Musical Stretch

Little Olivia loves the piano no matter what house she is in.

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PHO5552

Photoshop Beyond the Basics is the fifth course I have decided to take at Algonquin College. So far it is rather boring, but definitely has potential. We will be stepping out from the basic commands like different brush sizes, etc (as the course name implies) and into more complex ones like paths and channels, which I am looking forward to.
According to the Algonquin website(and course outline therein):
"Students expand their working knowledge of Adobe Photoshop using more advanced image manipulation tools. Students also learn to use Adobe Bridge and Adobe Image Ready programs located within Adobe Photoshop. Image manipulation, special effects and image enhancement techniques are discussed, demonstrated, and practised. Advanced Photoshop tools include colour correction using Curves, Channel/ Layer/Filter application techniques, device calibration, Scripts and Actions, Path/Pen tool as a selection tool, Advanced Text treatment and applications, Filter use and effects in creating 3D graphics."
To be honest, I am a little hesitant with this one as the last Photoshop course wasn't as magnificent as I thought it would be. It wasn't bad, and I definitely learnt a fair bit, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. We'll see what this course teaches me in due time.

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I ♥ Faces

I Heart Faces is "a photography site focused on the art of capturing faces and their various emotions. Each week, people from across the world have the opportunity to enter their favourite face photos into a themed photo challenge." The top ten get displayed on their homepage. I heard about it through the blogging grapevine and thought I would take a look. Turns out I have some decent 'face photos' (portraits) and have decided to take a shot and enter one this week. I have chosen an older photo of Olivia (Dave's youngest cousin). I don't expect to win as there are some really good shots already submitted and over 700 total entered so far - but it is something to do to try and get my name (and work) out there.

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Signature

You may have noticed in the last three photos that my signature has changed. For the past two years it has been the same 'Stephanie Beach c 2008' (that's right throughout 2009 my signature stated 2008 on it). I tried to change it a couple of times, but for some reason I had lost the font on my computer and was no longer able to edit the text. I made the decision about a month ago that I would wait until 2010 to change my signature and not post any new photos until I had updated it.
Unfortunately I could not edit it as I would have liked as I am still running without Photoshop on my personal computer. It was edited enough to no longer say 2008, but will need at least one other edit to get to the stage I have in my head.
Anyway, to make a long story short, signature changed, will change again.

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Multiple Musics

Another shot from the shoot I am calling the 'guitar shoot' with Jess.

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Jess' Photo Shoot

Over Christmas Dave's sister, Jess, asked me to take some shots of her playing the guitar for a class assignment she has. Essentially she wanted some shots of her playing, some of her writing some chords/music and some closeup shots of the guitar, etc.My setup was pretty basic, but I was able to use almost all of my new lighting equipment; the Gary Fong diffuser for my on-camera flash, Nikon umbrella kit and SB-600. I took about 500 shots and quickly edited that down to 300 and then later down to 25 or so edited ones (+40 when you include the fact that I converted some into black and white). I am really happy with the outcome of the photo shoot and I will obviously be uploading a select few shots to this blog, but I have uploaded all the edited and signed photos to Flickr, if you would like to view them all now.

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Published

Well kind of.
A little while back I got a message in my Flickr mail from the Managing Editor of a site called Schmap. Basically it is a map website with tons of information about tourist destinations - like Montreal. They wanted to use one of my photos for their 2010 guide to Montreal. This is the link to the page where you can find my credited photo, though you may have to hover over insectarium and go back three photos (or forward a bunch more than three). I gave them permission to use it as they not only credit the photo with your name, but they also link back to your flickr account where they found the photo.

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