unpacking essentials

yesterday, after nearly four months of travel, our stuff finally turned up. And I went from having no fully functional lenses at all to having three of them.

We started with unpacking essentials - such as those two birds. I made them er... about fifteen years ago at pottery courses. They held surprisingly well, I think. And now they go to see the world too, with those piercing eyes.

Well, to be honest, we didn't mean to unpack those specifically. But they were mixed with kitchen stuff, so here they are

hot chocolate

went to Ely yesterday. It was sunny and cold, and we had hot chocolate in a tearoom. Here's my charming little niece, sporting chocolate moustache worthy of Salvador Dali himself. It was good chocolate, you can easily tell

portrait - conversion to monochrome

although I prefer color photographs to monochrome, monochrome has its points. When I look at those two portraits of Natalia Bull, I find it hard to choose which one I prefer - it really depends on the purpose. Color one has more information in it and would look great in a color layout, monochrome is probably more suitable for printing out and hanging on a wall.

I don't have full photoshop, but photoshop elements once again proved to be an adequate tool for the purpose. To get the soft skin tones, I had a lot of red and very little of green and blue in the mix during the conversion. If it was a freckly child portrait and I wanted to emphasize the freckles, I would have done the opposite - lots of green, less red.

One consequence of this conversion if that lips were de-emphasized. There was a thin layer of pale gloss on them, and contrast with skin is even lower in monochrome. Funnily enough, fire-engine red lipstick would would go as pale, so if we repeat the session at some point and want a higher contrast, we'd need a colder tone with less red - plum shade will work.

Toning was done with gradient map layer.

Natalia Bull is zumba instructor, and we had a lot more colorful zumba session with her as well - you can find it here

HOW much did you say?

"... has told me that you also owe Workshop £28-50 for a damaged bow..."

Timur's getting to be a really reluctant model - something Yuri was for ages by now. He probably won't agree to pose today at all if I didn't remind him that he lost 28.50 by fooling around at music workshop, dropping his violin bow and damaging it beyond repair. I suppose I should have made him pay that from his allowance money but - well, I think he agreed to pose only because he thought that I will do precisely that otherwise.

Timur's (mostly) pics at shutterstock

dirty face

Timur spend whole day doing activities with cubs and scouts. He came home looking like this. I am sure this war paint rendered him perfectly invisible.

guitar

Now it's Timur turn to learn the guitar. He himself seems like playing violin more, but I must say that it's a lot easier to extract ear-torturing sounds out of violin than out of guitar, so I kind of enjoy his guitar more.

Interesting. While I am typing my post, amazon associates panel next to the editor window gives me various suggestions as to what I can link it to. I was overjoyed to find that there is such thing as Guitar For Dummies Acoustic Guitar Starter Pack (Guitar, Book, Audio CD, Gig Bag). I mean, most of the "for dummies" books are excellent, it might actually work :)

music-related pics at shutterstock

isolation on white

after going through all the pics from zumba mastercalss with Naomi Mokoena I figured that this one might just be isolate-able. I caught a lucky break there - the tips of the hair were against a relatively light background, and Naomi is dark-haired, otherwise it won't work at all. I did have to spend some time with selection tools and eraser, but not excessive one

However, my predictable conclusion was that maybe I don't want to do that again :) shots for isolation are best done on plain background and with good light to start with. Then it's doable in a couple of clicks, like here. But it was a nice challenge and it worked reasonably well

I can't really explain why the reflection, except the angle was such (Naomi was on podium) that the soles of her trainers are flat and horizontal - necessary condition for half-convincing reflection.

forest elf

Not sure if the results are to everyone's liking, but I had fun with this picture. Hair proved to be a bit of a challenge, with only Photoshop Elements at my disposal (if I understand correctly, it's a lot easier to make custom intelligent brush in fully fledged Photoshop, but I don't have that)
Actually, I know that results are not to everyone's liking - the model made a face when he saw it. He graciously agreed that it's ok since nobody should be able to recognize him (or so he thinks, anyway)

you can see the entry into POTY competition here. Feel free to vote and/or leave a comment

this image at shutterstock

apple juice and skylight

yesterday we came back home (to a lot of rain) from extremely hot Croatia. We stayed in Zadar area, and for two nights in two different apartments in Zadar itself. The pictured place, in the converted loft of one of the old houses, had two good points - very central position and two roof windows which gave beautiful spotlights in the morning.

When Timur went to have his apple juice on scratched-glass-topped table, it looked like he's having is out of a torch.

On the last night we've left our Rough guide to croatia in the (different) flat, figuring next time we go we'll need a new book. So if you stay in Zadar and find 2007 edition laying around somewhere, it's probably ours

Teguise market

Every Sunday, there is a market in Teguise, in approximate center of Lanzarote. The is quite a variety of stuff for sale - from foods, via inevitable aloe vera products and lava jewelry to clothes and musical instruments. You won't necessarily want to buy something there, but it's a pretty village, and very lively on Sundays, well worth a visit just to look around.

The girl in the picture above was a very friendly jewelry-seller there. She was happy for her display to be photographed and posed herself. I asked if she had a facebook or email account to pass the pictures (if any f them were good). Unfortunately, she didn't have either. I am thinking - won't it be great if one of the people who see this picture know her of somebody who knows her? I know the chances are slim, but still - if there is anybody on Lanzarote you know, show them this pic. I will be very happy to send her a file in good resolution

Below are guys who entertained shoppers at some point, they were great too

is my fringe too long?

yes it was and is cut a bit now :)

party wig

today Timur wanted to pose (which happens extremely rarely). He specifically wanted to pose in this wig, normally used by Kirill for samba gigs. Well, who am I to say no :)

braids and beads

it's difficult to say why this wig was originally bought, but now Kirill is using it when playing with Arco Iris samba group. It looks good, the only problem is, when it's hot, it's very hot to wear. meybe the next wig needs to be crocheted out of cotton thread, that should be nice and cool.