on lightroom, flickr groups and photobombs

Late last year, I admitted that I was "somewhat pathetic in a geek's world," since I processed all my photos with an ancient version of Photoshop Elements (dude, it worked, why spend more money?). Well, it turns out the gods were smiling on me: last week, the kind folks at Adobe offered to let me take Adobe Lightroom 3 out for a spin. Since my friend Justin Hackworth almost grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me violently this past January when he discovered that I was still using Photoshop Elements ("Woman, I don't mean to tell you what to do, but you really, really need to start using Lightroom!"), I quickly took Adobe up on the offer.

My copy of the software arrived this weekend, so I decided to pull out some photographs from my archives to play with. I was sort of shocked by how nervous I was about this -- I mean, I know Elements (my old, ancient copy of Elements, that is) like the back of my hand, so trying a new product out and leaving all my old tricks behind is a bit frightening.

The photos in the post were all processed with Lightroom 3. I have a TON to learn still, but I'm certainly intrigued with how the software handles it, and I have a feeling that with more practice, I'm going to become well impressed. Once I feel more comfortable with it, I'll certainly write more.

Speaking of photography, I've always been fascinated by self-portrait photography: I think, when you take self-portraits on a semi-regular basis, you start to see yourself through an objective eye, rather than a subjective, self-critical eye. You start to notice not just the physical characteristics that make you unique, but your emotions and feelings that manifest themselves in your expressions or your mannerisms.

In that vein, I wanted to let you know that I started a Flickr pool called, predictably, The Beauty of Different -- a place where you can share self portraits and declare your Different, and hopefully, in the process, empower yourself to see how awesome you truly are. If you're so inclined, I hope you'll consider joining, and I'll be featuring some of my favourites on the new book blog.