Tackle It on Tuesday: Civil War Women's Clothing

Last week, I had a deadline for myself to finish sewing some Civil War underclothes for a friend of mine. Almost came right down to the wire, but here is the finished chemise:

Civil War Woman Chemise

Looks kind of like a nightgown doesn't it? The chemise, along with a pair of drawers, would be just the first layer that a woman would where during the Civil War time period. Women would also wear a corset, layers of petticoats, maybe a hoop skirt, her dress, an apron, and a bonnet or hat. There were a lot of layers! To read a bit more about clothing during this time period, here is a good article that covers some of the basics.

So this last weekend, our family went to one of my favorite locations out here in California for a Civil War Reenactment. This event takes place every spring in Mariposa, which is just about an hour west of Yosmite. The location is a dream location for a photographer because it is very rural, not a lot of modern items to get in the way. And of course I took a lot of pictures...

Just a few photos to edit in Lightroom

...about 300 or so. Which means I need to spend some time this week doing a bit of editing. And I just found something on Pinterest which might just help me work through these photos a little quicker. Next week, I will share a couple of my favorites from the weekend with you.

Are you working on anything special this week?

Just a Swingin’ – The Edit

So last week, I posted some photos of my daughter, Kelsey, that I took at my photography class. I encouraged my readers to look through the unedited version of the photos and pick their favorite. And the winner was, this one:

13_Feb_swing before editing_009_edit

Here are the settings from the original photo: ISO 400, 200mm, f/5.6, 1/160 sec

Then I pulled the photo into Lightroom 4 (which I am loving by the way!) and did a little bit of editing:

image

In addition to these settings, I also did a skin softening on her face and a post-crop vignetting in the amount of –24. Now I am still learning the edit part of photos, because I really never thought it was necessary. Since taking these couple of classes, I am now able to see that even just a little bit of editing can make a big difference in my photos.

So again, here is the before:

13_Feb_swing before editing_009_edit

And here is the after:

13_Feb_swing_001_edit

Now if someone had moved her hair away from across her eyes, that would have been helpful! But I am not by any means at expert at Photoshop Elements yet, so I am not even going to attempt to edit those away!

So what do you think? Does it help to see the screenshot of what I did in Lightroom?

Just A Swingin’

It is much too beautiful of a pre-spring day here in California to stay cooped up in the house writing a blog post today. So today, I am going to share with you some pictures I took yesterday at my photography class. Kelsey came along with me since we were meeting the guys later, so she ended up becoming one of the subjects. Our project was to try to photograph her in our instructor’s backyard in the late afternoon while she was swinging on the swing. The pictures I am going to post today are straight out of the camera, no editing! I have to warn you, this is going to be a photo heavy post! But be sure to pay attention, because this is going to be a reader participation post! Be on the look out for your favorite…

Here are the photos I took yesterday:

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13_Feb_swing before editing_001_edit

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13_Feb_swing before editing_004_edit

13_Feb_swing before editing_005_edit

13_Feb_swing before editing_006_edit

13_Feb_swing before editing_007_edit

13_Feb_swing before editing_008_edit

13_Feb_swing before editing_009_edit

Did you find a favorite?

Great! Tell me which picture is your favorite (just count down from the top picture and give me which number it is in the comments) and next week, what ever picture gets the most votes, I will post the before and after photo and tell you what I end up doing in Lightroom to get the after picture (which I will edit before next week!) Sound like a deal?

What will you be photographing this weekend?