Baking with Actions…

This last week I made a discovery which has kept me entertained for hours (and taught me quite a bit too ).The timing of this discovery is perfect as it makes for a quick, follow-on post to last week’s one on actions. If you liked the idea of actions, and want to get some, but are feeling a bit lost as to where to find some good ones, I would recommend getting yourself some Totally Rad Actions (TRAs) from http://www.gettotallyrad.com .They are not free, but if you have some cash to spare they are great to work with and you will get your money’s worth out of them.

I have been using a couple of these actions for a while now, but only recently discovered the page on the TRA website called “Recipes” (http://gettotallyrad.com/recipes/). This is a page where photographers can upload images they have edited using a mixture of different  TRAs along with the original photo, the edited photo and the recipe for how they got this effect. I have really enjoyed this, not necessarily because I want to be able to replicate the exact effects, but because following the recipes is a great way to learn your actions, what they can do and what other actions they mix well with. I was lucky enough to have someone sit with me and teach me how to use actions, but if you are unfamiliar with them then following recipes would be a great way to get comfortable with actions and learn how to tweak and change them to suit your own tastes and style.

Whilst playing about with these recipes, I ended up looking through some old photos, trying to find images that would work well with the different effects, and I found a shoot I did last year with my baby cousin Sophia. She was in CT on holiday, and we decided on the spur of the moment to head out and have some fun taking pictures one afternoon. This was my first portrait shoot and Sophi is still to date the best “subject” I have ever worked with. She is natural and comfortable in front of a camera and completely gorgeous. It’s amazing how much fun you can have on a shoot when you are with someone who is not afraid of looking silly. The shoot was never posted online though, and so when I found the pictures, I decided to re-edit them using some of my own TRA recipes, here are a few of the pics….