I was excited for today’s Souvenir Foto School assignment because it finally gave me the chance to use my chalkboard painted prop table that I made a while ago. I have used it in other shots before, but until now, I never had chalk on hand to actually use it to its full potential. So hooray!

For some reason I find yellow very difficult to photograph. I’m not sure if that’s just my issue, or something that is common, but it always seems to get really blown out and loses a lot of it’s depth if you expose the rest of the scene properly. Anyhow, I think these photos turned out well enough, and now I’m going to go sip my lemonade! It’s nearly 70 degrees here today!

Oh, and I also think that it’s worth mentioning, that I took 176 photos for this assignment in order to end up with the two you see here. I think it can be easy to assume (at least for me it can be) that every pretty picture we see online or in magazines just pops out the of the photographer’s camera without a lot of trial and error…but at least for me, that is certainly not the case. So if you’re just getting into photography, or struggling to capture things exactly how you want to, just keep at it. There is nothing wrong with taking however many shots you need to get it right. You’ll learn more and more each time, and eventually you’ll be taking far fewer photos, but ending up with a lot more images that you are happy with straight out of the camera. I used to take about 400+ for a simple set-up like this. So maybe I’m getting there too! xo Ez

Today I really wanted to work on getting some great shots in camera that didn’t “need” post-editing. I find that once you start Photoshopping things it’s easy to feel as though nothing is good enough, so for me it’s a challenge to allow an image to just be.

I can definitely see things that I could “fix”…such as the giant crease in the fabric in the left-hand shot, but I’m forcing myself to leave it alone (so.very.hard).

Again, the light was really crummy and grey here today, so I photographed these using the same double foam core board bounce set up that I used on Saturday’s images. It really does wonders for a photo. For those of you who are more visual (like I am) I also thought it would be nice to actually show you how I’ve been using the foam core board to bounce light into my photos. Here’s the fancy-schmancy set up (photographed with my iPhone):

I like to have my photos back lit a lot of the time, so I have this little makeshift photo board (just a board painted white) sitting in front of my office window that I use as my “table.” My camera faces the window and I place my foam core board in a V facing out from it so that it bounces the window light straight back into the shot and takes out the heavy shadows. I also have half of my window covered in waxed paper to soften the light a bit (I’m sure my neighbors think I’m nuts). Here’s what the photo looks like with and without the boards (there was no editing done to either photo, and I used the same settings on my camera for both shots):

Tip: Click on the image to see it larger in a pop-up window.

Credit: I first learned this bounce trick from Nicole of Nicole’s Classes (using one board). And btw, if you are ever looking for an online photo course to better yourself I can’t recommend it enough! Super awesome and fun!

Prop notes: The little blue spoon was part of a Sugar set from Anthropologie and was given to me by my friend Melis, and the blue “napkin” is a piece of folded fabric. Foam core boards are available in craft and office supply stores for a couple dollars a piece.

If you’d like you can also find all my images in individual and diptych form for this month-long class challenge over in my flickr album. | Souvenir Foto School is offered by Besotted Brand.