Experimenting

Every once in a while, I'll stumble across a blog post or a pin or some other resource that makes me think, "Doy, why haven't I tried this yet??" Many times, those "doy" moments involve photography and photo editing. I'm still very much a pupil when it comes to shooting in my camera's manual mode, and self-photography is far from an easy way to learn.

I have a bad habit of fidgeting slightly out of place, which throws my focus area off and effectively dooms my photos to blurry, sub-par quality. But I don't always realize this right away, because my camera's preview screen is tiny and sometimes the photos look great until I upload them. This is especially frustrating if I was having a really great hair and/or makeup day on the original shoot.

When I uploaded these photos and realized that some of my favorites were a bit on the blurry side, I decided to take matters into my own hands with some RAW editor sharpening. I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with the result, but I'm still playing with the settings and figuring out what everything does.

I also used another "photo tip" I recently picked up. The tip talked about how wearing lip color can really make a huge difference on a portrait photo. I wasn't wearing any when I shot this, and sure enough, my lips were blending into my face just a tad. So I went in and bumped up the red/magenta hues in the RAW editor just a *wee* bit. The effect was only visible on my lips, and it was pretty subtle. But it made a huuuuge difference. I'm thinking I'll make that the topic of a Makeup Monday post soon (next week?).








blazer: thrifted
blouse: The Limited via Discount Fashion Warehouse
skinnies, heels: Target
necklace: Etsy
I wore this a few weeks ago almost a month ago to a little date night with Matt at The Refectory. His sister and brother-in-law got us a gift card for Christmas, so we used it during a three-course prix fixe special the restaurant was having. It was heavenly, as always, and I was seriously regretting my choice of skinnies and heels by the time I hobbled out after dessert. I was pretty convinced they would have to roll me out, but I managed--somehow!

Actually, if I really wanted to stretch things and tie this outfit in to the "experimenting" theme, I agonized for a while over whether to wear a long or short necklace with this. It's silly, I know, but it was really bothering me. I even texted Emily for advice, because I thought the outfit was very "her." She actually suggested the long necklace, but I was stubborn and went short anyway.

I've discovered that when I ask people for advice, it tends to just be a way for me to gauge my gut reaction to your suggestion and figure out how I really feel. I did this recently by asking all my Facebook friends whether I should grow my hair for the wedding. They all said "grow it out!" and I immediately shouted NO! (in my head) over and over. So there's that.

Ok, so, abrupt subject change. It's honest critique time. Do these photos look a little off, thanks to my artificial sharpening/noise reduction attempt? Or is it all in my head? (And I promise, this isn't a "how do I really feel?" question. I really can't tell if I'm being too picky or not, haha!)