Welcome to Week 14 of Selfie Saturday.

If you’re new here, read what this is all about.
If you missed last 6 weeks of challenges and tutorials, here is what we learned:

Week 2: Basic Full Body Shot
Week 3: Couple’s Selfies
Week 4: Arm’s Length Selfie
Week 5: Conceptual Selfies
Week 6: Me Myself and I: Multiplicity
Week 7: Portrait Selfie + Squinty Model Eyes
Week 8: Self-Love
Week 9: Focus
Week 10: My friend, the FAN
Week 11: Magic Tricks
Week 12: Jump Shots
Week 13: Family Portrait

This week’s theme is

Collaborations.

NOTE: This theme has been extended for an additional week, so you have until May 21st to find a partner and execute the shot, one week for each.

It’s one of the most amazing parts of social networking and blogging: to create something together, to merge two ideas with a person who is miles and miles away

I’ve done just a few collaborations with some of the friends on Flickr and it’s been great experience. So I’d love for you guys to participate this week, as well.

So the assignment is to pick an Internet buddy and do a collaboration together. It can be anything – the only condition is it has to be an Internet collaboration. We all have our favorite bloggers, so get them to join up with you. Most of the time one of the partners has to have some photoshop skills, so pick accordingly.

For the ease of collabing, if you’d like to participate, write a comment to this post with your blog link and whether you can use photoshop, so that people in need of partners could contact you.

Here are a few tips and examples that I can provide:

1.Your collaborations can be as simple as a diptych put together to tell a story or evoke a feeling or you can use your mad Photoshopping skills to make it look like you both were really there.

2.The easiest way to make it look like you’re really together in one image, try going for a white wall and set the time of the day when you both take a shot, so that the light was similar. Make sure that you both shoot in teh shade, or in front of the window, when it’s overcast, or sunny. The main goal is to get similar lighting when you’re going for a white wall.

The image  below was a collaboration with Iva from Bulgaria. I met her on Flickr, as a fellow self-portrait artist. A collab was begging to happen. We decided to take a photo by the white wall at a certain time of the day, pretending like we’re trying to kiss each other.

3. Mirrors and reflections allow for an easier blending of the two images.

This collab was done with my Bestie who lives in Italy. She had just bought a 5d Mark II and a collab was a must, especially considering how much we missed each other.

4. If you can’t find a white wall, you can always shoot somewhere outdoors and  and hope the leaves and trees will mask the imperfections of the blending.

5. Make sure you plan ahead and know what each one of you is doing. Don’t try to wing it.

The image below was a collab with another Flickr friend of mine from Australia. It didn’t work out so well, because of focus being a bit off, but I think the idea was fun.

And finally, my pride and joy: an image that most people never believe was a collab, done 1000 miles away with a girl from Connecticut.

We planned out every little details: the little shorts we were wearing, the white tank tops, the knee high socks ( and I forgot to wear them, dang!), the jump and the facial expressions. We even made sure that we shoot on grass so that I could blend them with ease without noticeable lines. It worked out perfectly.

So TIP 6: Use common backgrounds. Everyone has access to grass, trees, bodies of water, similar looking stores. Find anything that would look similar and use it as a background for both shots.

For more examples, check out Flickr Collab Group

So pick out your favorite photo blogger, and collaborate – I guarantee it will be fun for everyone!

Don’t forget to comment below with you info, if you need a collab partner.

Let’s go!

So let’s me tell you girls! This week was a bitch!

It’s hard enough to get hubby all dressed up and coaxed into taking pictures ( and mine is pretty good about it), but I didn’t realized how difficult  it would be to get all the kittens in place and behaving.
I thought it’d take a few treats and they wouldn’t be looking at the camera, but I never imagined that they would literally scratch and run and mew the whole way through.
I had thought Travis ( the skinny black one) would be the easier one to handle, but he turned out to be a nightmare. I couldn’t keep him still for longer than one shot and then he’d run away and hide under the bed (poor boy).
Jake( grey fluffy one) behaved amazingly well and just hung around us at all times, super relaxed.
Casper was only there if there were treats present (or the possibility of them), pretty obvious what he likes by his weight.

So let’s just say the shoot was a huge failure. When I wasn’t busy holding cats to make sure they don’t run, I was triggering the shutter ( forget about delay, I had to set it on instant), or paying attention to my pose/face ( which was the last priority as evidenced by the majority of the pictures).

So here are the best shots and the tips:

This is the type of image I had in my head. Expect for I didn’t think we’d have to have an iron grip on our black kitties.  The plan was to have then sitting calmly on our lap. No such luck! Knowing it would be hard to manage three cats, I made sure to shoot Jakey first and then clone him in. Disclaimer: Hubby looks super goofy here, because honestly we were laughing our butts off trying to pull this off. This is THE ONLY shot that worked, so whether he likes it or not, I am using it.

TIP 1:
Don’t expect to get a perfect shot. Feel free to rely on cloning to make group/family shots possible and easy

TIP 2: If photographing pets, have someone stand behind the camera and make weird noise to get the pet to look up. The weird pet noise was my husband and Jake was hypnotized. It was hilarious!

Since cats were being impossible and I loved the colors and the lighting of this area, I took an additional photo with just the two of us (not trying to hold onto our cats for dear life).

So then we decided to move onto the bed to see if that would work better and be a bit less formal. I think we got a few ok shots there.

TIP 3: Use treats when it comes to cats, dogs and little kids as a way of getting them to stay where you want them to stay

We really didn’t have much time to pose with all the commotion. So these two were the only actual poses we managed to do.

A few more shots:

And finally the outtakes:
You can clearly see what Jackey thinks about this whole photography deal!
Oh and check out how freaked out Travis was ahahaaaaaa!

So let’s see your masterpieces!

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WARNING – A LOT OF PHOTO EXAMPLES!

{Not all photos in this post are self portraits. Those that were taken by a person rather than a remote and tripod have a little {NS}Non-Selfie note above the photo

You know I might be known as a queen of cloning in some circles, but I am more known as a queen of jumps.

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Jumps for me is a way to spice up boring “Here’s me” pictures, to add some fun and excitement.

I won’t bore you with ALL my jump pictures, since there are literally hundreds of them, but I would like to show a few particular ones.

Really there’s not much to a jump. It’s 1,2,3 JUMP and you’re done.

However, when you’re shooting a self-portrait it’s a lot trickier with the timer or a remote.

The key to any jump is to either jump really high,

 or in a graceful and/or fun shape while keeping your face from grimacing ( believe me it’s harder than you think).

To give an illusion of a high jump, bend your legs at your knees as much as possible and turn slightly sideways when jumping to make the pose more attractive (see 2nd picture below).

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Or position the camera slightly below you:

Or run and jump into frame but that’s a lot trickier so you end up being cut off.
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There’s also a floating type of jump, though I don’t think it’s very impressive unless you add something of interest to it (like clones).

And the flying type which is the toughest to produce but I love it the most:
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If you manage to actually strike a nice pose while in the air, that’s really impressive
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Attempt to be composed when you’re jumping. I love seeing first time jumpers, because their face is like “OMG, I’m in the air… I can’t believe I’m doing this… I’m so out of control..aaaaa!”

The easiest way to keep your face from looking like this…
{Helooon, I hope you forgive me for using this picture, but it’s too hilarious and makes SUCH a good point! You know I love you more than anything!}
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is to either open your mouth and scream,
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stick out your tongue

or have a wide wide grin
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(notice the superhero jump pose on the guy! Love it!)

Only with time you will learn to keep your face completely neutral or serious.
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Attempt a few jumping poses and then see which one is the most flattering and adopt that for most of your jumps. Until of course you get bored with it. Though at this point it’s so ingrained into my head, that I can’t help it but jump the same way in every photo unless I specifically remember to change the pose.

Don’t forget to use your arms- they enhance the image and help you jump higher.

Now jumping to the timer/remote.
This one is a bit tricky. Let’s assume your remote is set for 10 second delay, so is the timer if you’re using the built in one.
You trigger the shutter button and try to get used to the beeps. Remember, you have to be in the air when the camera goes off. So you’ll have to jump somewhere after the camera starts going “beeeeepbeeeepbeeeep” really fast. It’ll take a few tries to get the timing, but soon you will know when you need to jump to be in the air when the “click” finally sounds off.

You can also try using the instant release on your remote but that will mean that you have to have your remote pointing at the camera as you jump – not very cool.

It’s even better when jumps occur in a group. All those jump styles mashed together, people laughing- it’s just a fun time. Kids, especially love doing jump shots, so don’t be afraid to enlist your family members, if you’d like.

I even got my mom to jump…

and not once.
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And my mother in law:

If it’s a group shot, instruct everyone to BE IN THE AIR on the 3. So it’s not “1,2,3, JUMP” like most people would assume. It’s 1,2, JUMP while saying 3 {at the same time}. The reason for that is everyone has different jumping speeds. If you say 3, I will be in the air within a millisecond, while some other person might take another second to propel themselves into the air. By making everyone be in the air on 3, they can adjust when they have to jump based on their own speed. So that way most jumps start midway between 2 and 3, with everyone being in a perfect high jump on 3. Thank God for our intricate brains that can interpret intervals with such an ease.
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Well, not all of our brains…
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Make sure you know exactly what’s behind you because you might inadvertently end up giving birth to a grown woman in a bathing suit out of your va-jay-jay.
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Silhouette jumps and sunset jumps tend to be very dramatic.
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I even jumped in my wedding dress once:
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Just be careful. I almost hurt my back on this one, jumped way too high:

Sometimes you need to have a different perspective to make the shot interesting:

Honestly, I’ve taken jump photos virtually anywhere

On Christmas while the fake snow is falling:

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In Epcot’s France:

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On virtually every vacation…. honestly there’s no limit to jumps.

And your kids will love it too and repeat exactly what you’re doing only look better while doing it:

And finally, if you can do this while taking a selfie, then I will take of my jump queen crown and mail it to you.

Oh wow, that was one hell of a post! I am so tired of uploading photos that at this point I don’t care if I am making any sense and I simply don’t have the time to proof read it. Hopefully you read between the lines and mistakes and forgive me this one time.

OBVIOUSLY this week we’re all taking a fun jumping photo! YAY! Easy and fun!

Make it interesting, girls!

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If you remember, I had to extend the Magic Week, one of the reason for it being the fact that a lot of people, including myself, needed extra time.

My ideas were very ambitious and required total darkness, but I have to say when it came to execution, I sort of failed.

So here’s what I have. I’m fine with it, but I was hoping for something more.

WARNING: A bit gruesome.

 

And now, not really a magic trick, but still …

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