January 25, 2012 – A year of portraits – Chrystal Brantley

01.25.12 Chrystal Brantley

Today’s portrait is of my niece Chrystal Brantley. She’s an avid Science Fiction reader and a librarian at our local library in Madisonville.

She’s also a very proud mom of two fine young men and a loving grandmother several times over.

She has always been patient with me and my cameras, ever since she was a small child.

The photo was shot with the standard iPhone camera and then opened in the app Shakeitphoto and processed using only the app to produce this retro looking photo.

 

Technical Details:
Camera: iPhone 4
Lens: Built-In Camera lens
Exposure: The iPhone doesn’t record shutter speed or aperture information
Apps Used: Shakeitphoto

January 24, 2012 – A year of portraits – The Dawson Springs Panther

01.24.12 Dawson Springs Panther

Tonight I thought about asking the Dawson Springs Panther’s mascot to remove his head so I could get a portrait of the real person behind the mask, but decided against it. Too many kids around and I’d hate to ruin the mascot mystique, if you know what I mean. Seems like most all schools have a mascot of some sort, but to my knowledge only a few high schools in our area actually have a costumed mascot that is at games.

The photo was processed using Photoshop CS5 and cropped slightly from my original photo. I really prefer to shoot in camera the way I want the final photo to look, but changed my mind to crop out a distracting light colored painted strip above his head. After adjusting levels and doing a little burning in on the edges I used the Topaz Adjust filter called “vibrance” before emailing the photo by to my iPhone so I could add the Polaroid style border to it using the app Photogene.

Technical Details:
Camera: Nikon D700
Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8
Exposure: Matrix Metering, 1/400sec, f/2.8 with an ISO of 4,000
File Type: Nikon RAW