musings of a dreamer

I am and always will be a 90's kid. Weren't the 90's the best decade? I often find myself feeling sorry for kids who have to grow up in this new age. All the new technology seems to make childhood less fun. I remember having to come home when the streetlights were on, playing in the park, wearing crowns of braided dandelion's, dancing to the Spice Girls, and wearing a lot of spandex. Those were the good times. I miss them. A lot. This outfit is my tribute to the 90's. Unfortunately, I forgot to wear my white ruffled socks. Denim, braids, friendship bracelets, hair clips, neon spandex shorts, the whole combo. Got to love the 90's.


























Marciano dress. vintage jacket. Aldo wedges. American Apparel cycle shorts. necklace is a gift.

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Relaxing In Baltimore

We did some long days while on vacation looking for some reasonable images. On the way back to Connecticut we thought we’d relax at a couple spots we’d wanted to visit for quite a long time. One of the stops was at the Intercontinental Harbor Court on the Inner Harbor in Baltimore Maryland. Nice hotel, with a view across the harbor just about as you see it in today’s image. It was an easy day of travel from Washington DC up the road just a few miles (less than sixty) along the back roads. We arrived at the hotel fairly late in the afternoon with just about enough time to settle into the room and go out to dinner. Naturally the cameras came along with us as we walked along the harbor to a waterfront restaurant. The Inner Harbor area was one of the first sites to be repurposed into the centerpiece of a city and a cultural center. Many cities, such as San Antonio with the River Walk and New York’s South Street Seaport are examples of taking a look at the success of the Inner Harbor and saying “me too”. After dinner we walked around the plazas and shot some general interest shots. We watched the street performers and talked to people who saw our cameras and wanted to know more about what we were shooting with and what recommendation we might make for cameras. According to the write ups by Inner Harbor – Baltimore.org, the harbor is one of the most photographed areas of the city. It had the “typical” history of use, disrepair and rebirth that’s been seen in many similar attractions across the country. Today’s image looks pretty straight, but there are a couple of wrinkles that make it worth talking about. To learn more about the tweaks on today’s image, hit the “read more”.
I’m not going to sugar coat it, for a four shot panorama it is pretty close to being straight. The sky was a wall of nothing, so once the pano was complete, any colorcast neutralized, and the colors brightened up a bit a better sky was part in. I’m getting a little more comfortable to the Quick Selection Tool (W). I did look to the channels to see if that would be the easier way to go to make a mask of the sky in preparation for replacement, but went with the QST as a first attempt. Basically, it worked great. It wouldn’t have taken long to make a Mask using Channels, but the QST made it about a forty five second task, including the little bit of cleanup needed. Because everything is straight lines and angles it was a snap plucking the blank sky out of the image.

Rather than taking a dramatic sky shot months or years before, we happened across some very subtle clouds formations I thought would compliment a large variety of images. The sky used in today’s image was taken within twenty four hours of the harbor pano.

The Inner Harbor area of Baltimore was a great respite on the way home from four days of heavy shooting. We’ll probably head back there several times again. I’m interested in seeing what it’s like after a snow storm.

eyes like a child

These photographs turned out really weird because the weather was weird on Saturday. That's right, this outfit is from Saturday. I was too lazy to post it, and now I'm going to be backlogged in outfit posts. Shame on me.

Anyways, this dress has been my favourite summer dress for the past three years. Pretty, isn't it?

Guess dress. Costa Blanca cape. Michael Kors wedges. Holt Renfrew earrings. Pearl cross is a gift.

Ps. Don't forget to FOLLOW me. :)

people say i only see what i want to

One thing you should all know about me is this: I love vintage clothing. A lot. But sometimes there are some problems, like with this shirt for example, the fabric is horrible. I've noticed lately that the fabric that some of my vintage clothing is made out of is pretty crappy. This blouse itches so much, I was in pain wearing it. It felt like tiny needles were prickling my skin. The only way I'll be able to wear this shirt will be with a long sleeved tee underneath. It's a shame it has to be saved for colder weather.

Nothing too special about this outfit. It was hot and humid today so I chose something that would be comfy.

vintage blouse. AE shorts. Also wedges. Honey rose bracelet. unknown necklace. Ray Ban Wayfarers.

Welcome Home

No, not to my home, it’s the title of the shot. This is another shot from our recent road trip. One of the not so good things about shooting in areas not close to your home base is that you’re there when you’re there. We were at Westover Plantation somewhere around noon, on a bright sunny, cloudless day. It wasn’t like we could stand around for five or ten minutes for a cloud to drift by and flatten out the lighting a bit. The answer was what I was doing all during this particular vacation. Almost every “shot” taken during the trip was auto-bracketed by one stop. I sure it’s easy on a Canon, Sony or Olympus DSLR, but on a higher end Nikon it’s ridiculously simple. In the menus I’ve set the Function Button on the front lower right hand side of the camera to bracket Auto Exposure (AE) only. Once that’s done it’s just a matter of holding down the button and turning the Main Command Dial. As a “norm” I used a three step bracket at one step increments. That typically gave me exposures at -1.3, -.3, and +.6. My “normal” Exposure Value (EV) is set to -.3 to get richer shots in general. That’s an easy recommendation for getting “better” shots in general. There are two reasons for doing a plus and minus one stop bracket. I usually have the camera set to high speed sequence on the shutter. The first reason to shoot a three stop bracket is to have a selection of exposures to choose from. Most of the time, if you’re shooting a landscape or informal portrait, the land isn't going to move and the subject of the portrait isn’t going to change expressions too much when you’re shooting at daylight speeds. The second reason is that it will give you a basis for a soft HDR. You won’t be able to get the wild swings you can get with a two or three stop bracket, but you will have something to work with. To find out what twist of techinque was applied to today’s image, hit the “read more”.
The biggest “out of the ordinary” thing that was done to today’s image involves the absolute final step in the processing. It was putting the vignette on the image that became a bit of a struggle. The lower right corner of the image was bright. I mean bright bright. The brightest part of the entire image. Typically putting a vignette around an image darkens the corners and holds the viewer into the subject of the image. That worked on three of the four corners, but did almost nothing for that darn lower right corner. The vignette is on its own Layer, so it is controllable. I added a second vignette Layer (CTRL J) and a third, a fourth, a fifth and finally a sixth. That’s a lot of vignette in anybody’s book. By the time I got to the sixth Layer the offending corner was tamed. The rest of the corners were totally gone, with no detail for the last three iterations. In order to balance the vignette I Merged vignettes two through six and added a Black Layer Mask (ALT + New Layer Mask icon). The only thing left was to get a big, soft white brush and make a quick, broad swipe across the corner. It balanced the corner fairly well. It’s still bright, but not offensively bright. All that concentration on a corner where I was trying to reduce the viewer’s attention. Sometimes it’s not the main subject that needs the work.

one step at a time

I've been having a lot of shoe trouble lately. The wedges that I debuted last Monday had to be returned because they ripped within 10 minutes of me wearing them, then a pair of Michael Kors wedges that I bought yesterday were too slippery to walk in, so I returned those also. Today I bought the wedges I'm wearing in these pictures. It's incredibly hard to find a comfy, well made and pretty pair of wedges, but I think that these will last...hopefully, fingers crossed. I'm so tired of returning shoes.

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So G20 craziness going on here in Toronto. Watching the news right now, and it's crazy. At least the police are taking some action today, yesterday was a major fail. They didn't do anything. Six police cars were torched and no police appeared to do anything until it was too late. Downtown Toronto looks so sad. Watched a video of an American Apparel getting it's windows broken, so sad. :( I feel horrible for all the people whose property has been destroyed.

H&M top. Gina Castro necklace and earrings. Marciano skirt. Aldo wedges. Juicy Couture bracelet. Rings are gifts.

pull on my neon heartstrings

I've had a small problem for a long time: I own a lot of skirts that are too short to be worn without tights, and even with tights, you can't exactly bend over and it's uncomfortable to sit down. Problem solved: American Apparel neon bike shorts. They are incredible and add an awesome pop of colour into my outfits. I want to get a pair of neon green and yellow ones still. I could wear them everyday.
























American Apparel bike shorts. Head tennis skirt. vintage tunic. pearl cross necklace gift. pepper necklace and Colosseum ring from Aldo. unknown green belt. Ray Ban Wayfarers.