Day 13 of 30 Days

Played around a bit for fun in photoshop today.

Day 12 of 30 Days

I need to invest in a remote for my camera. It would be much easier then holding the camera up on my shoulder and shooting into a mirror. :)

30 Days, Day 11

Glasses

30 Days, Day 10

Day 10 of my 30 days of portraits. Another hand shot. Here I am putting on a rubber glove to change the packing on my son's wound. He had surgery last week and the surgeon could not close the wound, it needs to heal from the inside out. So I have to pack it every day with gauze. It is very painful for my son and difficult for me to do to him. As a mother, you do what you need to do for your children though. Anyway, this shot was just a quick one before I changed his packing.

30 Days, Day 9

Flush...

The latest

The Jimmy Sayer Handstand Foundation is having a dinner and auction on Oct. 13th 2006. The Jimmy Sayer Handstand Foundation is a local South Jersey 501(c)(3) non-profit organization assisting children and their families who are coping with the effects of pre-maturity, or financial burden associated with medical conditions.
I have donated 1 free session plus a free 11x14 for the auction. This is a wonderful organization of which I have personally been involved in some of their other fundraisers. I recommended a family to the organization who had a little girl with Leukemia. The organization went to their home and blessed their whole family with things to lift their spirits and bring them joy.
So if you are able to attend the dinner and auction, look for this display there.
*This free session and free 11x14 is only for the winner of the auction at The Jimmy Sayer Handstand Foundation dinner and auction on 10/13/06.

30 Days, Day 8

Daydreaming

30 Days, Day 7

Had a rough day as my self-portrait will show...after a very emotional meeting I went out to my car and cried...this is the moment, blotchy skin, teary eyes....life happens...

30 days of self-portraits, day 5 and 6

I failed to post yesterday so I am combining day 5 and 6. One was taken this morning at the doctor's office, just my finger. The other one I am cheating with, I took it on day two just after getting out of the shower with my wet hair. Almost identical to day 2 but in black and white. Eh, sorry been a busy past few days.

Obviously

I am not very good at blogging regularly! I recently was challenged to do 30 days of self-portraits. This does not have to be my face, part of my body has to be in the picture somewhere. So, maybe this will get me posting everyday. However, I already started and haven't posted them yet! Since I already have one self-portrait on my blog I am starting with day 2, 3 and 4. Here on out I will attempt to post them each day. The idea of doing 30 days of self-portraits is to stretch my creativity, get out of my shell of always wanting to be behind the camera and not in front of it. All of these will be taken by me, hence self-portrait. Anyway, here are days 2 - 4.

Fairy Wings Tutorial

A few photographer friends of mine were asking for help in putting wings on a subject. So, here is a quick tutorial using Photoshop. This is very basic and simple. I do not go into details, just giving you a basic step by step to get your started in your fairy making adventure. I hope you find this helpful.
1. Do your basic workflow on your picture. Levels, curves what have you.

2. Make a new layer. (Not a duplicate layer) Name it wings or wing 1 if your wings are not attached.

3. Choose your brush tool and select your wing brush that you want to use.

4. Adjust the size of the brush and click into place.

5. Chances are the wings do not line up right. So, on your keyboard hold down the ctrl key and the T key. This brings up the free transform tool. Turn, move, manipulate the wings until they look in the right position and proportion.

6. Double click to lock it into position.

7. Take your eraser tool and erase on your subject where the body should be in front of the wings.

8. Adjust opacity if you wish and Flatten layers.

9. Make a new layer and add any extra brushes you would like, such as fairy dust or stars. Adjust opacity and flatten.

10. Make another layer and play with different light effects.

11. Use any filters or actions you would like. Be creative, be daring, be adventurous!

The Boys

Here are a few I took of my boys today. As you can see, they love it when I take their picture. lol Seriously, the oldest, he hates when I make him model for me. My second son I think secretly likes it. He starts with the serious faces and does some cool natural posing. My youngest son is very silly. He is the only one smiling in these. I have another great one of him from tonight that I will post...

UPDATE on the house situation...there is nothing to update, still the same, waiting for a buyer on the house we are in now.

I have been working with some more dramatic editing techniques. Look for some samples soon!

Coming Soon...

Fine Art Portraits....as we have our house up for sale I have not been taking many sessions. It is very difficult to schedule sessions and being ready to show the house. So during this time I have been working on addressing my desire to add more of my artistic vision to some portraits. I will soon be offering such fine art portraits to clients. These will be printed on canvas for larger portraits and mounted for smaller portraits.

Time to get myself back to bloggercising. Just like exercising my physical body I have been lacking in my bloggercising. UPDATE: We put our house up for sale and signed contacts to buy another house which is set up much nicer for having a home studio. We need to find a buyer for our house soon so we can settle on the new house. If all goes well we will be moving at the end of the summer. Here is a picture I took of my daughter and one of our dogs (Daisy) outside this summer.

1 am can't sleep

Do you ever have those nights where your mind is just going and going? You can't seem to settle your thoughts enough to sleep. I'm having on of those nights. So here I am, up working on my website, working on editing photos, working on business forms. Listening to a dachshund snore as my daughter sleeps quietly sprawled out on my bed.
Have you ever wondered where you would be in 5 years? I passed by my dream house again yesterday. Nice house, good size, not a mansion. Big red barn in the back, wishing well in the front, stream running along the side, large sunroom addition I would use as my studio and even has a sign post out by the road to hold my business sign. It is for sale now, ofcourse we can't afford it but who knows, maybe in 5 years it will go up for sale again and then maybe, just maybe we could afford it then. Ah, to dream.....

my daughter

As a mother of a premature child I experienced the fear of not ever being able to bring my daughter home from the hospital. Born 9 weeks early, she was a good size 3 lbs 11oz. She was doing so well the first two days and then the doctor came and told me that my daughter had 2 brain bleeds. The fear that gripped my heart was unbelievable. Would my precious little angel have severe brain damage? Would she have more brain bleeds? Would the brain bleeds correct themselves? Would my daughter survive?
So many questions and fears ran through me.
We were fortunate, my daughter did survive. She is now a vibrant 3 yr old with minor speech and memory issues. She is also my favorite model for my photography.

Photography Mentoring by Jane Bingham - The Details

Thank you for your interest in my photography mentoring program. Please respond to any questions listed here in an email to me at JaneBingham@gmail.com with "mentoring" in the subject line. Just to get a base of where your knowledge is.
My mentoring program is customized to each individual needs. So you can be very honest about where you need to grow in knowledge so you can get the most from my mentoring.

Things I need to know from you are:

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  Can you adapt easily to lighting situations, knowing how to change the settings of ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture to adjust to lighting situations and how they work together? If yes, great! If not, we will focus on that first.
  
  
  
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  What type of photography do you do most of?
  
  
  
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  What type of photography do you want to do more of?
  
  
  
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  What do you want to gain most from my mentoring?
  
  
  
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  Do you have a photography business?
  
  
  
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  If you don't have a business, is that something you want pursue?
  
  
  
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  If you do have a business, how long have you been in business?
  
  
  
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  Please send me a link to view 3 of your images so I can get a feel of what your photography is like.
  
  
  
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  Do you have a photography website? If so what is the web address?
  
  
  
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  What is your zip code? (You must be 200 miles from 08080 to be allowed into my mentoring program)
  
  
  

Now a little more about what to expect from my mentoring program...

As mentioned already, I custom design each mentoring session to meet each individual needs.

The emphasis of my work is on creative expression and that is what my Beyond mentoring program focuses on the most. Finding your own creative expression and style will be our main focus.

The Basic mentoring is designed to meet your needs in learning how to use manual settings so you can be more creative in your photography. To be able to adjust to lighting situations and as lighting changes.

We will also go over editing style and programs of use. I will share what programs I use and my editing workflow. I will share some of my secrets for making my images stand out.

The program will last 3 months. This will include 6 creative expression assignments that will help stretch your vision and photography eye. I will go over the images that you create from the assignments with you and share my thoughts.

Each week I will give you Constructive Criticism on two images you submit that you want me to CC. If you have a website I will give a CC of general overall images, not nitpick each individual picture. My constructive criticism is meant to build you up, help you grow and to become a better photographer. It is not meant to put you down or make you feel bad.

Two phone conversations (up to one hour each) are included in the program

The first conversation will be in the beginning of the mentoring program for me to more easily get to know you better and what your needs and desires are.

The cost of my mentoring program is $150.00 if signed up before January 1st 2010.

Choose A Mentoring Program

Basic $150.00 Beyond $150.00

Contact

To contact Jane

email: JaneBingham@gmail.com

phone: 856-468-4887