Tuesday we board our flight.

I will try to post updates from Italy whenever we get some wi-fi. Check back for photo updates!

This shall be a trip to remember!

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

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

It was my first time using UV Cards, an online printer. I chose UV Cards because of their plethora of printing options like spot UV, foil, silk laminate, rounded corners and the list goes on. They also had the most affordable short-run rounded-corner business cards I could find. I really didn’t need 500 cards! I’ll redesign my brand before I’m even able to give out 100 of them.

I ordered my cards with the following specs:

• 2 x 3.5 in Dimension
• 16pt Paper Stock
• 1/8″ Rounded Corners
• Matte Finish/Dull Aqueous Coating (AQ)

The matte finish is very nice and smooth, very eggshell like. They even have a 1/4″ rounded corner option which is much more rounded compared to the 1/8″ which is more like a credit-card (pictured above).

I would have gotten fancier with more options, but it wasn’t in the budget for now. Maybe next time!

I’d highly recommend UV Cards as an online printer. Great experience all-around.

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.

May everyone’s 2011 be full of new reasons to smile.

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:

Phone pics:

A few weeks ago I invited a friend to come over from Florida and spend the weekend with me in Georgia. We had all sorts of fun.

On Friday we set out to climb down Stone Mountain. We couldn’t have picked a hotter summer day. I thought Florida was hot, but now I know why they call it HOTlanta. Boy did we break a sweat.

Saturday we explored downtown Atlanta, took a tour of the CNN station and went to World of Coca-Cola.

CNN was very informative and educational. We got to see all the behind-the-scenes activity and technology. Aileen particularly enjoyed it since she loves journalism.

We headed to World of Coca-Cola next, but before getting there, we were stopped by an intriguing fellow offering free hugs. “What the hey!” I thought. I handed the camera over to Aileen and got my free hug. But I forgot, you just can’t hand over your huge SLR to your friends.

The blurry picture below was the result. It’s okay Aileen. I forgive you. I also forgive you for the 20 other blurry pictures you took of me too.

Aileen got the spontaneous urge to model at a public park on our way to Coca-Cola. The grown men nearby were watching us and laughing. But hey! So were we!

Even I joined in on the modeling fun.

Some Mexican guys claiming to be professional photographers stopped us and asked if I could take a picture with them. They were also lugging around an SLR. He was lucky I was in a particularly friendly mood and I kindly accepted.

They later offered to take pictures of us. The funny part is that more than half the pictures they took were blurry! So much for professional! Here’s an OK one:

The line for World of Coca-Cola was a mile long. We were literally melting in the sun. The heat index must have been around 105 that day. They should have given us our free Coca-Cola at the entrance not the exit.

The visuals inside Coca-Cola were inspiring. Coca-Cola is, after all, the epitome of great branding. It was interesting to see how the brand evolved over the decades and how alive it remains today; their classic logo-mark, practically unchanged.

We got to taste coke brand sodas from all over the world. The European colas were bitter and gross.

We later met up with some friends for a night of karaoke at Echo Karaoke, a korean-style karaoke joint that lets you rent out a private room for your group. The microphone at this place makes you sound amazing and the disco lights that move in tune to the music make even the worst singing sap feel like a star! We sang the roof off the place. Good times!

Sunday was the big day. White-water rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee! I can’t say enough good things about this experience. If you ever have a chance to do it, DO IT!

The raft guides knew the river like the back of their hand and performed all these crazy tricks, like jumping onto the rocks and back onto the raft while it was moving. Insanity.

Don’t worry. We came out alive from that one.

Aileen and I fell in love with our raft guide Ben. What a southern sweetie-pie. Highly entertaining, and well, great eye candy too! Of course we asked for a picture.

All in all, a fantastic fun-filled weekend.

A post on my trip to Chicago coming soon!

I MISS YOU AILEEN! XOXO

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.