This was a little building in Denton, TX that I thought had a interesting quality.

Music and Science Building at Texas Women's University.

Images of the Watts Towers Shoot I did today.

This weekend I did another photo shoot for LA RAWWater Magazine. The theme for this photo shoot was past summers/nostalgia. So I wanted to give everything a yesteryear feel. It was a fun shoot, and i had a good time working with the models, Morgan and Olivia.

photo courtesy of liam-stock

Used my day off to work on some surreal images. This one in particular is a re-edit. I'll post the other one later to compare.

Outtake from the Hell Hath No Fury Concert. The lighting in this image is what I'm drawn to the most.

Candid of a experimental blogger who shoots infrared with a digital camera, which is pretty awesome. This was taken at the Arte En Junio Event, so I didn't get a chance to get his name.

All Images © 2011 L.Tyson

The Beauty Lounge
Presents

“Arte en Junio”

Selected works of Art Photography by: Anthony Castro


Curated By:

Joseph Rene


Musical performance by Gerardo Morales


Artist Reception

Saturday, June 18th 2011

6pm – 10pm

39 North Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena CA


The Beauty Lounge recognizes that the Arts are essential for the cultural, educational, social and economic development of California. Recent State budget cuts have made it difficult for community artist to display work. The Beauty Lounge wants to be the first to encourage commercial businesses to integrate itself with local artist for the benefit of business and art.


thesaltypoet.blogspot.com
tbl-thebeautylounge.com

Another pic from my explorations in Los Angeles.

I accompanied my friend Anthony to a meeting last week, and afterwords we found all these cool locations to shoot, some of them scarier than others, but nothing I couldn't handle. It was just fun to explore and to take pictures; something we hadn't done together in a while.

photo courtesy of telegram @ stockxchange

My attempt at making a tilt-shift image using Photoshop, since the real lenses are out of my budget range, lol . I also really love images of London, and is one of the places I really look forward to visiting.

This was my first year attending the Long beach Pride Festival. It was good to be a supporter for LGBT rights. There were also some christian activists there; which I didn't quite get. I guess everyone needs a hobby. One guy proceeded to yell at me about my so called "sin" I proceeded to explain that I am not a lesbian; but I support equality for everyone. So I wanted to post a image promoting the positive and not the negativity of hatred and judgmental attitudes.

©2011 Kevin Llewellyn

Wonderland Gallery is a brand new venture by famed tattoo artist Kat Von D. Founded in 2010, Wonderland seeks to bring the art of outsiders, romantics and rebels to its West Hollywood locale. By mixing generations, time periods, fashion, and the rock world, we endeavor to create a new experience for the viewer. It is art you’ve never seen before that nevertheless has a familiar feeling to it. -Wonderland LA's Mission Statement.

Their current exhibition is "The Unsaid" featuring artist Kevin Llewellyn, you can find artist bio and gallery info here.

I love anything dark, mysterious, and from an outsiders perspective, so I'm planning on visiting Wonderland LA soon.

A portrait I took of Anthony back in 2009. I still like it.

This image is from a series I did in 2009 when I was studying experimental photography. The series was presented as an installation. The inst won 2nd place Alternative Proceses in 2010 LBCC Photofest. It's one of my favorite to date. It needed a shining moment on the blog.

Late last week I went to Revolver Magazine's kickoff concert for the Hell Hath No Fury Tour. There were 5 amazing bands that played, including In This Moment, and my new favorite band, Straight Line Stitch. All of the band are fronted by women, which is very inspiring. I went with one of my best friends, and we needed that jolt of electricity you get from being at a hard rock/heavy metal show. It just reminded me why I love that type of music. Naturally, I had to take some photos.

It's Easter, and tonight I was asked to retouch some images by a fellow photographer, Rachel Wright. I love pin up photography, so I was happy to do it. This is my favorite image I edited.

I recently did my very first album cover art; it was designed for an up and coming artist, Flash. it was inspired by Frank Miller's The Spirit. I really like the idea of incorporating text into just about any image. Also it allowed me to attempt to use Illustrator, which is another beast all together.

Portrait of a artist from Marina Del Rey, 2011

I recently got a holga lens for my Canon 7D. The lens is plastic just like the holga lens, its just modified to fit on a digital camera. People keep asking me why I would buy a expensive camera just to put a 20 dollar lens on it. To them I say because I can.

I am still in a tutorial mode from doing the workshop yesterday, So I will give a breakdown of how I created my surreal self portrait. I am not going to go into detail on how I edited the images in Photoshop, but more so on how I took each image for the composite.


The first thing I did was photograph the broken mannequin head. I originally had another type of table for the surface, but I'm glad I chose the wooden surface. It adds texture and like the mannequin and me-- it's not perfect.

The next step that I took was to photograph myself for the face of the mannequin. I had my assistant for that day help me with this step. The metal bar in the lower right of the image was a marker to help me know where to align my body so my face would match up with the mannequin head.I realized I had to take a second picture of myself to get my lips and the mannequins to match correctly. Since the first image was shot at a different angle, I couldn't use the lips from that portrait because the mannequins lips are laying against the table.

So I had to align my face at the same angle as the table. The bar to the right was my guide to where I should be so the lips would line up.

From there I took these three images and composted them to get the final image. Which I will repost down here to avoid scrolling all the way back up.

Photo © LaToya Tyson 2011

Today I did a workshop for Photofest @ LBCC and I featured a couple of videos explaining how layers work, and how actions work, and a demo of the high pass retouching method. So here are the links.

Creating Actions


How adjustment Layers/Layer Masks work


Digital Workshop PDF

Workshop Handout

PhotoFest
Schedule for Saturday, April 9
09:00 AM

Getting Started with Digital Retouching LaToya Tyson, photographer

Ms. Tyson will discuss advanced digital post-processing techniques for retouching portrait, fashion and beauty photography. Techniques will feature Photoshop CS5 software and are designed for photographers with a basic understanding of Photoshop.

LAC Campus, Art building, room K127 9:00am to Noon

Photo is courtesy of Katanaz stock, retouching by LTyson

I am very fortunate that I am being given the opportunity to share some of the things I have picked up along the way on my journey of becoming a photographer. I really just want to share what I know with others, hopefully it helps them too :) Also this workshop happens to fall on my birthday so I will be another year older; Wiser.... I'll have to let you know in 2012.

LONG BEACH CITY COLLEGE PHOTOFEST 2011

eydie mcconnell, title #1-2010, ink on photocopy paper The Photography Program at Long Beach City College will be hosting their 4th annual PhotoFest@LBCC during the month of April, 2011. The theme for this year's festival is Photography Now, as we look at how photographers are blurring the boundaries between photography's various genres and techniques. The 4th Annual PhotoFest at Long Beach City College is expanding to become a citywide and month-long festival of free photography-related events and celebrations throughout the month of April. Our goal is to celebrate photography and it's impact on our world while providing opportunities for photographers to socialize and share their enthusiasm for photography. The main emphasis of the festival will be the workshops, demonstrations, art walks, exhibitions and seminars held throughout the month of April. These events are free, open to students and the general public as well, and are suitable for all levels of expertise. The festival will feature a Photography contest that is open to all LBCC students. Our opening event will be the April 1st ArtWalk at Bixby Knolls and our 2nd Saturday ArtWalk exhibition and reception will showcase work from the LBCC photography program as well as reveal the photography contest winners. Dates and Locations Festival Seminars will be held at multiple locations throughout Long Beach with a core group of events to be held at the Liberal Arts Campus at Long Beach City College. The campus is located at 4901 E. Carson Street, Long Beach, CA. Full details are on registration pages. All seminars are free but require registration. PACIFIC COAST CAMPUS 1305 East Pacific Coast Highway Long Beach, CA 90806 LIBERAL ARTS CAMPUS 4901 East Carson Street Long Beach, CA 90808 For more information please contact the LBCC Photo Department (562) 938-4001 or photofest@lbcc.edu

This picture of me was taken by one of my very best friends, Anthony Castro. It's his birthday today, so I just wanted to put up a pic that I like of me , but taken by him. He recently had a show, The Lure of the Local, and it was amazing. He is constantly pushing to top himself, and that is a quality that is very inspiring to me. You can check out his work here.

This image is an outtake from a shoot I worked on yesterday with LA RAWwater. I really liked the paring of these two models.

Event Description

"Toxic Footprints" by Denise Favre, Presented by Phantom Gallery Los Angeles/Long Beach.

Denise Favre presents a series of photographs called Toxic Footprints. For over three years she has taken images in and around the South Bay area of Southern California. These images show the massive toxic sites by companies and the damage that is being done to the environment and communities that we live in. Putting them together visually should become clearer to us all, what we need to do.

Artist Reception: Saturday, March 12, 6:00 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.

For more information, please visit our website or call (424) 234-9958 or e-mail us at denise@dfavre.com.

This image is from a test shoot in 2010. People often mistake me for the model, (which is hilarious) I only wish my body was that good looking.

This is one of my favorite portraits, my model is a talented photographer named Joshua Rayburn. His images were always some of my favorites in studio lighting class.

I recently was featured in a local magazine LA RAWWater, as an artist, and also a contributing photographer. The founder of the magazine is a friend, who commissioned me to photograph him. The lighting of this photo is what I like the most.