Developer and Photographer | Amber Wilkie

A few simple portraits

My poor beleaguered husband.  Imagine, for a moment, you are the spouse of a photographer.  And you have no kids.  Can you imagine the inordinate amount of time my husband has to spend in front of my camera because I want to "test something out"?  Back in the day, this could take hours.  I've gotten a lot faster at "testing" and he gets off a lot easier than when we were dating (but then again, we were dating) but he still ends up in front of the camera fairly often.  "Oh god the light is so good here," I might say, already reaching into the bag for the camera.  He'll sigh and give me that "yeah yeah go ahead" look.  Most of my photos of him feature said look. But every now and then I get a genuine smile.  Truth is, it's easier to make George smile than my couples - I know all his flaws and things and can exploit them mercilessly. And sometimes he's not expecting it. And though I have to remind him sometimes that he needs to put the "little black square" on my face and even so, there are major focus issues (yes, George, major focus issues!) he can still manage to make some very nice compositions.  You know, when I force the camera in his hands and say "make me a new 'about me' image." This one I love.  Who knew George had a knack for "moments"? And, finally, some fun and how I can't tell the difference between two ridiculously different colors.  Soooo about my jacket.  See up there how it's red?  That's the color it is.  But when I was in the H&M getting excited about it, I was completely sure that it was "Amber Wilkie Photography" orange.  I even tweeted about it!  It wasn't until the next day when I looked at the jacket in the bag that I realized "well hey, this jacket looks really red."  No, no, I thought, it's just this lighting.  But after careful photographic analysis, I have to conclude that the jacket is, indeed, very much red and I am ridiculous. But then in comes the magic of Photoshop!  One red-orange hue slider, a copy of the layer and a mask to bring back the red in my face and glasses and voila! It's an orange jacket!  (PS: Isn't it weird having two of me staring at you?  We know things...) And for those of you interested in the whole photography thing from a technical standpoint vs. just looking at nice pictures - these were shot at the edge of an overpass.  There is bright, bright sunlight hitting white pavement right in front of me and George, just out of camera.  Sun is camera left, but I'm standing in the shade of the overpass.  Yeah, boy, natural reflectors!