Arden Prucha Photography

Where’s the camera?

On her level:

(notice the open space in the image… I use it as a frame, she is the focal point)

Above her:

(open space again, I could have cropped in tight)

On her level close-up:Bringing the lens low:

(often times I lay my head on the floor and let the floor sweep into the subject

Above again:Awh, Directly Above:

(I am a little obsessed with reflections at the moment)Left: Above and Behind, Righ: Directly Above:Above and to the side: (flipped image and put them together)

I am going to be posting some personal ‘how to’ posts… more like ‘how I do’ blah blah blah.  Shooting at home is what many moms and dads want to be able to do.  For me one of the best things you can do with a camera is change your perspective.  It’s all about the unconventional angle.  Here are some shots of Pierson I took months ago and just now found on one of my hard drives.

This photo below is pretty typical, but notice how I placed him to the side of the frame.  In fact if you follow my blog or consistently view my work you will notice I LOVE to shoot like this and often my subjects are on the right.  What can I say, it’s what my eye sees 🙂  I also think that having a NON-distracting background allows him to POP out of this photo with the amazing colors provided by our $25 restaurant bench 🙂  Woot!

Post Processing:

I used Pioneer Woman’s ‘Seventies’ Free Action changed the blending modes slightly and lowered the opacity quite a bit, then sharpened the image, created a soft light layer on a medium opacity and voila.

Now, here is my boy standing on the bench from above.  Notice how I brought his arms out and shot with the wall.  I am a fan of LINES and the line of the window draws your eye to him.

*Used the same post processing as above.Here is a before shot or SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera).  I personally like this image because: the lines! and it’s pretty symmetrical.  This image is also quite dark, with the back lighting I didn’t want to overexpose too much, but I think the finished product looks great.  Ewh and notice the dirty windows (no judging please!)? I had to get rid of that, what a distraction!I converted the image below to a BW image with a soft light layer and a gray fill layer on low opacity.  I then created a new layer and used the ‘Gradient Tool’ to create the color effect on ‘Screen’ blending mode.  I used the ‘Clone Stamp’ to get rid of all of the fingerprints, which was a little tricky on the roof line, but I don’t think it’s noticeable?  I also used TRA ‘Get Faded Autumn’ and ‘Get Faded Winter’… I love TRA’s actions by the way, they are super high quality. You will see one of my images on their site, under their Lightroom Presets! 🙂

*Before you get into using actions I think it is VERY important to know and understand Photoshop, don’t just rely on other people’s creations to carry you through 🙂 Learn and grow baby!

For this last image… I obviously flipped it.  I think you can create some really cool looks during post processing.  I duplicated the layer, set on Soft Light Blending Mode, completely desaturated the layer and brought the opacity down a tad.  I then created a new layer and used the gradient tool on ‘Normal’ blending mode at only 7% opacity.  Finally I created a pinkish purple ‘New Fill Layer’ and set it on ‘Exclusion’ blending mode and then adjusted until it looked right… by my eye 🙂  This look below is NOT something I would used on MOST photos, but it was funky and fun.