It's fall #1 -master the basic curve for still life photography-

Here, it's fall! My favorite season. The perfect weather, colors, and food in a year.

While I was taking photos of fruit liquor my dad made, this session popped out in my mind that this could be a great example to present how to control curve for still life photography.

When it comes to still life photography (snapshot), my photos tend to be vintage-warm (or cooling) looks whereas other travel photos and portrait could be more defined bright looks. I enjoy still life photography by decorating objects to real life scene and editing like drawing a picture.

So, here I'd like to show how I edit still life photos on LR and also give little tips on how to control ‘Curve' for it.

This session will focus in a series, #1 ‘master the basic curve for still life photography,' #2 ‘master the abnormal curve, and #3 ‘master the abnormal curve with additional color curve' with the fall looking photos I took lately.

Today, I am going to show #1 ‘master the basic curve for still life photography' with photos of fruit's liquor.

Enjoy photos?

Now, let's take a look at the Curve axis of the photo. In this series, I am going to call this curve x-axis for the horizontal axis, and the y-axis for the vertical axis.

In this #1 the basic curve, I’d say that the keyword to master is an "S" hook.

The S hook is the basic curve concept in editing. You can create any abnormal equation to color on your photos, but if you have no idea what to do first, keep this concept in your mind, and you can modify/adjust the colors later with other editing tools.

So, to make my points simple, please see how I make an S curve.

Adjust the brightness of the whole photo

1. Move the center point to up along the y-axis.

2. Move the right top down along the y-axis within a box #4.

3. Get the tip of the left bottom up along the y-axis or the x-axis within a box #13.
(*It depends on a photo style and your preference. If you like a little blur vintage style, I would recommend keeping it on the y-axis. If you want defined looks, then it should be along the x-axis. )

Adjusting of the 3 points makes the primary color and mood change of your photo like you painted the whole canvas by white or grey color to emphasize painting colors you are going to add.

Now, any points you pick from box#13, #10, #7, and #4 are in your control. I usually adjust points following the y-axis, moving up to down. When the point moves along the x-axis, usually it happens only within box #13 to deep down the old colors and adds purple/navy dark look around the edge of a photo.

Finally, you can modify the S hook curve with other editing tools. This process is a coating on the surface of the photo by polishing, lighting, smoothing, or graining. The fall look photo is created by your own :)

Hope it was simple enough to understand the basic concept of the curve and gave you a little tip to create your “photo painting.“



Thank you so much for reading, and enjoy the curve tool for your photography!

Mom and Daughter's Project -flower arrangement-

After we came back from Flowers for Lena, this flower arrangement project was initiated by her and me.

Not only flowers we bought but picked up wildflowers in the forest.. a nice and relaxing weekend.

Dedication to flowers -Flowers for Lena-

During the long weekend, I was off to the mainland and found one of dream art studios I’ve ever visited.

A lot of dedication to flowers by florists. You see the process of making dried flowers.

-Flowers for Lena-
http://www.flowersforlena.com/
Yamanashi Prefecture, Hokuto, Oizumi Nishiede 8240－1069

Make your original photo frame

Is there any moment happened to you that you want to keep a lovely photo in your room, or you don't find a good photo frame to add an essence of making your room a little cozy?

Here, what I present today is making the original photo frame.

I bought a wood photo frame from Daiso ($1 shop). Cut fabric of my old blouse/clothing to the same length and 1 cm wider than the photo frame and left it for a couple of hours.

That's it. Again, super easy. (sorry, my artwork is not something dedicating to time-wise…)

I also made one more photo frame. As I mentioned in the previous post, (Tips for creating decorators by yourself) this one is decorated with beads.

I draw flowers and leaves first, and curved the carves. Then put beads and leave an adhesive glue and went it for a couple of hours.

It's not perfect, yet. But I think it can be added with gold and green glitters covering all sides of the frame. Not sure how it will go, but let's see…

If you have any ideas to make this frame better, please give me your opinion: )

Thank you so much for reading and see you in the next post!

Practice cropping the components of photos

Photographers sometimes have to set up the canvas, not like an artist, which means being aware of different compositions.

Composition contains elements of 1. lights, 2. colors, 3. texture (details of the surface), 4. moments (what moment could be significant), 5. shape (creates dynamics and harmony), 6. perspective (A photographer or subject's points of view. ex. Eye level to a subject, such as the same eye level as a baby in baby portrait.)

It takes time to master all, and I have not learned all elements correctly, yet. But today, I focus on showing how to practice cropping the 4. Moments and 6. Perspective (especially angle) in your daily life moments. 

Let's get started.

First of all, grab any frame you have. If you don't have a frame, get a thick paper and cut inside by leaving 2- 3 cm all the corner of the paper.

Now, you go around your home (or outside), and put a frame, like covering objects, over what you see in front.

Next, slowly move the frame to up, down, right, and left. It could be diagonal. Once you find the best angle and perspective, grab your phone and take photos along with the frame.

That's it. Super easy.

Your eyes won't catch the moment right away, but the more you practice, the more you get used to seeing the best angle and perspective of the scene. It means the speed of you determining which objects are included gets faster, and you can take more photos, and more variety of photos can come out.

This is a photo from the morning. I thought that my usual morning routine, checking SNS while making a coffee could be a “scene” and added flowers onto the kitchen table.

This is from one of the Saturday mornings. I cooked cacao banana flour-less pancake and did figure drawing while eating them.

My grandma used to use this purse for a long time. After she passed away, I’ve been using this purse. surprisingly,It’s made for my camera in size wise. And it still has a space left. Love it.

Now, you know how to, so practice with your real life scenes; after cooking, or during cooking, having a tea, after shopping, during running, in receiving a package, etc.…

Anything you think normal or even a scene you don’t notice can be photogenic.

So, here I leave examples of photos I took, only the food photos made for my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Please ignore the colors and white balance, but focus on angles and objects with food.

Hope you will practice and find your own way of photo shooting : )

Thank you so much for reading, and see you in the next post.