Photography Class Final and Project

Okay, I'm finally getting around to posting about my photography class final and final project that I said I would do LAST week! Ha! Anyway, for our final "exam" we were given an image that we had one hour to retouch using what skills we have learned in Photoshop. At whatever point we were in the process, when one hour was up we had to email the image back to the professor.

Before:

After:

There were so many more things I would have dealt with if I'd had the time (especially the discoloration area in the lower-right - the flowers came out so blurry and I didn't have time to fix them!). But, overall, I was pleased with what I'd finished in the allotted time.

Our final project was to be a series of about 4-6 themed pictures. The theme could be compositional or technical. Most of my classmates did compositional themes, some of which were pathways, whimsical black and white portraits with hand-coloring (some technical there), and coffee shops. I originally had wanted to take close-up pictures of different parts/aspects of Kevin's boat, but the last two weeks of my class he was fishing non-stop and the boat was only at the dock every few nights in the dark! So, I went with my back-up plan and used pictures I'd taken of my Uncle's farm in Oregon. This farm is special to me because it is the family homestead. My mom grew up there and my Grandpa built just about everything on the farm. I spent many holidays there growing up and now that it where the kids and I stay when we go down to Oregon.

Unfortunately, I didn't come close to capturing everything I wanted to, given the short amount of time I had there to photograph (basically, a couple hours in the afternoon when the kids slept and a quick evening shoot when they went down for the night). And, also unfortunately, the weather was dismal and the middle of the afternoon is the wost time to photograph. Even so, I was somewhat pleased with the results but look forward to doing some more photography of the farm again some day. So, without further ado, here is a Portrait of the Family Farm:

Those pictures above are the ones I submitted for the final project. There were a few others I also liked, but my teacher didn't think they fit as well with the others or were repetitive. Here they are:

(Completely not posed :)

So, hopefully you see some improvement in my photographing skills since the beginning of this class. If not, oh well, it was a fun class to take for my final elective! :)