The Yogini

The Yogini
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January 2011

To finish off the series, I chose a more playful candid.  I just like way Cynthia's personality comes through in this photo.

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Virabhadrasana I

Virabhadrasana I
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

Another atmospheric shot, focusing on the spiritual side of yoga.  "Warrior I" also happens to be one of my favorite, for its deep stretch of the torso and hip flexors.

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Tadasana

Tadasana
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

A centering pose, used at the beginning, to bring the breath under control, focus the mind, and set an intention for the day's practice.

Very spiritual.  I think it shows in her face.

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Tittibhasana

Tittibhasana
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

This is my favorite shot of the group.  It blends strength, focus and the warm glowing light of the setting sun so nicely.  The only downside is that, unless you know the pose, it's not totally obvious that this is another arm balance pose.  Her body is fully off the ground, balanced on her hands.

This is another I'd like to try again, with a narrower depth of field to place even more emphasis on Cynthia's face.

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Parsva Bakasana

Parsva Bakasana
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

That Cynthia can do this amazes me.  She tells me it's actually easy, but if I tried this, at my current weight, I'd break both my wrists right before I face-planted into the sand.  Just wow.

I love the emphasis this photograph places on her athleticism and grace.

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Parivrtta Parsvakonasana

Parivrtta Parsvakonasana
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

I love this photograph.  It's all about focus.  And I like the composition of the picture very much too.  I'd like to try this again, with a shallower depth of field, to see if I'd like it better with more focus on her face.  Maybe next time we'll it again.

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Ardha Chandrasana

Ardha Chandrasana
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

Second of eight from the yoga photo shoot with my friend Cynthia.

With this detail shot I tried to emphasize her athleticism, and the focus with which she practices yoga.  She remains serene throughout each sequence.

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Utthita Trikonasana

Utthita Trikonasa
Swami's beach, San Diego, CA
January, 2011

I've been studying yoga for a couple of years now.  OK, "studying" is a pretty strong word considering how infrequently I get to class these days, but I love it all the same.

My teacher and good friend, Cynthia Miranda, is working on a blog of her own.  She asked me to photograph her, both to demonstrate various yoga asanas (poses), and to try to capture the spiritual side of yoga.

We went down to Swami's beach about an hour before sunset.  Early in the shoot, the light was cold and blue, but soon the sun found a gap in the clouds and came shining through, warm and glowing.

This first shot captures both the beauty of the asana and the atmospheric locale.

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Ghost of Christmas Present

Ghost of Christmas Present
Balboa Park, San Diego, CA
December, 2010

Following on to David's comment on another picture, I've been looking for opportunities to build up a project evoking ghost stories and their imagery.  This night shot of the Prado in Balboa Park included, quite by accident, the blurred form on a pedestrian.  I hadn't noticed him while taking the shot, as I was taking several version and focused on the back of the camera, adjusting aperture and exposure.

Between his (?) blurry form and my surprise at finding him there when I opened the picture on my computer, this felt very much like a ghost story to me.

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Sunlit Tennies

Sunlit Tennies
Friend's house, San Diego, CA
October, 2010

This image was impromptu.  I noticed the sunlight streaming through the window and across the feet of my nephew, flicked on the camera, composed and shot one exposure.  Moments later, he moved.  This kind of thing is why I've taken to carrying my camera almost everywhere.

The original image is below.  The composition is fair, but I found the visible seam line in the ottoman he's sitting on, as well as the open air gap on the left of the picture, a little distracting.  I cropped in tighter, and took the opportunity to balance the space to the left and right of his feet a bit better too.

Original Image

The result is shown below.  Much better.

Cropped Image

For every photo, I open up the Levels tool, to have a look at the histogram (side note: I use Paint.NET for all of my photo editing.  It's a very nice tool, and it's available for free.  Still...I'm considering an upgrade to PhotoShop or Lightroom when I move to an SLR.).

Levels Histogram

In this case, the histogram was already pegged at the extreme ends.  The highlights were a bit washed out, and the blacks were very nearly totally black.  I played with the controls a bit, but in the end decided the picture looked good the way it was.

I then used the Sharpen tool, to crisp up the edges and details.  In this case, the tool helped quite a bit, because I wanted to emphasize the lines in the flooring, the pattern in the jeans, the text on the shoes.  It takes some playing with to get right.  I find it easy to apply too much sharpening, especially when the image includes fine, strong patterns (e.g. screen doors, etc.).  The resulting image is below.  Hopefully you'll be able to see a difference (for the better).

Sharpened

Finally, I used Paint.NET's monochrome conversion to create a black and white image.  When choosing to keep a color image or a monochrome version, I consider the colors in the scene.  If they're a distraction, I prefer a monochrome photo.  If they're key to the composition, or add visual interest, I keep the color.  In this case, I found the difference in (perceived) color between the right and left pant legs, and the splash of blue on the left-most shoe distracting. And, I liked the emphasis the monochrome version put on the falling light.  The final image is below.

Monochrome

The last step, done for the purposes of publishing the web, was to add a copyright watermark.  This is done by adding a transparent layer to the picture, typing the watermark text into that layer, setting the color (I use white or black, depending on the tone of the background where the watermark will lie), and adjusting the transparency of the layer until the watermark is visible, but doesn't overly distract from the image.

Copyright Watermark added

I hope you found this an interesting look into the editing workflow that I use.  If you have any questions, and especially if you have suggestions for improving the flow, I'd love to hear them.

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Eye

Eye
San Diego, CA
July, 2010

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Children in a Corn Maze

Children in a Corn Maze
Pumpkin patch, San Diego, CA
October, 2009

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