Broken Glass Portraits

I did a photo shoot the other day with one of my good friends, Teresa. These photos that I posted are just a few of the 40 or so total. She was sooo easy and fun to shoot and we worked really well together so I look forward to more shoots with her!
Anyways, the concept for this shoot was a play on light and texture, so I applied broken pieces of glass on the side of her face (using Vaseline!) and had her pose in front of a window. The natural light reflected off of the glass pieces so perfectly; I was very happy with the outcome.
On Photoshop, I had to do very little editing because I wanted to keep everything as natural-looking as possible. All I did was adjust/perfect the contrast and lighting, and then as a cool effect I added a light "Underwater" filter on all the photos. This filter adds a turquoise-ish tint to the photos, and when applied intensely enough, it's meant to look like the picture is under water (thus the name, ha). My reasoning behind changing the tint (because usually, we try to REMOVE any unnatural colour from photographs, right?) is because I love working with contrasts and complimentary colours, and turquoise was the perfect compliment to the pinkish highlights that were on Teresa's face due to the sunlight. If you look closely, you can notice the pink tones as well as the turquoise highlights on the glass and in her hair, especially.
As for the more technical details... I use a Canon TSi Rebel, and I put it on the Portrait setting. Due to the lower lighting conditions, the flash automatically kept popping up, and since the camera was on an automatic setting, I couldn't take the photo without the flash being up so I just held my hand over the flash (crafty, eh?). I tend to do this a lot, because I absolutely love the Portrait setting (it boosts the colours and focuses perfectly on the foreground, aka a person's face), but I hate it when it automatically makes the flash go up when there's not enough light. Whatever, I deal with it.
Time of photo shoot was approximately 12:30 p.m., with blue skies and bright sun outside.

Ma glittery shoes make me feel like Dorothy

I bought these awesome shoes from Aldo, on sale (woohoo!). I really like them because they go with so many outfits. Anyways, I wore them today and I noticed how extra sparkly they looked in the sunlight, so I snapped a picture and voila--here it is!

New mug = I'm making myself more tea

I went to Urban Outfitters yesterday (love that store!) and I bought a couple of things for my dorm room, including an amazing, giant porcelain mug with vintage Alica in Wonderland drawings on it (I'm a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, just for the record). I therefore mad myself a nice, frothy cup of tea with milk this morning and thoroughly enjoyed drinking it.

I am my own guinea pig

So I'm doing a photo shoot with a friend tomorrow and I have this idea to use broken glass and arrange it on her face somehow, either around the eyes or on her lips. Like the typical dedicated artist, I decided to test it out on myself, and here's the end result. What's that shiny stuff on my lips, you ask? Nail polish! Note to self & everyone else out there: DO NOT paint nail polish on your lips. It burns. And taking it off with nail polish remover is even worse.
However, for the sake of art, it was worth it. Otherwise, don't do it. It's pretty dangerous, I assume, to inhale those chemicals, no? Eh. That's art for you!

Fall and warm colours

I saw my shadow and I liked what I saw. I wish that the opposite of what happens when the groundhog sees its shadow happened to humans; therefore, since I saw my shadow, we would have three more weeks of summer. Oh well.