I had no plans of creating the final composite product when I shot these images, but sometimes things just develop and ideas flow. Hmmm. What if…?
Three rambunctious boys ride their scooters down my driveway.Swap images in to add their sister and improve expressions. Add a colorful sky scene I captured in the Pyrenees back in 2014 (Looks like the South Dakota hills). Road dust colored in by using Photoshop brushes and finished it off with Topaz edits.Final product: The DustySunset Gang!
Can’t back up enough to catch the entire image? Photomerge is your friend.
Line up the left side – click – hold level and move right with at least 25 per cent overlap – click.
In Photoshop CC 2017: file – automate – photomerge – browse and select your images – check blend images together – I also checked perspective and content aware fill transparent areas – click O.K.
This gave me the background images. I then used select – select and mask to bring in the foreground subject.
Finished it off with Topaz edits and some lightning using Photoshop brushes I found free (Brusheezy!?).
Available light photography is a perfect way to capture many portraits, but sunset is not a time to utilize this option. Without flash you either have a silhouette or muddy skin tones along with a blown out sky. Solution? Add a flash to bring out the details. On this portrait I used a Canon speed light 580ex2 flash off camera, a cybersyc flash trigger along with a Canon 580 ex2 with a Gary Fong diffuser on camera for a little fill.
ISO 100/ F8 aperture at 1/250th shutter to maintain detail and color in the sky.
The school is now closed and will no longer hold the cheers of a crowd, squeak of basketball shoes on the shiny, waxed floor, whistle of the refs and buzz of the clock. I close my eyes and these sounds and memories flood back to me as though it was just yesterday. Luckily, the passing of time means the memory filter allows only good vibes to flow through as I bid a final farewell to my last opportunity to click the shutter of my camera within these walls.
Image and edits by Joyce Meyer
Nostalgia was the theme of the day for me on August 15, 2017. For 26 years I drove this route from early August until the end of May as I prepared and taught a new group of students each year at Grant-Deuel School located in Revillo, South Dakota.
Cheer, cheer for GDHS!
Wake up the echoes cheering their best,
Send the loyal cheers on high,
Shake down the thunder from the sky,
What though the odds be great or small,
The blue and white will win over all,
While our loyal sons are marching forward to victory, Fight!
Window light casts its shadow upon this young woman, as it did her mother and grandmother, as she reflects upon the history contained within these walls. The old wooden ironing board leans against the wall holding memories, laughter and tears of generations past.