Erin Cobb

I am very sorry for neglecting my blog lately. I have been so busy with Karen Russell's photographers workshop. It originally was supposed to run from 9th January to the 1st April . But we are still going !! Karen's husband retuned from duty in Afghanistan so we ended up having two midway breaks.

I decided to retake the workshop when I heard the super talented photographer Erin Cobb was going to join us for the last week to talk about editing. I have her Clean Colour video and use a lot of her editing tips.

This class has been a lot quieter in some ways to the one I took in 2010. I don’t think I have really learnt anything new in the photography department. But as I am asking Erin lots of questions I have learnt lots of things from her. Our photo taking views are very similar. She keeps things very simple in her editing and photo taking. She’s like me in that she prefers to shoot Jpegs, in natural light only. A lot of photographers shoot in RAW, so that they can manipulate things in editing. Erin like me, likes to get it right in camera and not use the cheats way. She uses her camera skills, not her computer knowledge to take great photos. She’s also like me, in that she knows her area of expertise and doesn’t pretend to be a do it all photographer. Or use fancy bought actions to stylise her photos. Like this comical over edit !!

The one thing retaking the class has made me notice, is how far my photography skills have come on. I have been able to answer peoples questions  and give them tips of my own. The comments have been amazing that I received from fellow students on my photo assignments and on our Facebook page. and it’s been great to get feedback from people who realise that it’s not because I have a “great camera” but that they realise the hard work that went into each and every shot.

“Wow, thanks for sharing these Karen!” (from Karen Russell )

“Karen i can honestly say you make me sick LOL Your work is awesome! You can really tell you put effort into it.”

“Great shot Karen I want to live where you live. It is so beautiful there!!!!”

“WOW!!!”

But the icing on the cake has been all the amazing feedback Erin Cobb has given me on my portraits and editing.

“KAREN ALDRIN - Gorgeous shot! Wow....I'm impressed.”

“KAREN - That edited shot looks awesome! I think it's beautiful how you kept that nice golden glow to her skin but were able to keep it from going orange-y. Great job! ”

“First of all, Karen gave you some really great advice regarding skin softening and skin retouching. “

“Oh what a GORGEOUS image! I'm so impressed!”

“I don't find that last shot so "atomic" as you described it, but it's definitely warmer than the others. Her skin might need a little midtones boost but other than that I think it's a great shot!”

I wrote a post on the forum about scrapbooking and me and Karen Russell ended up posting lots of our past work. It was a scrapbookers fest.

“Love all of these! Such great designs! thanks for sharing both Karen A and Karen R!!!”

Well. I had better stop there or my head won’t fit out the scraproom door !