photography workshop, crafty things, and more

haven't posted in a while, this is what i've been up to:

photography workshop
grafitti/piggie
crafty

from top to bottom, left to right:

i started taking a photography workshop at lunch once a week. last week (first week) we explored f-stops, and this week, we're working on shutter speed.

• shutter speed: i captured the fountain image using a fast shutter speed---i'll try to put up an example of the same fountain using a slow shutter speed so that the water looks soft and filmy.
• f-stops: for dof, i shot a series of varying f-stops. then i photographed a mcdonald's happy meal kung fu panda toy with bokeh. i'm collecting all of them and want to do portraits of each. here are the ones i have so far (along with other pics related to kung fu pandas and/or just to pandas).

next are miscellaneous photos i took as part of my photo a day project.

• la river graffiti: the first is part of a group that i took along the la river during lunch one day. more can be found here. i had a 50 mm lens which wasn't ideal, it was hard to convey a sense of the space and capture enough of the scene, i might try to go back sometime and shoot with a wider lens.
• microwave piggie: the second is a microwave splatter screen that robinde gave me. i liked that the entire image is white.

finally, here are a couple of crafty projects.

• constantine tshirt recon: one is an older tshirt reconstruction that i did, and the photo is part of my effort to document the things i've made. i took the portrait outside using the reflectors that i bought recently.
• baby mobile: the second is a baby mobile that a few of us made for our friend. we constructed the animals on our own (i made a piggie that i blogged before), then a few of us got together and constructed the mobile from hangers and yarn---we didn't want it to look tacky (handmade, not homemade, as my friend put it)---and were pretty happy with the results.

another tshirt dress and outdoor self-portrait experiments

i decided to make another tshirt dress by combining three tshirts. the first was one that a friend gave me but that i haven't worn in a long time---i left it intact since it fit well, and i modified the other two into a an asymmetrical drapey skirt, similar to the one i made last week but longer. the dress was inspired by the same book that i used last week, t-shirt makeovers by sistahs of harlem. i originally attached the skirt to another shirt but wasn't paying attention to the measurements and found the skirt wasn't wide enough---also, the shirt was a little too short-waisted, i thought it looked better with the longer top. after a lot of seam ripping, i came up with this...


Originally uploaded by cignoh

i haven't been that happy with the results that i'm getting photographing myself inside, so i decided to try shooting outside. i have a bunch of clothing projects that i made but didn't document since 2006 so i plan to experiment with taking photographs of myself wearing them. i even bought some reflectors today and was using them in the above photo, but i'm not sure if it's obvious since i'm so frontally lit (or maybe i put the reflector in the wrong place)...

below is a photo that i took earlier this week without using reflectors. it's a ruffled tshirt that i made, again from the same book. like i said, i really like the book... i thought the sunlight was too bright on the left side, and the shadow side a little too dark, so that's why i got the diffusor/reflectors, but when i went to take a photo in the same spot today, there was a car in the way, so i'll try again another day...

Originally uploaded by cignoh

tshirt dress

Originally uploaded by cignoh

i went shopping yesterday and was looking for spring/summery dresses, but didn't buy anything. instead, today i decided to make a tshirt dress out of an old braveland tshirt from my husband, some brown jersey material that i had for the skirt, and a strip of wool plaid from a skirt that i made before. the dress has a tie-neck collar that is kind of hard to see in the photo, and the skirt has extra fabric on the side for draping. i got the idea from a book called 't-shirt makeovers' by sistahs of harlem, carmia marshall and carmen webber (i love this book, btw) and followed the basic form but made some modifications---the instructions called for a mesh material for the belt, which i didn't have, so i substituted the wool plaid. also, the right hip was a little bumpy (also can't see in the photo, but on purpose) so i reshaped the lines around that part, and the arms/bust area didn't fit that well so i sewed a darts on either side. as a result, the shirt no longer says 'braveland' but 'd' 'upside down U' 'raveland'. i like it.