my fotolia portfolio this morning.

Later yesterday evening, Model #1 and I played out an actual game of chess- her first ever. She loved to deliver a maniacal evil cackle every time she took a piece. I'll have to work on some more photos showing that side of the game...