In my last post about my own photography, I told you all that I have spent the last year really focusing on seeing the light.  I set out to really watch where the light is coming from, where it is falling, how strong is it, what color is it...and many more questions.  Many, many, many times I just observed, without my camera.  I wanted to become a master of the light in the same way that we attempt to become masters of our equipment.  The equipment is only a piece of metal and plastic that allows us to capture the light.  Sometimes you have to sit back and drink it all in.  You have to watch without trying to capture the moment.  I feel like over the last year of truly focusing on the light I have nearly mastered it.

This year, I have decided to focus on perspective.  Sometimes, the best pictures are the ones where the subject is not looking directly at you and smiling.  For instance, my dogs look out the window every evening, waiting for my husband to come home.  With my eye newly trained on perspective, I would take a picture from behind them to capture what it looks like from their perspective.  Here is an example of a composite I did last week.

I took three separate images (because life just doesn't happen like this in my house) of these three looking out the window waiting for Daddy to get home.  I used the Absence Collection (Actions) and Light Bokeh (Overlays) for the lights.
This year I really want to focus on mastering perspective, it truly makes images much more interesting and ultimately better quality.
In the image above of my 14 year old cocker spaniel, I got down really low and photographed him on his level, head on, and centered.  You can see how I achieved the dark, moody, edit below in the video tutorial using the Absence Collection and Moveable Haze from Spring IV.

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As I mentioned in my 5 for $5.00 post about Spring V, I have been a little absent from my usual daily blogging here at MLC.  My sweet girl is back in preschool and so I am finding a little more time to get back to work.

Today I have a video for you on how to remove a common lens distortion called vignetting.  We all know about vignetting because at times we add it to our images to draw focus toward our subject.  While this kind of vignetting is a creative license we all take from time to time, there is a darker side (no pun intended...hardy har har) to vignetting.

Generally this kind of distortion occurs with lower level lenses, but that isn't always the case.  Take my image for example, it was taken using a Canon 5d Mark III and a mid-range 85mm  prime lens.  You can see the edges are considerably darkened.

While it wasn't immediately apparent to me, once I ran the new (free) Correct Camera Distortion Action I am releasing today, I noticed a big improvement.  I rarely notice the vignetting problem unless it is overcast outside and I am underexposing the image.

Available for Adobe® Photoshop® Creative Cloud®, Elements® 12, & Elements® 13
*note:  Leave a comment and let us know if it works in CS 4-6 and Elements 11!

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