Please join us for the OPENING OF IMAGES 2017 Thursday, March 9th 6pm Fairfield Museum and History Center

Please join us for the OPENING OF IMAGES 2017 Thursday, March 9th 6pm Fairfield Museum and History Center

Two of my (Lisa) photographs were selected to be in the 2017 Images Exhibition

Please join us on March 9th for the opening of the exhibit

OPENING OF IMAGES 2017

Thursday, March 9th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Fairfield Museum and History Center

370 Beach Rd, Fairfield, CT 

A jury selected ~50 photographs for exhibition in the IMAGES 2017 show, on display at the Fairfield Museum from March 9 to April 30, 2017. Fairfield Museum • 370 Beach Road • Fairfield, CT 06824 • 203‑259‑1598 

The Fairfield Museum invited professional, serious amateur, and student photographers from Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts to participate. The 9th Annual IMAGES 2017 Juried Photography Show provides an excellent opportunity for artists to connect with prominent collectors, gallery owners, fellow photographers, and the public.

Two photographs by Connecticut photographer Lisa Cuchara will be on display at the Fairfield Museum IMAGES exhibition.

If you are not subscribed to our Blog, then please join our email list to find out more about photo classes, tours, workshops, photo ops, gear, etc.  http://eepurl.com/b9P2IH

and check out our galleries here: LisaandTomphotography.com

Broken hearted over Abstracts

Hello fellow photographers! Lisa and Tom Cuchara here of LisaandTomphotography.com. We hope that you can join us on an upcoming photography class, tour or workshop.

I often see faces and other common objects (something referred to as pareidolia, it is an ancestral part of our brain that likely kept us alive back in the cave days).

When I am out photographing, regardless of the subject matter, I often take close-ups and abstracts, reflections, shadows, and yes even dried mud.  Sometimes the texture or the abstract is used with Blend modes in photoshop, other times the abstract becomes a photograph in and of itself.

See that rust in the car door?
it's a face...

See that peeling paint?
it's a texture

See that mud?
It’s a broken heart

We were recently in Nevada teaching a workshop and we drove over to Death Valley one day. The sand and dunes and clouds at the Mesquite Dunes were great, but I was also drawn to the abstracts. I saw these areas of dried mud and starting creating all sort of abstracts to be used in future post-processing creations, but when I "chimped" after taking this image (looking at back of the camera and the histogram) after snapping this particular picture I stopped right in my tracks as the broken heart beckoned me back to it. I took a dozen or so different compositions but the one below was my favorite. I enhanced it slightly in Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) by using the brush and darkening the heart portion selectively. There is so much that you can do in ACR to make your images POP that one does not always have to even open the image into Photoshop to enhance it at all.

"Broken hearted"

If you are not subscribed to our Blog, then please join our email list to find out more about photo classes, tours, workshops, photo ops, gear, etc.  http://eepurl.com/b9P2IH

and check out our galleries here: LisaandTomphotography.com

Please join us for the OPENING OF IMAGES 2017 Thursday, March 9th 6pm Fairfield Museum and History Center

Please join us for the OPENING OF IMAGES 2017 Thursday, March 9th 6pm Fairfield Museum and History Center

Two of my (Lisa) photographs were selected to be in the 2017 Images Exhibition

Please join us on March 9th for the opening of the exhibit

OPENING OF IMAGES 2017

Thursday, March 9th from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Fairfield Museum and History Center

370 Beach Rd, Fairfield, CT 

A jury selected ~50 photographs for exhibition in the IMAGES 2017 show, on display at the Fairfield Museum from March 9 to April 30, 2017. Fairfield Museum • 370 Beach Road • Fairfield, CT 06824 • 203‑259‑1598 

The Fairfield Museum invited professional, serious amateur, and student photographers from Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts to participate. The 9th Annual IMAGES 2017 Juried Photography Show provides an excellent opportunity for artists to connect with prominent collectors, gallery owners, fellow photographers, and the public.

Two photographs by Connecticut photographer Lisa Cuchara will be on display at the Fairfield Museum IMAGES exhibition.

If you are not subscribed to our Blog, then please join our email list to find out more about photo classes, tours, workshops, photo ops, gear, etc.  http://eepurl.com/b9P2IH

and check out our galleries here: LisaandTomphotography.com

Both Lisa and Tom win awards at the CTPPA print competition

Hello fellow photographers! Lisa and Tom Cuchara here of LisaandTomphotography.com. We hope that you can join us on an upcoming photography class, tour or workshop.

photography by Connecticut photographer Lisa Cuchara www.lisaandtomphotography.com

Both Lisa and Tom both won awards at Monday's CTPPA print competition

My photograph of this Green Heron won BEST in SHOW in the Open category.

Tom's photograph of these Wild Donkeys won Second place in the Open category.

Tom's photograph of these Wild horses won BEST IN SHOW in the Creative/ART EI category. 

His image was actually tied with my image below and the judges chose his image for BEST and my image for First place. 

My photograph of this Swallowtail Caterpillar won First Place in the Creative/ART EI category. 

The Connecticut Professional Photographers Association (CTPPA) is the professional photography association in the state of Connecticut. They are a PPA (Professional Photographers of America) affiliate. You can check out their website, come to a meting or event, atned their annual convention of attend their FREE convention day, speakers and trade show.

Our Vendor Fair will be held on Sunday March 19, 2017 from 11:30am to 3pm at the Courtyard Marriott Cromwell, CT.  This is held in conjunction with our FREE day!  All Photographers are invited to attend and sit in on the seminars featuring Lyndsay Adler (Sponsored by Canon), Kira Derryberry and Dylan Patrick.  Join us at the end of the night for our cocktail reception and awards recognition night.

We are so excited to welcome back to our association, Hunts Photo&Video and Gary Farber. Gary and his team have re-joined CTPPA as a Vendor Member and will be participating in our Vendor Fair on March 19, 2017 at the 68th Annual Convention.

If you are not subscribed to our Blog, then please join our email list to find out more about photo classes, tours, workshops, photo ops, gear, etc.  http://eepurl.com/b9P2IH

and check out our galleries here: LisaandTomphotography.com

Fun with Blend modes

Hello fellow photographers! Lisa and Tom Cuchara here of LisaandTomphotography.com. We hope that you can join us on an upcoming photography class, tour or workshop.

For this image I just set my camera to "S" for STUN and had a lot of fun. Just kidding, none of my cameras have an "S" mode, but read on (and come to our workshops) and we will teach you how to access this "stun" mode :-)

In fact, Blend modes are one of my most popular subjects for both programs and hands-on workshops. When learning photoshop you first need to learn the basic tools, then learn layers and masks (the heart and soul of Photoshop) and then blend modes which are kind of like "the spices".

I had a lot of fun creating this image. We were at a restaurant in Death Valley in January for one of our recent workshops and I took some photographs of the restaurant entrance while waiting for people using the bathrooms. I adjusted my camera for some negative compensation to emphasize the outlining of the cowboys. I liked this particular cowboy best. This image exemplifies how you never know where you will see something that strikes your fancy...

This was an intermediate version created along the way, I like it was well since it is simpler, but the above image "won" for me because it looked more like a flower. 

During post-processing I first created a mirror image and then changed the blend mode until I found one that was pleasing and repeated those steps a few more times, ending up with this abstract image.

If you are not subscribed to our Blog, then please join our email list to find out more about photo classes, tours, workshops, photo ops, gear, etc.  http://eepurl.com/b9P2IH

and check out our galleries here: LisaandTomphotography.com