A month of details is like a dream to me. I love everything about details. The closeup details, the storytelling details, the funny and quirky and emotional and raw details. All of them!
I'm so glad I get to sift through all of your lovely images for the first feature blog of the month. From macro flowers to tender moments, you guys definitely did not disappoint! Here are a few that stood out to me.
xoxo Angie Mahlke
Gear: Sony a7ii, sony 50mm 1.8 lens
Settings: ISO 2000 f/2.2, 1/320
The Shot: I opened up her blackout curtain while she was napping (you can see in the background) so the light would be hitting her feet. I manually focused and intentionally set the bunny in the background. I loved the sea of pink and her little pink feet.
Post Processing: Added some haze to the window, added a radial around her feet and slightly sharpened and added some exposure. Slightly bumped up shadows, texture, added slight vibrance, saturation and contrast.
Gear: Canon 5D Mark IV, Sigma Art 35mm
Settings: ISO 400, f/1/4, 1/3200s
The Shot: A very fortunate missed focus.
Post Processing: Photoshop
Gear: Nikon Z6, 24-70mm lens at 50mm
Settings: ISO 640, f/2.8, 1/320
The Shot: “Her Sunday Best” Parkinson’s has tried to claim her best talents. Her crocheting and her incredible singing voice. The stitches here are far from her best that once was. But, she keeps on, and she really wanted to show the ladies at church. Papa helps her into her finest. Heard her tell Papa she would like to wear her vest. Grabbed camera, and shot on the settings that were in place. Wish I had changed them.
Post Processing: Pain in the rear to edit. Way underexposed. But increased exposure as much as photo could tolerate, adjusted tone curve, applied radial filter to hands and added exposure and texture. Added slight vignette to help pull eye into small spot of light. Used adjustment brush to add texture and contrast to clothing. Added radial filter to small lamp and increased exposure. All in all, prob not a good one to edit, however, a sweet one.
Gear: Sony A7RII Velvet 56
Settings: 1/250 sec ISO 250
The Shot: Got tired of waiting for it to rain so used a sprinkler to get a bit of life in the drooping sunflower :) I used my New LB Velvet - I don't love it yet but am trying hard!
Post Processing: I freely admit that this one was a nightmare to edit. It just needed a lot of work until I was happy with it. Usually my macro images are relatively easy to edit. I persevered because of the droplet! LR - luminous and open shade preset, changed green hues, added clarity and contrast to petals, some noise reduction. PS - blended some areas to make them less obvious, colour matched to a painting, added gaussian blur to some blended areas, added a JD texture with very low opacity, corrected out of gamut areas, sharpened.
Gear: Canon 6D 35mm 1.4
Settings: ISO 800 f2.2 1/1250
The Shot: I shot from above her as she was stomping in the water.
Post Processing: Honestly, this was a client session and I had synced it and loved the way the edit appeared. Basically I darkened the shadows and black and warmed it up a lot.
Gear: Nikon D750 and 50mm lens
Settings: 1/320 f2.5 ISO 400
The Shot: Shot during golden hour, while I hung them out on the line.
Post Processing: Edited by bringing the blacks down in the town curve and highlights up slightly in the the tone curve too. Lifted exposure slightly and warmth a touch too.
Gear: Nikon 750, Sigma Art 35mm
Settings: ISO320 f/2.00/ 1/200
The Shot: My little one getting her pedicure done in our living room :) very stylish little lady.
Post Processing: SMAL 1 & WILD with tweaks.
Gear: Nikon D750, 35mm
Settings: f3.5 , 1/200, ISO 2000
The Shot: I shot this low and close, while my kiddos read quietly.
Post Processing: I brought up the shadow's and dropped the highlights, sharpened and added some noise reduction due to the higher ISO.
Gear: Nikon z6 + 35mm nikonz 1.8 Godox v680ii
Settings: 1/200 sec, 1.8, ISO 100
The Shot: Standing across the kitchen island while my littlest man was being a sous chef for daddy, Flash bounced up and slightly behind me to fill shadows.
Post Processing: Lightroom - personal preset.
Gear: Olympus OM E10MarkII 14-150 mm at 104 mm
Settings: 1/2000s - f6.3 - ISO 2000
The Shot: My Action Shot workshop was so cool and it still continues that I find fascinating details on all the different photos. This one will be printed on a secure glass wall that will be installed on the wall stove of my new kitchen.
Post Processing: Lightroom - developed my own presets for these action shots to let some of the bubbles disappear in the shadows and get the splash more crisp.
Gear: Nikon Z6, Nikkor 24-70mm f/4 @43m
Settings: 1/1000 - f/4 - ISO 100
The Shot: He was hanging around the dinner table, waiting for food to drop to the ground. It get’s the full evening sun. I exposed for the highlights (slightly underexposed, actually) and just tried to get a decent shot while he tried to avoid the camera.
Post Processing: Hand edited in Lightroom, increasing contrast, texture and clarity and playing around with highlights and shadows and other basic panel sliders, until I liked the results.
Gear: Nikon D750 with Nikon 24-70mm at 70mm (for extra background blur)
Settings: 1/100 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100, manual mode, spot metering
The Shot: Camera on a tripod with timer set. Spot metered hands so that the rest would be fairly dark.
Post Processing: Edit was done in Adobe Camera Raw using Krautkopf preset 18 adjusting color.
Gear: Canon 6d mk ii and Sigma Art 35mm
Settings: f/1.6, 1/1250, ISO125 (not my ideal settings but i just saw him standing there and grabbed it before he moved)
The Shot: Little one was just standing near the door of our garage and i took this from just outside the garage
Post Processing: Just increased shadows a bit and applied a small vignette.
Gear: Nikon D3400, Nikon 35mm 1.8
Settings: 1/80 sec at f/1.8, ISO 400
The Shot: I snapped this over my sons right shoulder as he was doing his schoolwork for the day, to capture those sweet hands while they’re still little.
Post Processing: Edited in LR applying Twig and Olive Preset Cornucopia, tweaking the exposure and sharpness, and adjusting the point curve.
Gear: Nikon D750, 50mm1.4
Settings: 1/200,f3.2,ISO 250
The Shot: Shot outside on an overcast cold winter day. This is a detail shot of her wrist corsage for the "sweetheart ball" daddy daughter dance.
Post Processing: Hand edit- adjust white balance/ exposure/ shadow contrast/vibrance.
Gear: Nikon D750, 35MM 1.8
Settings: ISO 100, 1/1000, F3.2
The Shot: To get my daughter to stop running around at Baby Ballet I told her that we could run around outside afterwards. She enjoyed watching how her shadow followed her up and down as she ran around. I wanted to capture this moment. The moment when bargaining actually worked!
Post Processing: I removed a poster from the right hand side, on Lightroom I used a SMAL preset and upped the shadows and dehaze.
Gear: Nikon Z6, Sigma 35mm
Settings: ISO 500 , F2 , SS 1/2500
The Shot: Used the sliding door to the right to let in the morning light.
Post Processing: Edited with TVP presets
Gear: Canon 6d Mark ii Sigma 35 mm 1.4
Settings: ISO 800 f/1.8 1/250
The Shot: I set my camera up on my dresser and used my phone as a remote to snap the self portrait. I want to preserve as many details I can in the next few weeks before our mother-daughter dynamic is forever altered by our new addition.
Post Processing: Applied preset from the TVP Poet Pack. Tweaked white balance, contrast, whites and blacks. Played with the tone curve and HSL sliders a bit (especially orange luminance). Smoothed skin a bit with a brush I created.
Gear: Fujifilm x100f
Settings: ISO 1000 | f/3.2 | 1/125 s
The Shot: My 10 year old has been stacking up his books and using his school iPad to create time lapse videos of his sketches lately. I knew that this was a phase I needed to document. I ever so slightly underexposed the highlights on his hands to make sure I could bring back the detail on the iPad in post.
Post Processing: I started by applying a preset that I created in Lightroom. I made white balance and exposure tweaks with radial filters in order to focus on the iPad and then on everything but the iPad. I then tweaked the shadows and highlights a bit more in Photoshop using curves layers and made the colors pop using hue/saturation layers.