Rite of Spring

Rite of Spring, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This image was taken with a large format cadet camera; I scanned the 4x5 negative into Photoshop and did dodging & burning in Lightroom 3.

The Vogue

The Vogue, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This has been, and will always be, my most favorite theatre. I have another large photo of the Vogue taken several years ago hanging on my wall. The Vogue Theatre is located in downtown Manistee, MI.

New Geekery: Bottlecap Magnets!

Happy Saturday!

We've got fun fresh geekery for sale on Etsy!

Hopefully you've seen some of our upcycled tumblers made from glass bottles--if you haven't yet, view them Here--but what to do with the rest of the bottle? And what about all of those caps?! I sat down one evening with hundreds of bottle caps and got to work on the "tiny treasures" section of RedRocket Studios on Etsy by making these nifty magnets:

The "Go Green" set features abstracted images of bicycles, numbers, letters & neon green patterns.

Critter Caps for Cat People! 

The "Go Green" set 

Critter Caps for Dog Lovers!

"Get Fresh" magnets feature bright colors, fresh fruit & a parrot!

Show your love for summer blues, whites & patterns

or aquamarine with these graphic sets!

 This purple palette is lighthearted and sweet.

Each set has 6 upcycled bottle cap magnets with a raised, glossy (shiny!) coating. Pick your favorite set for $3.00! Available Here while supplies last!

We've been featured!

Hey folks! We've been featured by fellow Etsy enthusiast and blogger Jolene! She shares her love for our rad guitar slides , the current best-seller & most-favorited item! 

J.Edward's got a short demo video in the works about how to begin using these funky items!

Our new Faygo slides come in Grape & Orange flavors!

The traditional slide comes in varying shades of brown & sounds great!

And here he is, the most popular slide produced by RedRocket Studios! The Rolling Rock slide available HERE. 

Enjoy!

Kinesis

Kinesis, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

Went for a walk yesterday down to the Huron River, and as a luck would have it a train was passing by! Enjoy the motion!

Silent Cinema

Silent Cinema, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This is my favorite image from yesterday's shoot; the play of light and depth of field really helped this image stand out when converted to black and white. Enjoy!

Lobster

Lobster, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

Lovely sunshine pouring into the studio this afternoon! Took a break to create a few images--several new images uploaded to Flickr today! Take a peek!

Chase the Horizon

Chase the Horizon, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This was taken a few weeks ago on a trip back home to Onekama, MI; the ice was spread out from the shoreline past the pier heads. All was quiet, fresh, waiting. J Edward made is way over the icy horizon for a look at the sublime Lake Michigan, resting yet readying to break apart the ice with Spring's first thaw.

More images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/cbromley

Still Moving

Still Moving, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

One of the great things about the Ann Arbor area: all of the parks & nature areas accessible year round. Lovely!

Third Refrain, Lively

Third Refrain, Lively, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

Late winter in Onekama, MI; it was a beautiful, calm, crisp sunny day at Portage Point Beach.

1/640 at F8; 41mm (EF28-90) Canon EOS Rebel T1i

Playing with Watercolor

Yesterday I had a lovely hour in the afternoon where I finally sat down with my watercolors and dabbled a bit here and there while listening to Mel Torme & Dean Martin (thanks Pandora!); very relaxing, I highly recommend it. Here's one of the little guys I painted:

Your turn!

Thinking Out Loud: Brown Bottles

Of all the items that found their way to the Etsy site, I love the pieces from the upcycled brown bottles. What's more, I love the simplicity of the images & the color palette; they'd make an excellent gift set. I'm thinking I might package these into one set like I did the with the green Rolling Rock bottles---maybe a new listing for the weekend? 

Currently these tumblers are listed for $8.00 for a set of two. 

Left plain I really like the way the light creates the rich, warm tones--particularly in this image. I'd like to try and hand-paint a set as well, but what to paint? I'm leaning towards simple stenciling, perhaps with town names around Lake Michigan. 

This guitar slide is the mastermind of J.Edward; guitarist & blues enthusiast. I'll admit, blues isn't exactly my cup of tea (speaking of, what a great idea, earl grey perhaps?) but these little items have turned out to be quite the commodity and I've actually had a lot of fun photographing them. Several styles are now available, a full listing is available Here. 

Time to get crafting, have a wondrous Wednesday!

Afternoon

"Afternoon" original stop-motion animation by C.Bromley (that's me!) with music by Explosions in the Sky.

Hundreds of still photos make up this melancholic short video.

For more check out http://www.youtube.com/user/bromleychelsea

Have you met RedRocket Studios (RRSmi) ?

Handcrafted pieces & upcycled wares can be found by visiting the RedRocket Studios shop on Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/RedRocketStudios

Check out our fantastic & fresh item: Upcycled Wildflower Vases!

RRSmi is also new to blogger; I'm quite excited to start posting more behind-the-scenes images & anecdotes about getting the studio up off the ground---check back soon for more updates!

RRSmi is also on Twitter and Facebook! 

#009/365

"A Watched Pancake Never Flips"
John helped me make breakfast on Sunday, and here in this photo he waits impatiently for the pancakes to cook. I desaturated this image a bit---okay, a lot---in an attempt to play around with some basic adjustments in post. It's quite a busy composition, I'm thinking if the background were cleaner the image would be stronger, but I like it as a snapshot---this is any given Sunday in the B-Y apartment, captured.

#008/365

"Saturday Morning Breakfast" ; I made John & I farm-fresh eggs poached in basil tomatoes, on a bed of crisp green spinach, served with blackberries & strawberries and hot black tea with honey. I took this photo before sitting down, and I'm pleased with how it turned out. I find that natural light works best with the food I've photographed so far, as does keeping the shapes relatively simple.

RSOC Banner

Working on creating promos; this is my first attempt at making a small banner for a website!

Dark Holiday

Dark Holiday, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

Working on more HDR images; I really liked this composition and tried to bring out the dark and haunting qualities of the sky and water to enhance the Halloween mood, as it were. I will be reprocessing this image with CS5 soon so I can compare editing programs.

Thanks for viewing!

Wanderlust

Wanderlust, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This image is a work in progress. I've been trying to get a handle on CS5 and see what sort of things I can do---here I've managed to swap out the sky and add some whimsy, atop basic "darkroom" adjustments and color correction. More to do, I'll post the final product soon!

Looking Glass

Looking Glass, originally uploaded by chelseabromley.

This HDR image was processed using Photoshop CS5 from five different exposures. Compared to my previous HDR image, Barton Burns Bright, this image utilizes HDR capabilities to extend the tonal range and include shadow and highlight detail typically lost in a single exposure. I tried to keep this image realistic by comparison (to Barton Burns Bright) and bring out the detail in the surface reflection.