Rosa Gonzalez » Photography

First Holga pics are in!

Rosa — Sun, 05 Jun 2011 21:19:17 +0000

Not too shabby for my first time using the Holga 120N. I put in a standard 35mm 200 ISO Fujifilm roll. I used a 35mm adapter. I will shoot 120 (medium format) at some point, but wanted to get a bit of practice with the basics first.

Here are some of the better shots from my very first roll.

Welcome to Holgawood! What’s YOUR Dream?

Rosa — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:28:22 +0000

Look who just arrived in the mail recently. :) It’s a Holga 120N from the Holgawood series in “Yellow Brick Road”.

Been test-driving her out around town. I’ve yet to develop my first roll of film. Almost done! Stay tuned for pictures!

I’ve never cried for a camera…until today

Rosa — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 02:39:54 +0000

I was out and about taking pictures of this epic snow day in the south with my camera on the tripod. At the end of the day, as I ran inside from the cold, I put the tripod down and didn’t balance the legs out properly. It tipped over and…

It’s a sad sad day.

My 35mm prime lens was also mounted on and damaged. It won’t auto-focus anymore. I may sell it on eBay as a damaged lens and hopefully get something for it to invest in a new one.

The good news is the camera appears to be working fine. Seems to be mostly external damage. I’ll be sending it in for repair. Next time, I’ll probably insure my SLR.

The Treasure Hunt is On! Yashica-Mat EM

Rosa — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 03:32:10 +0000

While at my parents’, I asked my father if he happened to have any old film cameras lying around the house. He just revealed to me he has a Yashica-Mat EM still in the box from when he purchased it in the 60′s!!! The only problem is, my father is a hoarder. Finding this camera in his hoarding stash will be like finding a needle in a haystack, but at least we know it’s there. So the treasure hunt ensues.

I’m sooooo excited to give this little gem a try and dabble in some film photography.

Once we find the camera I will post pics of the real deal! But this is what we’ll be looking for:

Post-Processing Tutorial of a Self-Portrait

Rosa — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:22:55 +0000

Below is a simple walk-through on how I achieved the look in my “Incognito” self-portrait. When browsing through my set of images, sometimes it takes me a while to realize the potential in an image. I force myself to visualize how the images will look if I try cropping them a different way. The composition can really make a mediocre image a GREAT image.

I almost overlooked the image in this tutorial, but then I realized it could be more striking if I cropped it in close. Note: If you decide to crop an image, ensure it is of high enough resolution and that it won’t look too grainy/noisy after cropping.

Before:

I opened the selected image in Camera Raw and set the crop boundaries.

After I have the desired crop, I usually go on to the basic editing. My first reaction is to click “Auto” and see what I get. Auto suggested a bit more Exposure so I left the exposure setting as is and started to tinker with everything else.

Exposure: +.50

The image felt a little too cool-toned for me, so I warmed it up slightly by adjusting the Temperature and Tint.

Temperature: 3950
Tint: 0

I knew I wanted this image to be dark and mysterious so my first instinct was to lower the Brightness.

Brightness: +15

The bright saturated colors in the image began to bother me, so I bumped up the Vibrance and reduced the Saturation. I usually drag the saturation slider all the way to -100 and slowly increase it until I get the amount of saturation I want.

Vibrance: +40
Saturation: -75

Now the image is starting to get closer to how I want it to look, but it still doesn’t pack the punch I’d like it to. So a little technique I’ve discovered along the way, is increasing the Recovery and Fill Light and then adjusting your Blacks and Contrast to compensate for the latter adjustments. Be careful with image noise when doing this.

Recovery: +80
Fill Light: +30
Blacks: +30
Contrast: +40

At this point the image is a little flat and just generally dark all over. I want the skin to pop out a bit more. I go to the Tone Curve tab which is the next tab over. I bump up the Lights and Highlights. Now the image has a bit more depth.

Highlights: +20
Lights: +35
Darks: 0
Shadows: 0

For some more intensity, I go back to the Basic tab and increase the Clarity just slightly. This defines the lines and edges in the image. Note: Don’t go overkill on this. This will do a number on the skin and make all spots, pores, and bumps really stand out. However, it can be a great effect if that’s the look you desire in your image.

Clarity: +8

I thought a slight vignette would look great with a dark and moody image like this one. I go to the Lens Correction tab and under Lens Vignetting make the following adjustments:

Amount: -90
Midpoint: 50

The image is looking great and I didn’t even set a finger in Photoshop yet! With some really simple adjustments we have brought a mediocre image to life.

I make my final tweaks in Photoshop, which are really nothing more than some spot curve adjustments and high-pass sharpening. TA-DAAAAH!! Finito!

After:

If you enjoyed this walk-through and would love to see more like this, holler at me in the comments.

On Self-Portraiture

Rosa — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 07:30:34 +0000

Self-portraiture is something that I’ve recently been doing for fun or when I need a creative break from a web project. It all started when I first purchased my DSLR. I really wanted to sharpen my picture-taking and editing skills, so what better and more accessible subject than myself?

While I thoroughly enjoy taking pictures of others, it is also loads of fun to be on the other end of the camera. There is something about not knowing what you’re image is going to look like until you’ve peeked into your camera’s viewfinder that makes me all giddy.

The editing and post-processing is very experimental. I don’t ever process a picture the exact same way.

Here is the latest self-portrait experiment. I bought a mask souvenir during my travels in Gatlinburg, Tennessee and finally got around to taking some pictures with it. Here’s a sneak peek at one of the portraits I just finished editing from the “Incognito” series:

BEFORE: No post-processing

AFTER: Version 1

AFTER: Version 2

Look forward to future tutorials on post-processing techniques.

First Budweiser, Now Tequila

Rosa — Sun, 02 May 2010 21:53:51 +0000

Gorgeous weather, horse-back riding, shish-kabob grilling, marshmallow roasting, a mud-splashing off-road jeep excursion through the woods, star-gazing, lightning-bug chasing and best of friends gathered ’round a bonfire singing along to the sounds of an acoustic guitar. A perfect start to the weekend in my book.

And now I can say I’ve ridden solely on horses named after alcoholic beverages. First Budweiser, now Tequila.

I didn’t like Tequila…and Tequila didn’t like me. As a matter of fact, Tequila didn’t like any of the ladies. You would think any male species would love to have a pretty girl ride them…I personally know plenty that would. But Tequila was a peculiar horse. He refused to let anything that remotely smelled like a woman steer him. As soon as a man hopped on, it was a whole different story.

Horse grudges aside, at least I can thank Tequila for the nice shots we were able to get while I actually got him to move for a bit. I look ready for a female-starring role in Indiana Jones, don’t ya think? [Indiana Jones theme song plays]